Episode 850 · Sep 18, 2023

How to Craft a Personal Mission Statement Using 5 Clarifying Questions

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Most people spend more time planning a vacation than they do defining the purpose of their lives. In a Daily Mastermind episode, George Wright III walks you through a five-question framework he learned from his mentor, Robert Stuberg, that can help you build a personal mission statement with real depth and direction. Whether you have never written one or want to revisit one you drafted years ago, this process will sharpen your clarity and fuel your daily decisions.

A personal mission statement is more than a corporate-style tagline. It is your guiding North Star, the lens through which you evaluate choices, relationships, and goals. Without one, even the most talented people drift.

Why a Personal Mission Statement Changes Everything

Most people focus on their job or career when they think about direction in life. They ask what they want to do rather than who they want to be and what impact they want to leave behind. George argues that the power comes from shifting your focus to a mission, because a mission is bigger than any single role or title.

When your daily decisions run through the filter of a clearly stated mission, you stop reacting and start leading your own life. Clarity and fulfillment move in direct proportion to each other.

Question 1: What Is Your Life's Purpose?

The first question Robert Stuberg introduced to George is: "My life's purpose is..." Fill in the blank honestly. This is not about your job description. It is about what you genuinely want to create and contribute.

George's own example:

To empower those around me to be the best version of themselves and to empower them with purpose and passion for life.

Your purpose can evolve over time. Right now, the goal is simply to write something true. Dig past the surface answer and reach for what actually moves you.

Question 2: What Is Your Empowering Self-Definition?

A mission is only achievable if you believe you are capable of living it. That is why the second question matters: "My empowering self-definition is..."

This statement is designed to give you the confidence and determination to follow through. George's example:

I am someone with the power to accomplish my important goals and dreams. I can achieve whatever I truly desire by making the decision and taking action necessary to achieve it.

Write a self-definition that you can return to whenever doubt shows up. It should feel bold and true at the same time.

Question 3: What Question Do You Want Your Life to Answer?

This is one of the most thought-provoking prompts in the framework. George points out that your thoughts shape your life, and your thoughts are largely driven by the questions you habitually ask yourself. So he inverts the process: instead of waiting to see which question you unconsciously orbit, you decide proactively.

"I want my life to be an answer to what question?"

For George, the answer is something like: how can I use my talents to create the biggest impact and legacy for those around me? For you, it might be: how do I establish a legacy for my children? Choose a question that pulls you forward.

Question 4: What Is Your Mission in Life?

Your purpose and your mission are related but distinct. If your purpose is your "why," your mission is your "how" - specifically the application of your unique talents. "My mission in life is..."

This is the statement that becomes the practical litmus test for your decisions in business, relationships, and health. When an opportunity crosses your path, your mission statement is what helps you decide whether to say yes or walk away.

Question 5: What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have?

The fifth question brings the whole framework into focus: "The sort of influence on others I'd like to have is..."

This is your legacy, your impact, the thing you want to be remembered for. George's own answer:

To inspire, motivate, and educate others to become the best versions of themselves and live a life of health, wealth and happiness.

Think carefully about this one. It connects your purpose and your mission to real human lives and gives everything you do a deeper meaning.

How to Put It All Together

Once you have answered all five questions, read them in sequence. You will likely see a coherent thread running through them. You can leave the five statements as a suite, or you can synthesize them into a single declaration. Both approaches work. The important thing is that you have something written down - something concrete you can return to and refine.

George emphasizes that successful people do not stumble into clarity. They create it deliberately. A personal mission statement is one of the clearest ways to do that.

Action Steps

Set aside 30 to 45 minutes this week to work through all five questions in writing, not just in your head.
Start with "My life's purpose is..." and write without editing until you have three to five genuine answers, then refine to one.
Draft your empowering self-definition and read it aloud every morning for a week to test whether it actually builds your confidence.
Identify the primary question your life has been unconsciously trying to answer, then decide whether that is the question you want to keep answering.
Revisit your mission statement every 90 days: a mission can evolve as you grow, and updating it is a sign of progress, not failure.

