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An Explosion of Purpose and Fulfillment

September 17th, 2007 · 14 Comments

I never send forwards, do memes, tag people, poke people, etc., but this is important and could be interesting if it goes well.

If you don’t already have one, take some time to write a personal mission statement whether you participate overall or not. I’m not talking about a one or two sentence blurb like a corporate mission statement but a meaningful declaration of what you hope to be about in life. Stephen Covey’s mission statement builder might help you, or you can just write it free form.

Avoid putting in fluff and buzzwords unless you’re a corporation–try to create a document that really focuses on actions that you can perform each day and that are meaningful to you.

Got a good first draft? Great. Now copy the text of this post and replace my statement with yours and the blogs I’ve tagged with the blogs you’d like to tag. Include this text and this link to the post at http://www.ihateyourjob.com/an-explosion-of-purpose-and-fulfillment/ and it’ll post a link to your blog in my comments section so we can keep track of who’s done it and read the results.

Those without blogs should participate in the comments section below.

6 Reasons to Participate

  1. It is relevant to your subject matter. Regardless of what you write about, your blog is an extension of you, and your readers care about where you intersect with your subject matter. Rather than a meme about your favorite movie, this is a rare chance for your readers to get to know you while you can still stay on topic!
  2. Allow readers and fellow bloggers to see why you care about your subject as part of your life’s big picture.
  3. Articulating your personal mission is personally rewarding and incredibly beneficial.
  4. Your readers will greatly appreciate you helping them to get started on their statements if they’ve never done it before (most haven’t).
  5. It is a worthy cause. Few things in the blogosphere can match the impact of helping even one person bring greater focus to their lives, let alone thousands.
  6. Get to know the people you decide to tag

My Mission Statement

(In no particular order…) Keep quiet my strengths and others’ flaws. Allow grace in me to be plain. Promise specifically to do what I ought to do; never break a promise. Smile. Wait observantly without complaining. Avoid distress by enjoying pauses and delay. Choose words carefully. Listen completely. Speak seldom. Cease all activity, mental and physical, periodically. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. Avoid excess in amount or frequency for food, entertainment, company, work, or avocation. Prepare for the unexpected in finances and time management by incorporating a buffer in planning. Budget, conserve, and invest money with discipline and good judgment. Fear no man, woman, or circumstance. Choose whatever I do intentionally, with this list in mind. Choose to be active and energetic. Say yes more often. Compromise and acknowledge my imperfection and weakness. Seek rest when tired, help when overwhelmed, counsel when distraught. Pray to God, request from God, praise God, thank God, and study the bible. Love my wife as Christ loved the church. Obey instructions from God without delay. In adversity, reflect on God’s faithfulness. In suffering, reflect on eternal life and the rewards of heaven. Love my neighbors as myself. Grow mature and wise. Grow deep and confident. Successfully provide for my wife and myself by adding value to the world in an honest way. Gather knowledge daily. Invest time in understanding. Chronicle truth. Savor and embrace mystery. Ponder awesome thoughts and mysteries. Defend the helpless. Think as you’d be willing to speak, and speak accordingly. Speak words of kindness. Notice body language and facial expressions. Give affection and thanks. Take time to notice and appreciate the humble people and the extraordinary people.

Join the Explosion

Bush Mackel, Anita Bruzzese, Young Go Getter, Liz at Successful Blog, BlueJar, Water Cooler Wisdom, DayJobNuker, SaturdatedMarket.net, Modite, Freshblogger, Boston Brat, PinkSlip, Riveting Rosie, TheCopywritingMaven, EmployeeEvolution, FRACAT Blog, JoeMidway, Gen Pink, Little Red Suit, JoeDrinker at FourBux

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Tags: Just do it!

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14 responses so far ↓

  • 1 elysa // Sep 17, 2007 at 3:14 pm

    Thanks for tagging me and more importantly for making me do some serious thinking this Monday afternoon. I will have to take some time on this but I will let you know when I have mine.

    PS - I have been meaning to tell you I think the “Computer Monitor Facing the Door?” feature in your sidebar is hilarious. Only the blue one works for me though?

  • 2 Jason // Sep 17, 2007 at 4:15 pm

    Absolutely terrific, Chuck, and I’ll certainly do this. In fact, I just posted about Covey’s 7 Habits yesterday. I love it.

    My mission statement is about a year old now, I really need to do a new one. Thanks for providing some impetus.

  • 3 Alexandra Levit // Sep 17, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    Thanks for encouraging us to think about this today, Chuck!

