What is your purpose and how do you describe your mission statement? With so many daily distractions, it is essential to define your north star – your guiding light – to focus your attention in the right direction. Setting a goal creates a direction on what is important and how to choose the next step.

Ask any great leader about their purpose, and they will recite their mission statement or their ultimate goal. Everything they do aligns with where they want to go or who they want to become. Do you have a mission statement to guide your decisions?

Create your own Personal Mission Statement

A personal mission statement is personal to you, it’s about who you are, what you believe, where your want to go, and what is important to you. We are all unique, it is your vision, so make your purpose statement part of your own personal brand. This will be your compass as you navigate to your destination.

Here we follow the journey of Dana Williams, a Strengths Coach in Texas, who now helps others create their own personal mission statement.

Defining My Purpose Statement – Dana Williams

Discovering my CliftonStrengths^® over 11 years ago, I realized I needed a roadmap to better understand where all of this was leading. I needed to know how to use my strengths for good.

The first step was to create my own personal mission statement. I had done this for brands as a consultant and as a marketing leader for Southwest Airlines, but now I needed to do it for myself.

The problem was, there was nothing out there to help guide me and I couldn’t find anything available online.

So I went on a journey reading books, listening to podcasts, and attending workshops. At one point I even drew a life map through to the age of 90.  What would my 90th birthday look like? What would I have achieved by that day? And what would my legacy be? I wrote those things down.

Then I wrote down my CliftonStrengths^® and my core values. From there, I devised a framework to help define my purpose. It sounds simple, but it was not easy. After putting myself through the framework I came up with:

There you have it. My purpose statement. 

The Power of a Purpose Statement

In real life, leaders and coaches hire me to work with them individually, as well as with their teams. I love sharing Richard Sterry’s story of how when he attended my live coaching group he was able to create his personal mission statement. This was instrumental in developing his north star as he set out his vision to ‘Strengthen the Strengths Community’. When Gallup approached him to purchase his Cascade product, there was a clear alignment to his mission and values, making the decision obvious.

Turning Your Purpose Statement into Reality

It is one thing to create a personal mission statement, the greater point is to live out that purpose, every day.

I am big on writing things down and tracking habits. The problem was, I couldn’t find the right place to do it. I studied all the daily planning journals out there. There was nothing I could find to help with my strengths. I knew exactly what I needed: a journal to help me reach my personal mission statement based on my strengths and core values.

By using The Strengths Journal every day, I created a focus on my desired outcomes each day based on my unique talents.

Ann, a VP of a healthcare company, hired us to work with her individually as well as with her team as they were going through change after the pandemic.  Ann wanted to grow the engagement scores of the team while managing the transition. One of the things Ann put in place is that every new hire receives 1:1 coaching and personal branding to develop themselves from the inside out. In addition, Ann’s team leaders have been intentionally leading through strengths as part of the ‘Leader as Coach’ training sessions. Ann’s team is now receiving higher engagement marks from the Gallup Q12 Survey.

Adding your Personal Brand? 

A Brand is what people think when they think of you – your reputation. If you are not creating it, someone else is making it up for you. Here is the secret in one sentence: The goal is to know your uniqueness and share it.

Knowing your strengths, your core values and your personal mission will help you create your personal brand. Collecting feedback from those around you and using a structure will help you to shape the sentence defining your personal brand.

As an example, I helped Richard Sterry to define his personal brand. He writes: ‘Richard is a trustworthy contributor to the global strengths movement by equipping coaches with practical resources to make a lasting difference in people’s lives.’

In Summary

Setting out where you are going and who you are, brings clarity and eases decision-making. It helps you to follow your north star keeping you focused in the right direction. Those that follow these guiding principles lead a more purposeful life and fulfil their ambitions.

Take time to create or review your mission statement and share it with others who can then support you.

Image by Jose Antonio Alba from Pixabay

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