Dear Souls & Hearts Member,
It’s 2025. It’s time to get going on personal mission statements. Today, I offer you a high-level conceptual overview of personal mission statements, and how they integrate with personal vision and personal values statements.
In the archives of these semi-monthly reflections, you’ll see that starting in July 2024, we discussed an overview of vision, values, and missions statements, In August, we covered specifics of a vision statement, and then for the rest of 2024 we dove into values and values statements.
Here are some definitions from those articles:
- Vision Statement: A personal vision statement is your expression of the future state of who you seek to become, who you are called to be in the future. We represent the vision with a telescope, to help you see your destination or your destiny – it’s future focused, down your road of life. Your vision statement is your orienting star. It’s your shining city on a hill, to which you make your pilgrimage on earth. Your vision statement is your answer to the question “Who do I want to become?”
- Values Statement: A personal values statement is a delineation of a small set of three to seven core, vital, and unchanging principles that define who your best self is – and that guide you toward who you want to be by clearly naming what you most cherish. While the vision statement addresses the “who” of you now and in the future, the values address “what” you cherish. I represent your values statement as a lantern, because your values illuminate the road toward your vision, casting light on your way.
- Mission statement: A personal mission statement is your expression of the means you will use in the present to realize your personal vision in the future. It focus on “how” you will work toward your vision, guided by your values.
As I noted in the July 22, 2024 reflection titled Your Vision, Mission, and Values,
A mission statement differs considerably from a vision statement. Instead of focusing on who you will become and be with (your end state), the mission focuses on your means to get there – the how of becoming your envisioned future you, a you in relationship with God.
Your mission statement focuses not on the future (like your vision statement does), but rather on the present, what you are called to do now to realize your future vision. Mission statements that are clear and precise lay out guidance for how to follow the star – they are your maps and compass.
Mission statements are also a bridge between our goals (we will discuss goals in future reflections) and our envisioned future selves.
I’ve settled on the image of boots for your values statement, as in “boots on the ground.” In mission statement, you lay out how you live out your values in pursuit of your mission in your daily walk of life.
Why write a personal mission statement?
Let’s start with the question of “why”? Why have a personal mission statement? Isn’t it enough to just have a vision statement and a value statement?
The issue with having only personal vision and values statements is that these statements alone and ungrounded by a mission statement risk becoming too abstract, conceptual, and removed from the daily struggle of life. A personal mission statement gets our boots on the ground, gets us walking, get us closer to the specifics of daily life.
Stephen R. Covey lays out powerful reasons to write a mission statement in his 2012 book How to Develop Your Personal Mission Statement:
- “An empowering mission statement has to become a living document, part of our very nature, so that the criteria we’ve put into it are also in us, in the way we live our lives day by day.”
- “The power of the personal mission statement lies in your vision and in a commitment to that vision, that purpose, and those principle-centered values. They will control your decisions, determine your outlook, and provide the direction for your future.”
- “A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decision we make.”
And W. Clement Stone adds another reason: “When you discover your mission… it will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.” So missions statements not serve to call us to commitment, empower us, and provide direction, they vitalize and motivate us.
The “when” of personal mission statements
While my personal vision statement is about my future, my mission statement is about my now. My personal mission statement guides my decisions and behaviors in my present moment, at my current point in my life trajectory. My mission statement focuses on today, in my present state of life, in our current duties of state, on the people around us right now, our nearest neighbors.
Thus, my mission statement will likely change over time as the specific means that I am to use change. For example, a mission statement for an unmarried college student will look different once she is married with three children, and when her children are grown and have launched into the world, her mission statement will again look different.
Another aspect of the “when” of mission statements is “When should we consult them?” The answer is many times per day. A mission statement rarely consulted will not foster any lasting impact.
The “who” of personal mission statements
Of course, your personal mission statement is about you. But it’s not just about you. For us Catholics, it’s also about God and our neighbor. The old saying “Charity begins at home” describes how we are to love and take care of those nearest to us – especially our family and nearest neighbors before reaching out to others who are most distant.
One difficulty is that sometimes those in closest proximity to us are the most difficult to love. But as we consider our “boots on the ground” mission statements, as we consider the two great commandments and how we will live those out, we should consider how we are called to love those nearest to us before those who are much further away.
We don’t want our love to resemble Vladimir Lenin’s “humanitarianism” as described by historian Paul Johnson in his 2001 book Modern Times: “His [Lenin’s] humanitarianism was a very abstract passion. It embraced humanity in general but he seems to have had little love for, or even interest in, humanity in particular.”
