A Personal Mission Statement Which Involves Your Subconscious
A personal mission statement is a powerful tool for helping you focus on the things that are important for you.
Is it sometimes hard for you to stick to your plans and focus in the right direction?
It gets even more powerful if you involve your subconscious.
In this article, I will show you how to create your personal mission statement (first part) and later combining it with a powerful intervention which involves your subconscious (second part).
This will make it easier to implement change in your life and follow your passion.
I’m a person with many interests. Almost every day I have new ideas and find new things that fascinate me.
My mind is always curious and I can get easily overwhelmed—for instance, when I start too many different projects!
In his book, Covey describes how a personal mission statement can help you have a clear vision about where to go.
It’s like a lighthouse which always points you in the right direction, and helps you focus on where you need to go.
Source: pixabay.com (PIRO4D)
According to Covey, a personal mission statement focuses on:
what you want to be (character)
what you want to do (contributions & achievements)
the values and principles on which being and doing are based
I’d always heard about the benefits of creating a personal mission statement, but didn’t make the effort to create one for myself until recently.
The practical description of Covey and the highlighting of the benefits convinced me, and I decided to make my own personal mission statement.
Why a Personal Mission Statement Helps You Deal With Change
Mostly it is hard for us to deal with major changes in our lives.
Everything around us gets faster and things are changing quicker than ever.
Normally change makes people insecure.
Our brain likes consistency, routines, and habits.
Change regularly leads to stress.
Especially in these fast times, a personal mission statement can help you to make the right decisions and keep the focus on the things that are important to you, even when there is trouble around you.
Your statement helps you to be like a rock in the surf.
It is more
powerful,
more significant,
more influential
then the baggage of the past.
Here is your concrete manual:
Step-by-Step Guide to Build Your Personal Mission Statement (with Excel Template)
I started the process with an excel sheet.
This was my way to do it.
Because every human is unique a personal mission statement should reflect this uniqueness both in content and in form.
Choose the way which you feel comfortable with.
I sat down and made a list of each of the following aspects of my life:
Core Values
Goals
Roles
Skills
Passions
Limitations
Regrets
Free Excel Template
Here I share my free template with you. You can just download it.
Source: pixabay.com (swissmith)
What are your core values?
Your core values describing the core of your personality.
Which values are important to you?
What would a good friend say about you?
Here is a list of examples of core values:
Honesty
Respect
Compassion
Love
Joy
Autonomy
Creativity
Growth
Happiness
Optimism
Recognition
Contribution
Adventure
Achievement
Gratitude
Courage
Boldness
Ambition
Sensitivity
Teamwork
Wisdom
Harmony
Silliness
Consistency
Directness
What are some of your key goals?
What are the goals you want to achieve in life?
Include short-, middle- and long-term goals.
About what you are secretly dreaming about?
Write them all down in this section.
For example:
Having a healthy and happy family
Having happy children
Building my own company
Doing a World trip
Being a teacher of …
Working as a ….
Being a good friend for …
Being more in the moment
Enjoying small things like …
Making an apprentice in …
What roles do you play in life?
To have an overview in which different roles you are acting in your life, list them in this section.
Different roles mean different requirements for you.
For me, it was helpful to be more aware in which different roles I’m active.
Examples:
Employee
Entrepreneur
Manager
Friend
College
Daughter / Son
Mother / Father
Daughter / Son
Mother / Father
Spouse / Partner in a Relationship
Member of a Sports team
Member of a club
Speaker
Part of a Neighborhood
Define Strong Life Skills
In this section, you can list all your skills.
Think about different areas of your life.
You can use your different roles from above to get different perspectives to find all your skills.
What are your skills in work life, family life, as a friend, etc
For example:
Art
Mathematics
Biology
Accounting
Computer Languages
Graphic Design
Medicine
Planning / Event Planning
SEO / SEM Marketing
Finances
Networking
Writing
Dancing
Playing Basketball
Dancing
List Your Passions
What are you really passionate about?
Think out of the box to find all your passions.
Think about all your different aspects of life.
Source: pixabay.com (Pexels)
For example:
Work
Family
Hobbies
Sports
Culture
Volunteering
List Personal Limitations
In this section, you can list your personal limitations.
What are the factors you run short on?
Time is often used in this section.
Also, physical disabilities are limitations.
