something short. Hmmm.
I am not a tall person. At five feet, four inches, I've
gotten very used to not being able to reach things
stored on tall shelves. I look up to most people,
even other short people. Family reunions often include
jokes about God not being able to create a tall Varno.
My kids seem to have gotten their dad's height somehow.
When I write, I write long. I go on, and on, and then
edit down in search of shorter, clearer ways to say
things. Anyway, The message from this section of The
Path... is that short is good. While it might not be
my first inclination, I can live with that. I'm already
used to it.
Summary:
There Are three elements to a good mission statement.
1. A mission statement should be no more than a single
sentence long.
2. It should easily be understood by a tweleve year old.
3. It should be able to be recited by memory at gunpoint.
Examples of Excellent one sentence mission statements :
Abe Lincoln : Preserve the Union
FDR : End the Depression
Nelson Mandela : End apartheid
Mother Teresa : Show mercy and compassion to the dying
Joan of Arc : Free France
Nehemaih : Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem
Easily understood mission statements are stated in a way
that allows others, even children or brief aquaintences,
to recieve and understand your aim quickly and clearly.
The simplest, most straightforward missions are best.
Succinct and easy to understand mission statements are
effective communication. We need to understand the urgency
and importance of our mission if we are to make it happen.
The greater the mission, the more simply it can be stated.
Leadership that does not have the mission at the front of
their mind are not optimally running their organization.
There is risk of getting caught in lengthy, detailed,
tangental projects not part of your focused path.
In summary : Be short.
Reflection
Focusing my entire life in a one sentence statement seems
both too simple and perhaps too difficult. My mind wants
to wander, and find ways to include more creative
components to whatever I do. I once read a theory that
described the concept of creativity as like having leaky
thoughts. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26527210
When a person is excersizing creative thinking, it is the
opposite of compartmentalizing. It is allowing diverse
precepts to combine in unexpected ways that generate novel
concepts. What's most interesting to me is : where do those
ideas come from? and what goals and problems might be
solved with the various combinations? and how can this
process be made conscious?
I feel that the academic understanding of creativity isn't
really the most important part of who I am anymore. This
is who I was after I went on a big soul searching journey,
just before I applied to go library school and became
pregnant with my daughter in the same week. But it is now
useful to revisit, because if I can cross reference that
part of myself against the part of me that is a mom and
against the foundational concepts of my two businesses,
it seems like that would put me in the vicinity of my true
mission in life on a soul level.
I want to consider the concept of elegance, an important
design principle in both my businesses. I can use it to
approach the creative challenge of designing my life with
a short mission statement. It is amazing to me right now
how I seem to have precisely identified a significant
personal challenge that I have encountered again and
again that has often been a barrier to my success. I tend
to overcomplicate things, then goals are not reached. I
want things to be hard, and I want my successes to seem
miraculous. What an odd pattern I've developed. Now, I
will need to overcome it as I work on this project.