Also relevant to the question of “who” regarding mission statement are our parts. We will be discussing how to consider, work with, and integrate our parts in the actual articulating and writing of our personal mission statements in future reflections.
The “where” of personal mission statements
In short, your mission statement is located in your conscious awareness several times per day. Your mission statement should be memorized and brought to mind throughout the day, especially at decision points. As Stephen Covey writes: “A mission statement is not something you write overnight… But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.”
As your “constitution,” as a “living document,” your mission statement needs to be front-and-center in your awareness. You might bring your personal mission statement into your particular and general examinations of conscience as well.
And the question of “where” is relevant to articulating our mission statement. Stephen Covey again: “Viktor Frankl shared a brilliant insight about developing mission statements. He said, ‘The thing I learned is that you don’t invent your mission, you detect it. You uncover it, as it were.’ You see, everyone has special gifts, unique qualities, and characteristics. And they need to work inwardly until they detect those aspects.”
Viktor Frankel tells us that our missions need to be discovered and uncovered, not just created by us. We need to find our mission where it is hidden. As Mark Twain said, “The two most important days in life are the day you born and the day you discover the reason why.” I would change the first part of this to be the day you were conceived and the day you were baptized, with the third most important day, discovering the reason why – when you find your boots, the boots that will aid you in walking toward your shining city on the hill, which waits for you.
The “what” of personal mission statements
In future reflections, I will offer you a step-by-step process for writing your personal mission statement, answering the question of “What are all the elements and what is the process of a mission statement?”
For now, though, in this high-level overview, I can say that when you achieve your missions, you generate results. If you lace up your boots and walk your personal mission, following the guiding star of your vision, your shining city on the hill, you will change. Fundamentally. In your identity.
A word on perfectionism
As I close this high-level overview of personal mission statements, I wanted to bring up a major impediment for so many people in this process of identifying mission. Perfectionism. Especially in this area, the best can be the enemy of the good. In episode 85 of the IIC podcast titled Perfectionism: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How, I go into depth about perfectionism and how it can hold us back from the most important things in life.
Join me to talk about mission statements on Tuesday, February 11, 2025
On the evening of Tuesday, February 11, 2025 from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern time, I will host a Zoom meeting for all who wish to discuss the writing and living out of personal mission statements. If you’d like to get on board, email me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com and I will put you on my email list for vision, values, and mission statements.
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New podcast series has begun on Internal Family Systems and Catholicism
Very exciting news – the Souls and Hearts team has decided to launch a new Interior Integration for Catholics podcast series, titled IFS and Parts Work – Catholic Style. And episode 157 released last week, titled Overview of Internal Family Systems — Catholic Style (102 minutes) in both video (see the excellent slides and other visual elements) and audio version. Here’s the description
We offer you a new and better way of understanding yourself and others – Internal Family Systems (IFS). But what is IFS? What are “parts”? Who are our internal managers, firefighters, and exiles? Who is your innermost self and what are his or her eight primary characteristics? What are burdens and what are the extreme roles parts take on after trauma, attachment injuries, or relational wounds? What is “blending”? Join IFS therapists Marion Moreland, David Edwards, and me, Dr. Peter, for this overview of IFS as we begin our 2025 deep dive into IFS, grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person – not just with information for our heads, but also with an experiential exercise for our hearts.
Only 19 days until the Resilient Catholics Community reopens for new applications
In this new year of 2025, would you like to thrive? Would you like to flourish in loving God, your neighbor and yourself (in all your parts)? And would you like to journey with other Catholics who are serious about their human formation, all informed by IFS and parts work, and solidly grounded in a Catholic anthropology, working through a structured, step-by-step program?
That is what the Resilient Catholics Community is all about.
The RCC reopens for new applications to join our ninth cohort, the St. Ignatius of Loyola cohort throughout February 2025. As part of the application process, you’ll take the PartsFinder Pro, which is designed to help you identify 10-15 of your parts, and their interrelationships inside of you. The PFP can jumpstart your own personal parts work, helping you to understand and love yourself so that you can love God wholehearted and your neighbor much better. Find our more and join our RCC interest list on our landing page here.
Join Bridget Adams, RCC Member Care Coordinator, and Dr. Peter for a one-hour Zoom meeting at from 8:00 to 9:00 PM Eastern time on the evening of Thursday, January 23, 2025, to learn all about what it means to apply for and participate in the RCC. Free registration is here.
“Physician, heal thyself!” (cf Luke 4:23)
Do you work with others in their personal formation? We are reaching out to Catholic priests, spiritual directors, therapists, counselors, coaches, and others who accompany Catholics individually in their personal formation. Why? To help you with your human formation.
