Mission Statement

Friends, let me make this clear at the beginning itself. The topic of this post is not originally mine. This is idea from one of the books I am reading these days (as like projects, I generally have many books, movies in open state for many days, till I finish with them). The book is very popular one; it’s called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. It is a bestseller self help book, and full of such superb ideas. 

I felt this particular idea really important and worth sharing with you guys, hence writing this blog.

If you’ve grasped this idea well, I am sure you’ll find it useful everywhere. In success, failure, happiness, sorrows, and entire life.

When you think of success, or you try to decide success of a particular thing, or yourself, how do you decide it? We generally have tendency to decide success, by comparing the thing with the similar ones, when it is about people, or us, we compare between persons. So, if I am trying to measure my success, I may start thinking like, do I score more than Mr. X, do I earn as much as Mr. Y, do I have more possessions than Mr. Z , etc.

But, that is unfair. In mathematics, there is a simple rule, to compare between similar entities. Amount in rupees can be compared to another amount in rupees only, never with an amount in any other currency. When you compare two cars of same model, it is fair directly to draw conclusion on statistics like average, maintenance expenditure, etc. because, both the cars have been manufactured with identical methods. And only performance is sufficient to compare between them. (Here also, the driver’s technique, the kind of road that the car has mostly travelled on plays some significant role)

In case of any two persons, it is not possible to have this kind of comparison. Every individual has a unique background, upbringing conditions, environment, friends circle, thought patterns, etc. So how can it be justified, to decide one’s success with respect to other person(s)? As the conditions of any person are unique, so unique has to be the criterion to decide his success. And who better than the person himself decide this criterion?

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Enter the idea “Mission Statement”. If a person identifies his own unique conditions, his desires, and realistic potential of his dreams, he can combine all this to set a bunch of goals, to decide what he wants to achieve in short term, in long term, and in life. He can combine all these to form a unique “Mission Statement”. 

So whenever later in his life, he will think about success, accomplishments, he’ll only have to go through this mission statement, and decide how much he has achieved, and whether or not he is successful in his mission. If he has served the purpose he himself had set for his life, he is successful, otherwise not. No other definition of success will matter.

Most of my audience, (:-D, which is quite small yet) are youngsters, who are about to start living on their own. It makes sense, if we start thinking about the purpose of our life, at this phase. We are starting the life tour, and this is like deciding our route and destinations.

Imagine you are travelling, and you don’t know where you are heading to. How much of the distance you’ve travelled, how long you’ve been travelling matters, if you don’t know where you need to go? When you know about your destination, then only you can estimate how far you are from it, how much you still need to go.

And most important, you can make use of milestones to decide whether you are in right direction only when you know your destination.

Because reaching to any destinations is not worthy, reaching the right destination can only count.

That’s what I am trying to share with you. Start thinking about it. Please don’t be vague about your direction, route, stops, and final destination. Life is only once, you get to travel through it only once. Do it with a sense.