Understanding what is important in your life is one of the fundamental parts of buliding your personal brand. Once you do, you will find it a lot easier to make decisions, set goals and create your personal brand strategy. One of the tools that I use when defining what is important to me is my personal mission statement.
The personal mission statement is not something you create once and then forget about. Rather, it is a doctrine you can consult, review, and revise on a continuous basis. I review mine every 3-6 months, or whenever I feel the need to do it. My process is based on ideas from organizational management literature, books about creating mission statements in businesses. I then apply these ideas to the situation of an individual within the context of personal branding theories.
As an individual I have values and virtues, just as organizations do. The difference is that while a conflict of values is not uncommon in a large, complex corporation, they seldom occur within an individual. This does not mean that there are no conflicts in personal values, but rather that the conflicts are most often in the form of prioritizing between values which are generally compatible. The problem is that this is a dynamic process, and that one value cannot always be prioritized in front of the other. For example, professional ambition cannot necessarily be placed ahead of love for one’s family.
In my personal mission statment I have grouped my core values and virtues in five areas:
- Integrity
- Success
- Freedom
- Health
- Relations
Your core values are yours and not mine, therefore your groups most likely will differ. This is a good thing, because it is a sign of differentiation. The important thing when defining your values and virtues and then crafting your personal mission statement is to make sure that the values are yours and not something that has been imposed upon you by your friends, your parents, society or any other external party. Look deep into yourself and explore what really motivates you and what really matters to you. Only then can you define what success is for you.
Once I have defined my mission, it is time to start thinking about what specific goals and milestones I will be using to fulfill the mission. Not everything I do can be in line with the mission, as conflicts will naturally arise, but the mission statement will guide me in the quest for happiness and fulfillment of what I value most.
Next week I will write more about goal setting for personal success.
Ola Rynge is an entrepreneur with a passion for the personal development side of personal branding (covered in this blog) as well as the application of personal branding and social media for entrepreneurs and small businesses (covered in The Rynge Blog).
His company, The Rynge Group specializes in market oriented small business and idea development, including social media strategies and implementations.
