Having a Personal Mission Statement is not about being better than
anyone else; it's about being better, slowly, day by day, inch by inch,
than I once was. It's my power of intention. It's my inspiration. That
is, it's my energy source that grabs me and carries me along wherever and
whenever it wishes without consulting me. It's my motivation. That is,
it's my driving force to go out there and do whatever it takes. It's my
connection with my unique potential--whatever that may be--to become
significant rather than merely successful.
My life is, and always has been, the result of the choices I've
made. What I feel, think, and do determines what happens to me. I become
what I think about and what I feel about. Every feeling and thought and
action makes me stronger or weaker, better or lesser, appreciate or
depreciate, bountiful or short-changed, mobilized or immobilized. The way
I choose to look at people and things determines the way people and things
look. And, if I change that look, that look will change. Someone, I
think it was William James, said that if you form a picture in your mind
of what you would like to be, and you hold it there long enough, it will
become a reality. That's what a Personal Mission Statement is. It's an
agreement with reality: a perpetual, ever-present, mind and heart
stretching picture of what I would like to be. I've found that it has
worked for me.
You know however a personal mission statement, however it is
framed, is a loud inner voice. It says that you want to do good and want
to feel good. It's the source of kindness, faith, hope, belief, love. I
found that feeling good is a choice, and it is a choice thatcreates a
higher consciousness and sharper awareness of my "oneness" that acts as an
antidote to most anything poinsonous.
Someone asked me what does it takes to get a Personal Mission
Statement. Honestly, my answer was: "Honestly and patiently repack your
bags." Like I said the other day, my personal mission statement didn't
emerge from an annual planning ritual or retreat or a consultant's
workshop. I got to mine by struggling with, reflecting on seven questions
over the past decade: Who am I? What is my life about? What do I stand
for? What am I capable of? How do I get where I want to go? How do I
live the answer? The most critical and toughest question is: What's
holding me back and how do I get it off my back?
My sense of mission and my mission statement grew like a plant and
slowly opened as a bloom. It was and still is an arduous, brutally
honest, sweaty, uncomfortable, inconvenient, time-consuming task to see
clearly what goes on around and in me. It has taken me painful and
reflective years of attempts to find importance, meaning, purpose and
direction. It was a long, messy, drawn out, agonizing, groping,
soul-searching, incremental, "in-venture." Don't be cavalier about it and
don't expect it to appear in the flash of blinding light and emerge from
the white cloud of a hollywood moment. It has taken reams of crumpled
sheets, draft after draft, some frustrated snarling, a bit of cursing here
and there, glass of wine after glass of wine, hour after hour after hour
by the fish pond, mile after mile of walking before the sun rose in the
sky. There wasn't much glamor about it. I looked at my life. I had to
admit it was largely unlived, that it was a cup filled with
disappointment, dissatisfaction, fear, sorrow, sense of failure, weak
self-confidence, low self-esteem, and spiritual pain from which I had been
drinking for so many decades. I worked to discover what moved me, to
identify my true passion, uncover and utilize my gifts, find my
uniqueness, tap my potential, envision my life's work, blaze the path to
power and possibility. I started out looking for what I wanted to do, to
really do, and ended up looking for who I wanted to be, to really be. It
began as a quest for a job description and ended up being a quest for a
purpose, that mighty task, that is greater than merely surviving and more
than merely acquiring. I had to be patient with myself, for I had to
learn that the journey is as important as the outcome. I'll repeat that:
the journey is as important as the outcome.
Slowly, oh so slowly, and painfully, oh so painfully, my life
began to take a dramatic shift. Slowly, I could say, "This is who I am
becoming and this is what I am about." Slowly, I began to shed--or, at
least, come to terms with-- my fears, insecurities, self-doubts. Slowly,
I began to find my place and being.
After talking with many people whom I know have a reflected upon
and articulated Personal Mission Statement, I find they don't have halos
or wear white gowns. Yet, when you talk with them, there's something
about them. They have a distinctiveness, a uniqueness, about them. They
are more than informed and filled with information. They are filled with
what I'll call an intense intention. They don't just have good ideas or
neat methods; they have a calling. They just have just a strong and
almost invincible sense of purpose. And, yet they are "pit bullish" about
it in the sense that you can't tell them that what they intend won't
occur. They do not feel powerless. They do not feel unworthy. They do
not feel inconsequential or insignificant. They feel less the victim.
They have an openness about them. It doesn't matter to them what's
happened before. They don't relate to the concepts of failure or
impossibility because they've made themselves available to success and
possibility. They're living on purpose and aren't either distracted or
deterred by the caution of yellow lights or halting red lights flashed by
the negative and warning thoughts and actions of others. They have a
fearless "let's see what happens" attitude that defies frustration. They
create their way their own way. They see the positive in everything.
Their road is an endless line of green lights. They are extraordinarily
imaginative and creative. They don't have a need to fit in or to do
things the way others expect them to. They're awed by and inquisitive
about and have an affinity for life. They're always expanding their own
horizons. They are a bundle of energy. And yet, they are assuring. They
are more caring. They are more committed. They are more dedicated. They
are more passionate. They are more generous. They smile more. They
laugh more. Their eyes glisten. They have a deeper sense of
responsibility. They have sharper perceptions. They have clearer
understandings. They have a keener awareness. They better know what is
important. They move and learn faster. They are initiators and creators
rather than reactors. They feel connected to and a part of something
larger than themselves. They have a wholeness about them, always
combining their heads and their guts and their souls. They blame less and
assume responsibility more. They are servers. They find fulfillment in
their work which is not work to them. They're avid learners. They are
questers, journeyers, rather than arrivers. They never "get there," never
"get it," and never "find it." They are process people rather than goal
getters. They are antsy, itchy, restless. They pursue wholeness. They
work to be in emotional and spiritual shape as intensely as they do
intellectual and physical shape. It's they're living in a different world
indifferent to reality checks that list why what they do just won't work
out.
Having your sincere "why" at your fingertips is the best insurance
you can have to keep alive. It works! I guarantee it! It helps me
decide and sense how to act, what to say, what to do. It keeps me from
living someone else's mission and prods me to be a dynamic educator who
wants to build a new future. !
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /~\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\ / \ / /~ \ /~\__/\
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-_~ / "If you want to climb mountains, \ /^\
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