My Personal Mission Statement

I have mentioned that originally I had planned on us all writing mission statements as part of this class. Now I am thinking it is best to just focus on the blog and your final research paper. Should you, however, be interested in writing a mission statement as one of your blog entries, it is a great exercise for thinking about your life and what you want from it.

Your mission statement can be very short (50 words or less) or longer (a couple hundred words). It can be written as a list such as this one of mine:

At the end of every day I wish to feel that I have been ...

productive

physically active

mentally challenged

important to those I care about

helpful to my family, friends, students, and colleagues

kind, caring, considerate, and honest, with myself and with others.

Someday I hope to have ...

raised two secure, happy, successful children

inspired hundreds of students through my teaching

ridden my mountain bike from Llasa, Tibet to Kathmandu. Nepal.

When I die I wish to be remembered as a good ...

father, husband, son, friend, teacher, colleague, and person.

Or your mission statement can be written more like a paragraph. This is one I did for a course in what is called Personal Leadership:


I, Ken Enochs, living at my highest and best,
am empathic, engaged, positive, and trustworthy.
In my various roles—as a father, son, husband,
friend, teacher, and colleague—a primary purpose
in my life is in helping others achieve their potential.
But, of course, I must also find the space to pursue
personal interests that feed and support my own
development so that I might be a stronger, more
whole, and more satisfied human being, for myself
and for others.


Should you be interested in this task, it might help to look around a bit on the web and find some additional examples. Again, this is purely optional, but it could be a great way of fulfilling one of your blog posts.