Mission Impossible

Last Friday at our management training we talked about mission statements. Our facilitator, who by the way is an amazing woman who has like 5 degrees under her belt and juggles motherhood AND a career that takes her around the world, asked us to write our own mission statement.

Now, it's lovely and all to write your own personal mission statement in 5 minutes and share it with a classroom of your colleagues. It is not so great when suddenly, I'm hit with a stark realisation *bing!!* that after having millions of goals and must-dos written down as a child, I've only very vague impressions of what my personal purpose is.

My personal mission statement that I wrote ... "To take chances and be the best I can be" - short and horribly cliché *shyness* Well, that was all I could come up with in 5 minutes! Coupled with the fact that I was sweating over the humiliation I was going to have to face reading this out in front of everyone. I survived the ordeal and then I got to seriously thinking.

As a child, I had a list of things I HAD to do before I turned 30.

Travel the world (still on the cards), meet the man of my dreams (check!), be a successful doctor (I was 10!), own a nice big house by the beach (before 30 sounds impossible), have billions of dollars in the bank (also impossible), have a degree (check! obviously I didn't realise being a doctor meant you had to have some sort of a degree. Again...I was 10!) etc. That list is probably still buried along with my Enid Blyton books. That is to say - these goals were made by a child.

As I am much more ahem ... mature now, I think it's time to re-evaluate that list.

My aspirations are a lot less tangible now compared to my 10 year-old self's. Needless to say, I was more or less a selfish, ambitious, incorrigible twat back then. That said, I think I'm still allowed a couple of material things on my list if I want to!

I rejigged my mission statement and this time I decided to put more thought and quality time into it. Yep ... I decided to sacrifice 10 minutes of TV time to write this:

"To live life with child-like wonder. To find happiness and contentment within myself through love, family and friends. To find my strength and wisdom from opportunities presented."

Not as deep or profound as I would like but who gives a crap? I'm sure I shall revisit this in 5 years (or maybe less) and still think I was such a selfish, ambitious, incorrigible twat.