Learn about how to apply IFS concepts to your personal life, all in a way that is grounded in an authentic Catholic understanding of the human person in the Formation for Formators Community. Souls and Hearts is now opening up new Foundations Experiential Groups for Catholic therapists, spiritual directors, Catholic coaches, other formators, and graduate students or those in training to be formators, with groups beginning in February 2025. No previous IFS training is necessary to participate in FEGs.
These groups:
- Are limited to nine Catholic formators
- Are led by experienced Catholic IFS-trained practitioners
- Meet via Zoom for 90 minutes for each of 10 sessions, over the course of five months
- Practice IFS techniques, working on our own real issues within our own internal systems, in the holding environment of the group and in independent practice in triads (You can see how practice triads work by watching episodes 151 and 152 of the IIC podcast)
- Engage in interpersonal processing among the members, based on an IFS understanding of parts and self, harmonized with our Catholic faith
- Provide discussion space for the two recorded lectures that cover a chapter of Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.) by Schwartz and Sweezy.
- Include a sequence of 10 sessions (15 hours total) at only $700 per person, which works out to only $70 per session (in addition to the $40 per month basic subscription fee to join the Formation for Formators community).
- Are a gateway to advanced groups that focus on specialized topics for more experienced members.
New and advanced groups start in February and March of 2025, and are filling up. Put a deposit down now to hold your seat. Find out more here and go here for registration and for the days, times, and the leaders of each group.
Also, save the date! From Monday, August 11 to Thursday, August 14, 2025 Souls and Hearts will be hosting a retreat for formators – priests, therapists, counselors, coaches, spiritual directors and other formators who work with others on their human formation individually. The theme of the retreat is Being at Service and we will be focusing on your own personal human formation. Find out more on our retreat landing page here. Registrations open on January 15.
Workshop video recording of Parts and Sacraments now available
Sometimes our parts really struggle with the sacraments. So Souls and Hearts wanted to help you work through any issues parts have with the sacraments, especially with Confession and the Eucharist. What would it be life if all of your parts could cooperate and collaborate under the leadership of your innermost self in receiving the graces of the sacraments, and in uniting yourself more wholly with our Lord?
To address this need, right before the July 2024 National Eucharistic Congress, Dr. Gerry Crete and I hosted a three-hour workshop titled Recollecting Your Parts in Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Here’s a summary:
- All Your Parts in an Integrated Experience of Reconciliation (Dr. Peter)
- Experiential Exercise: Your Parts, Confession, and Reconciliation (Dr. Peter)
- The Inmost Self and the Parts in Communion: The Eucharist as the Sacrament of Unity (Dr. Gerry)
- Experiential Exercise: The Self-System and Communion with the Body of Christ
The videos are now available for $99 (and they are free for those who attended the workshop in person). Find out more here. If you have struggled to be fully present and engaged with Reconciliation and the Eucharist, this workshop is for you.
Exodus 90’s main launch for the year
Men, Exodus 90 for 2025 starts in one week, on Monday, January 20.
Exodus 90 is an apostolate that supports men in growing in personal freedom. The formation is grounded upon a Catholic vision of the human person, with emphasis on men’s human and spiritual needs, and in their true identity of sons of the Father. The experience happens in local fraternities of 4-6 men, who take a journey together that touches the body, mind, and soul. These fraternities are sacred places for men to share openly and honestly about who they are, what they are struggling with, and how they believe the Lord is at work in their lives. In the faces of other men, just like them, they encounter the encouragement they need to become who they were created to be, men for others.
Fr. Boniface Hicks, a close friend of the Souls and Hearts community, is serving as Spiritual Guide for Exodus 90 in 2025 – and Fr. Boniface is so good at integrating the four dimensions of formation – see IIC episode 136 titled Spiritual Direction and Personal Formation with Fr. Boniface Hicks and also episode 137, titled Q&A with Fr. Boniface Hicks on Personal Formation and Spiritual Direction. And I have known Jamie Baxter (Founder and CEO) for years, and he has been involved in the Souls and Hearts community as well and is a big supporter of ours.
More than 250,000 men from all around the world, including myself, have journeyed with Exodus 90 over the past decade. I found it to be life-changing, and I am grateful for the experience. If you are a man looking for a way to shore up your personal formation in the new year, consider Exodus 90. Find out more here.
Pray for us
As always, we ask that you pray for us in Souls and Hearts, our members and our staff. We depend on your prayers. Please pray for us. We are praying for you.
Warm regards in Christ and His Mother,
Dr. Peter