I’d never thought about a personal mission statement until recently. I began considering it after I read a post  about library mission statements. The author discusses why mission statements are important for strategic planning and shows examples from some different libraries across the country. It made me think that it may be beneficial to have a concise statement to help guide my decisions.
I have heard R. David Lankes discuss a mission statement for Librarians before. The statement he has come up with is very good.
The Mission of Librarians is to Improve Society through Facilitating Knowledge Creation in their Communities.
It is a very motivational statement no? I like it professionally but it doesn’t quite get to what I need on a personal level.
This is where I try to decide wether this statement is going to be strictly professional or more comprehensive. I guess I could have two. One for work and one for home. But is that fair? My work and home life are pretty tightly bound together. The goals with one should complement the other. Right? You can’t completely separate the two. At least I can’t. I think a personal mission has to incorporate all aspects of your life in order to work.
So, now I have to think about my priorities. That’s pretty easy.
- Family
- Work
- Everything else
Pretty general huh? Well that’s ok. I don’t want to bore you with a detailed list of priorities. This post is already getting long. So here goes:
To raise my children to be happy, healthy, productive members of society. To do this I need to set a positive example. I will be a loving husband, faithful son and loyal friend. I will demonstrate the value of work by taking pride in what I do and doing my best always. When I am home, my children will receive my complete attention because they won’t grow up as happy, healthy and productive as they can be without it.
So there it is. I’m not sure if it’s a pure “Mission Statement” but I think it will work. It’s short enough for me to remember and that can’t be bad. It definitely covers the things I find important. I like it. Now I just need to keep it in mind. I think that will be the hard part.
Tagged: family, Library, life