A personal mission statement does not lock you into a single path. It liberates you by making your choices clear. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live. Write your mission this week, and let it lead you forward.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, everyone. My name is George Wright III. I am your host here with your daily inspiration, motivation, and education. Let's go ahead and start you out with the quote of the day. The quote of the day is from Seneca, He who is brave is free. What a great quote. I want to talk to you today about opening your week with the idea of clarity and vision for your life. Nothing says vision like a life mission statement. And I don't know if you already have one or if you've developed one in the past. Life mission statements are something that can be overlooked because they sound so high level. But my mentor, Robert Stuber, took me through an exercise that I think will be very helpful for you this week. And so I wanna take you through this idea of creating a mission statement, a life mission statement. See, mission statements can be very challenging and sometimes even overwhelming, the pressure of creating something that encompasses your whole life. There's so many facets that I used to hear from Robert and he used to tell me, there's just no way to narrow it down to one statement. In fact, he had a process of putting together five key statements that describe a personal mission statement in life overall that I'd like to take you through. And I want you to do me a favor this week and take some time to really uncover the essence and direction of your life. I believe if you do that, it's going to make some major changes in your clarity of your life. So let's talk for just a second about what is a personal mission statement. When you try to put together a personal mission statement, what you're trying to decide is just what's the purpose of your life. And I want you to think through that because the clarity and direction of your life is so in direct proportion to your happiness and fulfillment levels. So what's the purpose of your life? Why are you here? What in life do you want to experience that will help you to be able to create fulfillment, impact, passion, and purpose? How would you like to feel on a daily basis? These are all questions that I want you to ask yourself as we develop a personal mission statement, because this personal mission statement will be that guiding lighthouse, that guiding North star for everything that you do. It'll help your decisions become clearer. It will help your areas of your life become clear. And if you spend time on it, you're really going to create a lot more success and progress in your life. So let's go through five questions that I think will really help you to develop this personal mission statement The first question I want you to answer is my life purpose is and then fill in the blank My life purpose is and then fill in the blank. And the idea here is to encompass what it is that you really truly want to accomplish in your life. For example, I'll give you an example for myself personally, to empower those around me to be the best version of themselves and to empower them with purpose and passion for life. This is something, and understand that a life purpose can develop over time. But I want you to think through what it is that you want to really truly create and impact in other people's lives and what you want your life to be about. That's the whole purpose of this first question. My life's purpose is, and then fill in the blanks. Really spend some time thinking about this. I think it's super important for you to really dig deep into what you feel you want your life's purpose to be. The next question that I used to walk through with Robert is, my empowering self-definition is fill in the blank. Now, I think this is very important because for you, in order to accomplish your life's mission, your purpose, it's important that you have a level of confidence, security, and your ability, like I talked about last week, to create certainty in a very uncertain world. And so when you can create an empowering self-definition, what that does is it allows you to take control of creating your life and really be in a proactive state to be able to accomplish your personal mission. So, for example, I am someone with the power to accomplish my important goals and dreams. I can achieve that whatever I truly desire by making the decision and taking action necessary to achieve it. Whatever your empowering self-definition is, it's your statement that you can use in order to give you the strength, the courage, and the determination in order to follow through with creating your personal mission statement and your purpose. So your purpose in life can be driven by this empowering self-definition. I think that's a very important question for you to answer. My empowering self-definition is what? Fill in the blanks. So we've talked about life purpose, and then we've talked about an empowering self-definition. So the third question I want you to ask yourself is, I want my life to be an answer to what question? I want my life to be an answer to what question? Now, we don't have time to get into it a lot today, but what you'll find, and you've heard me talk about before is that all of us are trying to generally answer questions And the reason for that is that if our thoughts create our life where do our thoughts come from Our thoughts come from the questions we ask ourselves And most of us have a primary question What are they thinking of me? What should I do? How do I get better? Where do I get recognized? What do I want? Where do I come from? Whatever those life questions are, I want you to be proactive here while we're determining your personal mission statement and answer the question, I want my life to be an answer to what question? For example, mine might be, how can I use my talents to create the biggest impact and legacy for those around me? Or yours might be something like, how do I establish a legacy for my children? Whatever it is, it's important that with your purpose and mission and empowering self-definition, you also talk about what do I want my life to answer as far as a question. And that's something that I want you to put some thought into because if you think about that, that'll help to drive your actions as you move forward throughout this week and your whole life. Okay, so now that we've talked about my life purpose, empowering self-definition, and my mission in life is that next part. So I want you to now answer the question, my mission in life is. So this is different than purpose and the empowering definition and the questions you want to answer are there to support it. But the difference between your purpose and your mission, I believe is your application of your unique talent. So your mission should be to accomplish something that you feel you can direct your energy and effort and resources towards. So now that you've talked about your purpose and you've put a couple of supporting factors in there, I want you to answer the question, my life mission is, or my mission in life is, and write down whatever comes to mind. Spend some time on this because I think this is something that you really truly want to dig deep into because it will establish the litmus test for many things that you're going to do in your day-to-day life, business, relationships, and even your health. And then finally, the fifth question that will help you to truly create this whole mission, personal mission statement is, I want you to answer this question or fill it out, finish it out. The sort of influence on others I'd like to have is, and fill in the blank, the sort of influence on others I'd like to have is. So for example, mine might be to inspire, motivate, and educate others to become the best versions of themselves and live a life of health, wealth and happiness So I want you to think truly about the influence you want to have on other people This is the impact the legacy the thing that you want to be remembered by This is the question that I believe really helps you to create purpose and passion behind your purpose and your mission and things that we're going to be getting together. But this is the fifth question. This is the whole idea now where you've taken what your purpose is. You've created a self-definition around it. You've answered a key question in your life and you've drilled down a little deeper into what your mission, your strategy is going to be. And now we're talking about the influence and impact and legacy you want to have. These five questions, I believe, are really going to help you to craft up an incredible personal mission statement. So this Monday morning, what I really am trying to do here for you is I'm challenging you to determine what your personal mission is. Whether you've written a statement in the past because they can evolve or whether this is the first time you've truly sat down and done it. Like I said, most successful people will orchestrate and create and outline the success in their lives. So I challenge you to determine your mission. Most people just focus on their job and career. What do they wanna do rather than the impact they wanna have? And the power comes from focusing and building your life around a mission statement. What do you want to focus on in your life? What do you want the focus of your life to be? How do you want to serve others? How do you want to truly create change in your life and in the world? So that's my message for today. I'd love for you to hit me up on The Daily Mastermind on Facebook or Instagram, or just email me at george at g3worldwide.com. And let me know what your mission is. Let me know what your personal mission statement is. And whether you use these five questions or whether you have a single statement, I encourage you to share it with me. so that I can see what you're doing, how you're doing it, and what I can do to help you along your path. That's the point behind the Daily Mastermind. Now, before we go, I just want to remind you, there are some availabilities left. There's only a couple with the CEO mentoring program, and we will be launching the Academy membership, reopening that for enrollment in October. So definitely check it out. Just go over to the Daily Mastermind. It's dailymastermind.com and check it out. There's a lot of free resources there. I'm there to help you. I want to be able to help you to accomplish the goals and dreams and desires that you have in your life. And so go over there. Let me know if I can do anything to help you. Have an amazing day and I will talk with you more tomorrow morning.