Create a mission for life
A simple 5 step process for gaining clarity forever and ever
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A solid “life mission” or “personal mission statement” can provide a lot of clarity, despite its potential for sounding like a business school professor’s idea of personal growth. Personally, I find it comes in handy for major life decisions and for answering that major existential question: “am I on the right path”.
So this post goes out to all the people with anxiety/uncertainty about major life decisions and about whether or not they’re on the right path. If those issues don’t speak to you, dog ear this one for when the tyranny of free will inevitably crushes your psyche.
There’s a million different ways to create “a mission.” I’m going to describe the process that’s worked for me. Here we go:
Step 1: What I want most in life for myself?
What irrational feeling am I chasing the most? What am I insecure about? Focus on feelings more than achievements here, and write it down. Often this is the result of some childhood mommy and daddy issues - what psychologists call a “core wound”. Another way to find this to ask yourself: “What question do I ask myself the most?” - usually it’s the question in the back of your head lowkey stressing you out most days. I detail the process for how to find one’s Primary Question here.
Examples of answers to “what do I want most in life for myself” include:
To be funny: Comedic actor Gene Wilder had a sick mom and was told by a doctor when he was 8: “try and make her laugh.” So Gene wanted to make people laugh and got into comedy.
To be significant: Biographer Walter Isaacson has talked about how Elon Musk and Steve Jobs had serious daddy issues. Musk suffered from verbal abuse from his father while Jobs was given up for adoption shortly after birth. Both have wanted drama/attention in a bad way and desired to achieve ““greatness”.
Other examples I’ve heard from friends are “I want to be free,” “I want people to like me,” “I want to be right,” “I want to be safe.” Mine is “I want you to be happy”.
Step 2: Go one step deeper.
Do the following:
Think about the answer to Step 1
Close your eyes
Imagine yourself having exactly what you want from Step 1. Imagine having it fully and completely. Take a few deep breaths as you simply feel what it’s like to have all that.
Now that you have what you want, fully and completely, what feeling does that give you?
Open your eyes once the feeling comes to you.
This is meant to capture the feeling you’re chasing most. It’s the feeling behind the desire. Often it takes a few iterations of Step 2 to get there. You’ll know you have that feeling when it checks these boxes:
You want this feeling for yourself
You can connect wanting this feeling to childhood memories
This feeling does not require others to feel or do anything. For example it’s “I feel love” as opposed to “feeling loved by others”. Mine is “I feel in control.”
Step 3: How I give that feeling to other people?
Think about what actions can I do to in service of giving that feeling to other people and write them down. These are actions that can be performed daily/weekly. They are not major life achievements. Pick 1 to 3 actions and the more specific the better. Examples of this include:
I tell stories
I bring people together
I cook something new
Mine is “I practice active listening” and “I do the damn thing.”
You know you have it when the actions make you happy/proud even though they might sound silly or trivial to someone else. And if it sounds a little vague to you (e.g. “I care for others,” “I help others realize their potential”) make it more specific. I realize “I do the damn thing” sounds a bit vague as well but it means something specific in my head - it’s doing that 1 extra task I don’t want to do, especially at the end of a day.
Step 4: Put it all together.
Fill in the blanks for the following template:
My mission is to give [enter feeling from Step 2] to myself and others by [actions from Step 3].
So mine reads: My mission is to give control to myself and others by practicing active listening and doing the damn thing.
Then make it your own. The template is a guide not a rule. I’ve heard some people replace “My mission is…” with “I am the one who…” which I love as it sounds metal as hell.
The core lesson here is that we are best able to give what we want for ourselves the most. Another way to put this is that our greatest wound is the source of our greatest gift. A good life mission is simply taking whatever major insecurity we picked up from childhood and channeling that into being the most useful version of ourselves.
Step 5: Write it in big letters where you see it everyday
Mine is on my bedroom wall. Desks and office walls also work. It was weird for a while when friends would pop in my room and see this giant poster with my mission written out. But not that weird. Worst comes to worst my friends actually know what I want to do with my life and want to talk about it.
And that’s it. If you dug this post, smash the ❤️ button below so Substack recommends my stuff. Thank you!