“Outstanding people have one thing in common: An absolute sense of mission. ”
–Zig Ziglar
I’m reading a book by Peter Drucker, “Five Most Important Questions.” In the chapter on mission statements, he discusses organizational mission statements thoroughly. While writing this book in 2015, Drucker noticed that not much was written on personal mission statements.
His organization did a large study on the relationship between happiness and meaning with both organizational and personal satisfaction in life. They found that both happiness and meaning are important when creating a personal mission.
In this study, happiness is defined as personal enjoyment of the work itself, not just the results. At the high end of the scale, loving what you do creates happiness.
By meaning, they refer to the value that you give to your work. At the high end of the scale, you deeply believe that the results of what you do matter and are important.
They also found that individuals have different and unique definitions of happiness and meaning. No one can tell you what makes you happy or what is meaningful to you. These answers come from the heart.
Their research also showed that the only way to have high degrees of satisfaction with life and work was to engage in activities that produce happiness and meaning at the same time.
Does what you do make you happy? Do you believe what you do matters?
What is your mission? Here are some steps to create more satisfaction in your life and work:
1. Create a clear personal mission for yourself. Drucker says it should be short, clear and fit on a t-shirt.
2. Look into your heart and do what really matters to you.
3. Make sure the process of achieving your mission is one that you love. Do what makes you happy.
4. Analyze how you spend your time. Spend the majority of your time doing things that simultaneously bring happiness and meaning.
I love my current job as CEO and I love coaching, teaching and training. I believe what I do matters. However, I don’t have a current personal mission statement…yet. Hmmm…I wonder if that is why I can be easily distracted? I don’t have a concise, strong statement that describes my mission and purpose. I believe such a statement would help prevent personal “mission drift” just like our mission statement does at our organization.
Do you have one? If you don’t, what do you think about establishing one? I’m in. I’ll let you know when I’m done…better put a time line on it or it won’t get done. Look for it in next week’s email. Then share yours with me, please.
If you need help fleshing it out, give me a call.
Thinking,
Jan
Jan McDonald
John Maxwell Team
(still CEO of Life Options)
Comments are closed.