Day 125: Core Values & Mission Statements
In any successful business or organization, they incorporate core values (their fundamental beliefs) and a mission statement (their summary of what they desire to accomplish). I believe it is incredibly important for everyone to decided on their core values and mission statement, whether you are a business or not.
For as long as I can remember my family has done family meetings. We get together once a month and hold a meeting where we discuss all kinds of things from events on the calender's to things we need to accomplish or focus on. In some of the earliest family meetings, we created a list of our core values as a family and a mission statement.
As unusual as this process is for most families, I thank my parents for incorporating such elements into my life. It has made me realize how important it is to define the things you value most and create a mission statement for yourself. Even if you're not a business.
Everyone needs to know where they're going in life and what they value most. When we have our values straight and our mission firmly rooted in our mind, our path of life will be just a bit clearer. So I would encourage you to pick 4-6 core values for yourself and then use those values to write a mission statement.
Here is is list of different core values, read through each one and write down all of them that stand out to you:
Abundance
Acceptance
Accountability
Achievement
Advancement
Adventure
Advocacy
Ambition
Appreciation
Attractiveness
Autonomy
Balance
Being the Best
Benevolence
Boldness
Brilliance
Calmness
Caring
Challenge
Charity
Cheerfulness
Cleverness
Community
Commitment
Compassion
Cooperation
Collaboration
Consistency
Contribution
Creativity
Credibility
Curiosity
Daring
Decisiveness
Dedication
Dependability
Diversity
Empathy
Encouragement
Enthusiasm
Ethics
Excellence
Expressiveness
Fairness
Family
Friendships
Flexibility
Freedom
Fun
Generosity
Grace
Growth
Flexibility
Happiness
Health
Honesty
Humility
Humor
Inclusiveness
Independence
Individuality
Innovation
Inspiration
Intelligence
Intuition
Joy
Kindness
Knowledge
Leadership
Learning
Love
Loyalty
Making a Difference
Mindfulness
Motivation
Optimism
Open-Mindedness
Originality
Passion
Performance
Personal Development
Proactive
Professionalism
Quality
Recognition
Risk Taking
Safety
Security
Service
Spirituality
Stability
Peace
Perfection
Playfulness
Popularity
Power
Preparedness
Professionalism
Punctuality
Recognition
Relationships
Reliability
Resilience
Resourcefulness
Responsibility
Responsiveness
Security
Self-Control
Selflessness
Simplicity
Stability
Success
Teamwork
Thankfulness
Thoughtfulness
Traditionalism
Trustworthiness
Understanding
Uniqueness
Usefulness
Versatility
Vision
Warmth
Wealth
Well-Being
Wisdom
Zeal
Obviously there might be other things not on the list that you value, so be sure to put down whatever comes to mind. The words that I originally wrote down were: adventure, connection, intentional, motivated, dedicated, passionate, creative, inspiration, authenticity, vulnerability, discomfort, curiosity, growth, prayer, confidence, meaningful, strength, and change.
Once you have written down the words that really caught your attention, read through them again and star the ones you feel are slightly more important than the others. I starred nine of the eight words I wrote down first. Write down the starred ones in another list and repeat the process until you have four to six words that really stand out above the rest. Note that some words might really mean the same thing such as growth and change. If that's the case try and decide which words really represents the underlying theme the best.
The six words I ended up with are: adventure, connection, authenticity, discomfort, growth, prayer.
Once you have your core values written down, write out full sentences that embody what you want to do with those values. Take adventure for example. It can mean many different things for everyone so write down exactly what it means to you. Especially when it comes to how they relate to the other words.
By taking my six words and focusing on what they mean to me, I came up with this mission statement:
I will seek adventure through a life lived in facing discomfort. Above all I will create meaningful connection in everything I do, while striving to embrace authenticity. Growth will be my main pursuit and no matter what I will live a life of faithful prayer.
Note how often one words leads into the other: adventure can be found by embracing discomfort, connections can only happen if we are authentic, etc. Focus on the connections between your words and what they mean to you. Feel free to rewrite the statement a few times until it feels right and try different values if you find one that just doesn't really work.
With your core values and mission statement in hand, you are prepared to face any challenge life throws at you. When you understand what is important to you, truly important above all else, you will begin to understand how to strive after those things in everything you do.
Until Next Time,
Lillian Merritt