What are your regrets?
In this section list your regrets in life.
If you look back, what do you regret until now?
This can be motivation and leverage to change it in the future.
Create Statements
After collecting all these aspects of your life and being, try to formulate a statement out of it.
The Statement can contain multiple sentences.
Try to feel, which sentences are touching you. Think about the WHY of your life.
Why are you here?
Why are you doing what you are doing?
What are your goals?
As whom you want to be remembered? Even after you died…
I hope the following beginnings and endings of sentences help you to find a fitting personal mission statement for you.
My most important future contribution to others will be…
I am at my best when…
I will strive to incorporate the following attributes into my life…
I want to be a person who is…
…gives me deep, fulfilling joy.
I will stop procrastinating and start working on…
The first priority in my life is …, second …
My life’s journey and purpose are…
I will constantly renew myself by focusing on…
I will find opportunities to use my natural talents and gifts such as…
I will enjoy my work by finding…
Writing your personal mission statement isn’t a process you are doing in one hour neither in one day.
Take your time to find the right words.
Put it away for some time and then read it again with some distance.
It took me more than two weeks after I was satisfied with my result.
And even then, I added another small sentence later.
A Personal Mission Statement Will Change as Your Life Is Changing
While you grow older, different aspects of your life will change.
So, will change your statement.
I recommend to review your statement every year and see if you want to add or subtract some parts.
You could also think about getting a professional opinion from a life coach or career coach.
Want to know the best part?
Coaching Online Advice
Boost the Impact by Including Your Subconscious
Similar interventions are used in many scientifically proven, psychological methods and therapies (for example, the Zurich resource model).
The subconscious part of our brain doesn’t understand words or written text.
This is why new years resolutions mostly don’t work.
If you make a resolution with your conscious part of your brain and you write it down, it is unlikely that your subconscious brain will follow.
Do you remember my iceberg example out of my introduction video?
The key to our stronger, subconscious part of our brains are:
pictures,
sounds,
smells,
touches and
tastes.
Over our sensors (eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue) we receive different signals and consequently, in our brain different emotions are triggered.
To boost the impact of my personal mission statement I chose a picture (eye sensor) which triggers positive emotions in me.
You can search in free online picture library’s until you find a picture you have a positive association with and that leads to a reaction in your body.
The emotional reaction can occur in your stomach, chest, head, etc.
You will feel if there is something.
There are many psychological interventions which are working with pictures.
Combine Your Picture and Your Personal Mission Statement
The final step is to combine your picture and your personal mission statement.
You can use a photo editing software or Microsoft Word to put the text of your statement on the picture.
Then place the picture at a place where you can see it daily.
I put it on my computer desktop, for example.
With your subconscious invited and involved you will get a lot more leverage to act upon your personal mission statement.
If Fears Arise
I personally felt some fears arising while thinking about following my personal mission statement consequently.
If this happens on your side too, try the following steps.
Ask yourself,
which parts in you have this fear?
Where does this fear come from?
Turn towards this inner side of you and protect and comfort it with your adult side. Repeat this until your fears are getting less.
Results
I’m still surprised how well this combination of personal mission statement and picture works for me.
I look daily on my computer and I get really motivated and focused which task at hand is important.
My statement helps me to get more important things done and I avoid time eating and unproductive activities.
I hope with my article I can motivate you too, to try this effective method and as a result to live a life with more purpose and meaning.
My personal result looks like this.
Source: pixabay.com (tuturgires)
I hope I can inspire you through sharing it with you.
Another very helpful tool in combination with my personal mission statement is my daily journaling.
But this is a theme for another blog post. 😉
Important Note
Every article I write is intended to help you with:
questioning and reflecting on your own view of the world
understanding why you are looking at the world like you do
finding different perspectives to view situations from different angles, and
going on a meta-level and reflecting on the consequences of your view
However, with every sentence of my writing, I create another view of how things “really are.”
Even if I do this with the best intentions, please critically examine if this construction of the reality is helpful for you as an individual person in your own special situation.
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About The Author
Bijan Kholghi is a certified life coach with the Milton Erickson Institute Heidelberg (Germany). He helps clients and couples reach breakthroughs in their lives by changing subconscious patterns. His solution-oriented approach is based on Systemic- and Hypnotherapy.
