How to Develop Your Family Mission Statement by Stephen R. Covey

Author:Stephen R. Covey [Covey, Stephen R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Published: 2013-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

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Writing the Mission Statement

To begin with the end in mind, you must develop a personal mission statement. It is the most practical way to start and something that is possible for everyone to do.

You should write out your mission statement. You can do so in the form of a picture or a powerful image or through words. The key thing is for your family to buy into it deeply, and that it be communicate-able, a code language or a code vision or picture that everyone can relate to and understand. Putting the mission statement in writing, whether it be words or a picture, is an extremely powerful psychological process that imprints the brain. Visualizing imprints the brain—so does writing. Writing also brings a crystallization of thought and distills learning and insight into words. Words have a powerful impact in our lives, as well as in our relationships with other people. When you write, you have to think through your thoughts carefully. Lord Bacon put it this way: “Reading maketh a full man, but writing maketh an exact man.”

Now consider the four criteria of a good mission statement. First, the mission statement, whether it be personal or family, should be timeless. That means you write it as if it will never change. In fact, as you mature and grow, you might change it, your family might change it, but you write it as if it will never change. They’re not goals; you know that goals will change. Goals are situation specific. Instead, principles are general rules that deal with the totality of our life. You’re writing a timeless mission statement.

Second, the mission statement should deal with both ends and means—our destination and the way that we get to our destination. In practical language, that would mean the development of a purpose or a vision and then of the value system, hopefully one that is principle based and enables us to accomplish our purpose or fulfill our vision.

Third, the mission statement, because it is based on principles, should deal with all the roles of your life. For a family, it should deal with all of the basic activities or dimensions of family life.

Fourth, a family mission statement should deal with the four dimensions of our nature. We all have four basic aspects, and a family mission statement should in some way deal with all four. What are these four? Well, we have our body, that is, the physical. You could combine it with the economic, because we need money to take care of our body, of our physical well-being and that of our loved ones. The second is our relationships with each other. We could call it the social/emotional aspect. Third is our mind, the mental aspect. And fourth, our spirit or the spiritual aspect.

The body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit. The essence of these dimensions is captured in this phrase “to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.” To live encompasses our physical and

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