After watching Simon Sinek on TED.com (How great leaders inspire action) I have been thinking about the term Mission Statement. At first, when I thought about the term, it reminded me what many companies in corporate America write on their walls but often it represents what they are NOT about or what their history used to be like rather than what they are aiming to be. As someone who experienced that side of the industry, I was turned off just by thinking about it.

The more I thought about it though, I started to see that there might be a point here. There are so many ways that we can go and maybe even lose our self while trying to reach what we decided is “success”. If we know what our mission is, we can always go back to it and remind ourselves why we’re doing what we’re doing. So, yes. The mission needs to be stated and maybe even re-stated as time goes by and situations change.

In addition, I think that it is ok to have more than one mission statement because it is hard to have one statement that truly reflects all the different aspects of your life. You could have a family-oriented statement, a business related one, a spiritual one and so on. Here though, I will focus on the professional one.

Generally speaking, there are three components that I believe make a good mission statement: Who, What and Why.

Who – You should start by saying who you are. How you define yourself.
What – Say what is that you do.
Why- This one is probably the most important part – why are you doing what you’re doing.

So, take it for a spin! As for me, I my professional mission statement is:

I am front-end developer who writes innovative  code for a remarkable  user experience.

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action