Do you believe that you have a purpose in life? Do you have a mission?
Have you put that mission into a written statement?
I’ve been searching for my purpose, for my mission in life, for years. It even became an OCD issue for me.
I wrote countless “mission statements,” then decided that they were wrong. Then I wrote some more. And my OCD drove me to doubt them.
I prayed about it, talked with others about it, read books about it.
Why was this so important to me?
I know that you don’t have to identify your mission to live a good, meaningful, giving life. I know you don’t have to have a mission statement to find your place in the world.
But being who I am, I wanted to articulate the ways that I could make a positive difference. I needed a guide. I needed to be able to state, if only to myself, how I would find meaning in my experiences.
Recently, I sat down and asked myself the very basic questions: What is it that I really want to do in life? What is it that I’ve always wanted to do?
And the mission and vision below came out of that.
My mission is to live a life of connection.
My vision—what I want my life to be about—is to communicate our interconnectedness and help others feel less alone through encouragement, education and storytelling.
Those statements reflect the kind of person I want to be, the way I want to treat people and all creatures, what I want my writing to do, how I want to act day to day. When I die, I want to be able to say, That is what I did.
What is your mission?