    MY MISSION STATEMENT

    Continue the process of creating a career that will allow me the freedom and flexibility to give everything I have to this new family I’m building. In that career, understand what I have to offer and market that expertise and value accordingly. Maintain a measured level of ambition. Remember how hard it was for me to work my way up from the bottom, and offer assistance to others where I can.

    Provide to my future children the safe and emotionally supportive environment that passed me by when I was young. Focus on the family, while leaving ample time and energy for my marriage and my friends. Teach my children to appreciate what they have and to give back to society.

    Strive for an optimistic outlook and be more tolerant of myself and others. Take time out to reflect on how quickly life passes us by, and how fortunate I am to have gotten where I’ve gotten with the people who have gone along for the ride.

  • 4 apex // Sep 17, 2007 at 5:22 pm

    Sadly, at work, where I think it is best to view your blog ;) I am getting some security error with Macromedia Flash Player when trying to create my mission statement.

    I’m a great fan of Stephen Covey. I had to read his 7 Habits book for a class. It brought up some very interesting points to me.

  • 5 GnomeyNewt // Sep 18, 2007 at 2:16 am

    Thanks for tagging me. This is really interesting and I love this idea. So I’m going to for sure jump in, but will take quite a bit of a while to think over it.

  • 6 JibberJobber Blog » Blog Archive » Career Management Visualization - an example // Sep 18, 2007 at 9:49 am

    […] Schaffner wrote Do You Have A Mission Statement yesterday. And Chuck from I Hate Your Job wrote An Explosion of Purpose and Fulfillment, where he wrote his own mission statement and was so inspired he started a meme. And Darlene from […]

  • 7 JoeDrinker // Sep 18, 2007 at 10:45 am

    Hmm…sounds hard. I’ll see if I can shake out some coherent thoughts today.

    Thanks for thinking of me.

    Cheers.

  • 8 Chuck Westbrook // Sep 18, 2007 at 11:04 am

    @elysa– Thanks, it fits my site well so I thought I’d put it up there. The blue is the only one I can get to work too. Take your time on the reply, just don’t forget about it!

    @Jason– I noticed your post about Covey right after I posted this. Jason Alba (jibberjobber.com) also posted about mission statements and a few others did as well. That proves that everyone should do one of these.

    @Alexandra– Thank you for sharing. I particularly like the phrase, “Measured level of ambition.” It’s like a nuclear reaction, hard to get going, harder to control once it’s been sparked off…

    @Apex– Do one free-form, there are a couple of good examples out there on the web and even on this site now.

    @GnomeyNewt– Take your time. It’s quite a task I’ve charged you guys with.

    @JoeDrinker– It’s hard, but I enjoyed doing it. It’s worth it for sure. Take some time with it if you want–no pressure.

  • 9 FourBux » Creating a personal mission statement // Sep 18, 2007 at 1:46 pm

    […] was challenged by Chuck over at I Hate Your Job to develop a personal mission statement. To be honest, it’s something I’ve tried in the past, but I can never seem to buckle […]

  • 10 Lodewijkvdb // Sep 19, 2007 at 6:19 am

    Hi Chuck, thanks for the ‘tag’ on my article about detailing my mission statement in guidelines and goals. I guess I’ve done all the work already ;)

    I think this is a great initiative! Thinking about what you want in life is one of the things most people do not do, and it is in my opinion one of the most important activities to consistently experience what you want to experience.

    Personally I like mission statements to be short and easy to remember, your mission statement would too long for me to be workable ;)

    Keep up the positive work!

  • 11 elysa // Sep 20, 2007 at 4:30 pm

    still haven’t forgotten … thinking. This probably shouldn’t be so hard!

  • 12 Chuck Westbrook // Sep 20, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    @elysa– Sure it should be hard. In fact, it’s a never-ending task. I’m just glad you’re taking it seriously. I think you’ll be glad when you’ve got a good draft.

  • 13 Jason // Oct 2, 2007 at 11:29 am

    Hi Chuck,

    Apparently I’m still not tech-savvy enough to get trackbacks to work on non-6Apart based blogs, so I’ll just do it manually. Just to let the kids at home know I participated.

    Also, free links ;)

  • 14 What’s Your Mission In Life? at FreshBlogger // Oct 10, 2007 at 6:55 am

    […] at I Hate Your Job has tagged me for a meme that I find particularly interesting: Personal Mission Statements. Many times these games of blog tag are humorous time-wasters that add little to the serious […]

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