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JA4. Personal Mission and Vision Statement

Statement

This assignment assesses the following learning outcomes: provide a written example of a personal mission and vision statement.

As you embark on your journey to achieve your goals, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your personal mission and vision. Using The Five-Step Plan outlined in Chapter 4: Developing Mission, Vision, and Values in the text:

  • Prepare your own personal vision and mission statements.
  • Describe the process and outcome of creating your own personal mission and vision statements.
  • In your response, include your step-by-step approach to the process and the final statements you developed.
  • Additionally, please elaborate on any insights or discoveries you made during the development process that helped you better understand your personal goals and values.
  • What inspired you to create these statements?
  • Discuss how your personal goals and values relate to your personal vision and mission statements.
  • At the end, highlight your key takeaways from this activity.

Answer

Introduction

The Mission and Vision statements are essential parts of any strategy, whether it is a personal or an organizational strategy. The Mission is a segment that defines the purpose of the existence of an entity; it focuses on summarizing the entity’s values in an emotionally appealing statement. The Vision is a brief statement that sets the course for the future path that the entity may take in supporting its Mission (Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2010).

This text will use the 5-Step Plan presented by Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan (2010) to develop a personal Mission and Vision statement. The steps include identifying past successes, identifying core values, identifying contributions, identifying goals, and writing the statements. The text will discuss each step and provide the final Mission and Vision statements. The text may use the first person to provide a personal touch to the statements.

Step 1: Identify Past Successes

The first step in developing the Mission and Vision statements is to reflect on achievements and how they changed the world. Here is a list of past successes that I have achieved:

  • Graduated with a Pharmacy degree while marinating a part-time job.
  • Migrated to the United Kingdom and fully integrated into the society.
  • Started self-learning web development using online resources and started freelancing.
  • Switched Career from Pharmacy to Software Engineering and secured a full-time job.
  • During the career transition, I worked in construction while continuing self-learning.
  • Started my second degree in Computer Science while working full-time.

Step 2: Identify Core Values

Values are the beliefs that guide actions and tie the person’s emotions to those actions or beliefs. Here are the core values that I have identified:

  • Hard Work: I maintained doing more than one thing at a time according to life’s demands.
  • Dedication: I never stop until I arrive at the destination.
  • Analytical: I always pause to think before making decisions.
  • Integrity: I always do what I say I will do.
  • Family-Centered: I always do what it takes to provide for the family.
  • Philosophical: I enjoy deep thinking and philosophical discussions.
  • Swift: I know when to take decisive action and when to wait or delegate.

Step 3: Identify Contributions

Contributions are how a person can make a difference in family, community, or the world. Here are the contributions that I have identified:

  • I have lived a love story for 6 years until we got married.
  • I have a beautiful wife and a 2-year-old son, and I helped my greater family in times of need.
  • I delivered 52 software projects in my first year of freelancing (varying between small and medium projects).
  • I used to be a regular blood donor for years; it only stopped because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • I have written code that is easy to read and maintain; I prepare my position for whoever may take over after me.
  • I mentored 2 junior developers in my current job.
  • I write personal tools to automate repetitive tasks in my personal life and studying.

Step 4: Identify Goals

Goals are future objectives of today’s work; despite the advice of using SMART goals everywhere, it is recommended to use BHAG goals here. BHAG stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Here are the goals that I have identified:

  • I want to graduate with a Computer Science degree in 1 year.
  • I want to become a Senior Software Engineer in 5 - 7 years.
  • I want to combine my Pharmacy and Software Engineering knowledge to specialize in embedded systems for medical devices in 10 years.
  • I want to own my first house in 5 years.
  • I want to find the company that I settle in for the longest time possible.

Step 5: Write the Statements

My Mission is to use my hard work, dedication, analytical skills, integrity, family-centeredness, philosophical thinking, and swiftness to deliver software projects that make a difference in the world.

My Vision is to become a Senior Software Engineer who specializes in embedded systems for medical devices, combining my Pharmacy and Software Engineering knowledge to make a difference in the world.

Conclusion

The 5-Step Plan is a good way for self-reflection and extracting the Mission and Vision statements in a systemic manner. The next step is to go back to the document every planning process (e.g. every year) and extract objectives based on the data in the document along with monitoring the progress of the existing objectives. The Mission and Vision can also be modified as needed, but a personal Mission and Vision is easier to modify than an organizational one as there are fewer stakeholders (only the people themselves) and there is no need to communicate the changes to anyone.

The process of developing the Mission and Vision statements was an eye-opener, it got me to reflect on the past reviving memories. It was a good mental exercise that we all need every now and then. This document will stay with me and I’ll check it from time to time to shape my strategy and my next move. Mission is the purpose and vision is the way to reach that purpose.

References