my mind. We experience Jerry's life as a high powered Sports
Agent with a multitude of big money clients. He is at a
convention with fellow Sports Agents.
That night, Jerry is jarred awake while dreaming with an
epiphany of sorts as he raises this question in an internal
dialogue. "Who had I become? A shark in a suit? I hated myself.
I hated my place in this world." A man possessed, he composed
at his laptop. "One page became twenty five, I became my
father's son again."
Feverishly, Jerry crafted his Personal Manifesto. "I had lost
the ability to BS," he wrote, "It (the Mission Statement) was the
me I had always wanted to be." He entitled it "The Things We
Think and Do Not Say." At the 24 hour copy store where he
bound and copied his wisdom , a long haired clerk looked into his
eyes and said, surferesque, "That's how you become great, man!"
Jerry put a copy in each mailbox of his peers and blissfully went
to sleep.
Jerry's life was seriously altered by stating in writing what he
believed. He lost his high powered job and began living his
Mission Statement, but it was far from comfortable. Sure, his
mentor had said "The key to this business is personal relationships",
but did his only client have to be so obnoxious, arrogant, loud, adding
insult to injury by continually spouting "Show me the money!"
over and over and over?
Do all Mission statements need to be written at times of such
personal awakening a la Jerry Maguire? Not at all! Mission
statements can be mulled over, rewritten, revised, reduced and
reiterated. They can be one sentence, they can be pages upon
pages upon pages.
Why should you take time from your busy schedule to write a
Mission Statement? The answer is simple. Some people may
choose to travel to an unknown destination without a roadmap,
but most will get to their destination more quickly if a map is
carefully drawn out prior to putting the key into ignition or
putting the foot on the gas.
Carefully crafting your Mission Statement could be
paramount in creating a firm foundation for your Web based business.
Think for a moment. Why did you start your Website? What were you
hoping to do that had not been done before? Simply stated, what
is the purpose? How will you do things differently? Jerry had
multiple reasons for striking out as he did, for being a Sports
Agent in a different way. What are your reasons? Why is your
heart calling out to you ?
Secondly, your Mission Statement can bring focus to your exact
priorities. You may have surprising discoveries when you bring
your actual priorities to light. Your values may be different than
you expected.
Hit a roadblock in creating your Mission Statement? Maybe
you are saying to yourself, I can't specifically state my website's
exact purpose or priorities! Do not be discouraged!
The easiest thing to do at this point is to take a deep breath,
relax and brainstorm for ten or fifteen minutes. Remind yourself
through the process why you started your website in the first
place. List a few reasons you feel passionately about it, relax
and give yourself time for the ideas to start flowing. Do not push,
simply allow.
Brainstorming will unblock your mind. If you had fallen out of
love with your internet business, this will be a great tool to
re-ignite your energy!
Discovering your purpose should then remind you of your
priorities. Your Purpose uncovers the why, while the priorities
uncover which of your smaller tasks comes first. Look at each
task in small, manageable chunks, breaking each one down as far
as you need to and date when each task should be completed.
So, in addition to prioritizing, you need to map out your plan.
What are the first tasks you will chose to complete? What will
your biggest challenges be? Whose counsel will you seek? How
can you be the most proactive as possible as you take your
Mission Statement from written form into living, breathing reality?
Finally, you want your Mission Statement to be an evolving
document that can take your project from here into perpetuity.
Once you have written it, it can be revisited and revised as need
be. Sections can be added and deleted over time. Most
importantly, you want your overall Mission Statement to have
that feeling of "YES! This is My Mission!" It should evoke a
sense of Joy, a sense of the good old fashioned marching orders
we were given by our childhood coaches.
What's stopping you? Get out your favorite writing tool and
start crafting your Mission Statement. Jerry found love and a
new life when he wrote his! What are you going to find? You
will find something near and dear to your heart. Chances are,
you will find You!