Notes jotted down on scraps of paper while in the car waiting to pick up the kids. Lists in notebooks strewn throughout the house. I gather them together and compile them into one sheet of resolutions for a new year.
This year, this year, feels different. I awoke early one in the morning last Saturday to enjoy the quiet that comes from tired kids sleeping in. I felt like writing. No. I needed to write. I opened an blank sheet on the laptop completely unaware of what would come next. And the words just trickled onto the keyboard and up to the screen. I realized I was writing a mission statement for myself and my goals and focus over the next year. I'd never done that before and I found myself wondering why. It makes such sense.
The house was still when I completed my writing. I cuddled up with my pup and waited for my husband to return from the early-morning coffee run. My head was clear. And after a chaotic, hectic year, that's exactly what I needed.
I told my husband that I wrote a mission statement and he asked to read it. As a writer, it's sometimes difficult to allow others to read something so deeply personal. (It's a strange thing, since my words appear on the printed (or digital) page so often. I even have trouble sharing fictional stores, for that matter, because you wonder if the reader will understand that it's fiction and not about you. I digress.) I handed the laptop over to him because you know what? It only helps me if my husband knows exactly what I'm about to embark upon over the next year.
"It's not a mission statement. It's a manifesto," he said with an approving smile.
And we both started joking about Jerry McGuire.
Mission statement, manifesto, whatever. Writing out my mission for 2010 with the seriousness of writing out a business plan has given me clarity and focus. Do you know how much I dig that? Because 2009? Zoinks. It was hectic.
If you want to try your hand at a personal mission statement, maybe this will help. (I'm not sharing my entire manifesto because it's solo para mi, but I'll share some pieces of it.)
- Start with a paragraph about 2009--don't recap the good times. Focus on what caused you the most stress. The "thing" that needs to change. And why.
- Pick a word or two that will help give you zoom focus for the next 365 days. I've done this since some friends of mine shared their "word of the year" tradition with us many moons back. This year, my words are "simply" and "believe." Not to simplify, but to do things simply. There's a difference. Simplify connotes making things easy. "Simply," to me, means purity. No complication. (I am the queen of taking simple and making it complicated.) My second word, believe, is just that. To believe in my goals. To know that I can do the things I need to do this year. (Other words in past years have been expansion, experience, adventure, focus.)
- Write a few sentences about why you chose that word or words.
- Get serious. Write down 3-5 areas where you will apply that word in your life and how you can make those changes. A few examples from me? Cooking, parenting, running, my new venture.
- Be kind to yourself. Be realistic. And start small. You can always add more later.
- Step away from your mission statement/manifesto. Take a look later in the day, revise, and then print it out. Read it. Often. And be proud of yourself every single time you take a small step toward your goals.
Okay, enough rah rah from me. Get inspired by reading mission statements, goals and deresolutions from these folks:
1x1 year: 2010 mission statement
Ali Edwards: My one little word: Story
