“What should I do?”  A relative asked me this question yesterday during a phone call as she tried to figure out what her next step should be.  She is at one of those life crossroads that brings significant unwanted change.  The timer is ticking down, and she has to quickly sort through several of what she considers to be less than desirable employment choices, including one option that requires relocation.  I thought about her question for a moment and then replied with what I normally tell a client when we review a prospective deal or contract.  I asked, “What is your goal?”  There was no immediate response.

After about ten minutes of dancing around my question, it became clear to me that she knew what she didn’t want to do, but she could not zero in on what she really wanted at that moment or in the future.  She did not have a specific short or long term goal in mind.  Unfortunately she’s not alone.  As a matter of fact, she has quite a bit of company.  Many of us are able to tell someone what we don’t want in our lives, but we have difficulty identifying what we do want.

I have been there.  I know what it’s like to not have direction, and I can tell you that it’s hard to get to a destination when you don’t know where you want to go.  If we don’t know where we’re going, we will not know when we’re off course.  This is why businesses have mission statements and short and long term goals.

Several years ago I attended a leadership course for executives.  The facilitator of the course challenged us to write a mission statement for our life.  I had never heard of the personal mission statement before then, but the concept resonated with me.  To give us a jump start, he passed out a large sheet of paper and colored markers, and asked us to draw a shield on the paper with quadrants.  Next he asked us to draw a symbol in each of the quadrants that represented the four things that we most valued.  I’m sure that I would not have won any awards for my depictions, but I was able to convey what I most valued, my family and friends, writing, travel, and practicing law.

My plan was to take that drawing and to translate it into a written mission statement.  But when the course ended and I walked out of the classroom door, so did my good intentions.

Fast forward a few years and the topic of a mission statement revisited me during a ‘catch-up’ conversation with one of my closest friends.  While talking about our plans for the coming year, she shared with me how much of an impact that writing a mission statement had made on her life.  The lightbulb went on for me.  I remembered my drawing.  Yes, I still had it.  I had tucked it away in one of my old journals.  I pulled it out and looked at it.  My values were still the same as when I drew it.  This time I sat down at my computer and banged out a mission statement for my life.  This is what I wrote:

My mission is to help, educate and enliven people by using and sharing my legal and business knowledge and life lessons.

I have tweaked my mission statement a bit since then, but what was important when I first wrote it was that I started to get clear about the direction that I wanted my life to take.  In a sense, a mission statement is a written reason for why we exist.  It helps us to identify what is important to us and is a guideline that we can use to evaluate choices, make decisions, and chart a course for our life.  It helps us answer “What should I do?’ questions.

So what’s your mission statement for your life?  If you don’t have one, it’s time that you get one.  Life is too precious to wander aimlessly through it.