Personal vision statements are important as they can help you realize your personal and career goals. Since your personal vision statement will contain long-term and short-term goals, they can help you pursue your desired job opportunities, valuable professional experience, and leadership opportunities.
In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about a personal vision statement.
Let’s get started.
What Is A Personal Vision Statement?
If you struggle to define your long-term career goals and your short-term goals, then a personal vision statement is a great place to start. Creating one and regularly referring to it will help you stay on track.
But what exactly is a personal vision statement?
Think of it as a mission statement in terms of what you want to accomplish in life and with your job.
This statement can be your guide when it comes to what you want to pursue and how you intend to accomplish it. A personal vision statement is also referred to as a career mission statement or a career vision statement. Essentially, it is a statement that identifies your key strengths and long-term career goals.
Identifying and creating a vision statement that includes your career goals will motivate you when facing career challenges and deciding whether to switch jobs to further your professional dreams.
Why Is A Personal Vision Statement Important?
Vision statements are essential for several reasons. They can:
- Help you identify career aspirations that you want to achieve
- Keep you on track towards reaching your long term goals
- Inspire and propel you to keep working towards professional goals even when you face obstacles along the way
- Give you a feeling of direction and commitment in life
- Remind you where you want to be, when you get distracted
- Provide you with concrete and actionable steps that help you stay on course with your goals
- Guide you when you have to make tough choices
The truth is that words are powerful and when you don’t have a personal vision statement, you become reactive to life’s situations instead of being proactive. Most people think short-term when making decisions. However, to truly succeed in life, it is important to think long term.
Related: 10 Best Reasons for Living with Purpose and How to Live Purposefully
How To Write A Personal Vision Statement
When writing a personal vision statement, it is beneficial to outline your talents and career aspirations. You can follow the steps below during the writing process:
1. Identify Your Strengths
Identifying your strengths and understanding how to utilize them in your career, can help make you a more desirable candidate. Perhaps you have a great memory, or your organizational skills are top-notch.
Here are some steps that can help you identify your strengths:
- List your skills: Write down the skills that you’re good at. In addition, you can hone in on skills that represent your passions or activities you enjoy that may pave the way for you professionally.
- Identify your marketable skills: Narrow your strengths to the most important and relevant ones in the job market currently. You can come up with three to five strengths, some of which may even complement each other.
- Make positive declarations of your abilities: View your skills as opportunities to make improvements or advances in your career. When it comes to using your vision statement to advance professionally, approach the job market with positivity and confidence to convince potential employers that you’re the perfect fit for the job.
2. Reflect On Your Values
Reflecting on your core values is important as you create your personal vision statement. These values will help you figure out how achievable your long term goals are. For instance, it may be difficult to accomplish your career goals if you don’t believe in why you are doing it.
Consider answering the following questions to help determine your core values.
- Is it important that your career gives back to the community?
- Is a work-life balance essential to you?
- Are you motivated by inspiring others?
- Do you believe in taking responsibility for your own actions?
In addition to this, you can gain a wider perspective about your values by:
- Inquiring from those who know you best: Your close friends and family members can help point out your core values. Since they are regularly in close contact with you, they can help you identify what matters to you most, what drives you, and what makes you happy.
- Take an online values test: These tests help you determine your values, as they shed light on your beliefs and personality. The key is to answer them as honestly as you can, so that you can get the best answer.
If your values contradict your written goals, consider altering your goals slightly so that they also reflect your core values. Identifying your core values will place you in a better position to decide on the right career goals.
Related: How to Focus on Yourself When No One Else Will: 15 Actionable Tips
3. Evaluate How Your Skills Can Solve Real-World Issues
Another important step in developing your mission statement is to figure out how your personal abilities and beliefs can solve real-world issues. You do this by identifying potential issues that you may encounter in your profession and how your skills and attributes can help make a positive impact.
Take time to answer these questions:
- What issues are you passionate about?
- Are there issues that you can tackle using your personal strengths?
- Are there certain issues, like human rights or financial regulations etc., that mirror your core values?
Answering these questions will help you narrow down your focus to potential areas of work that suit you best. The next step will also help you continue to narrow your focus even further.
Related: 10 Essential Skills For Success To Get You Ahead In Your Career
4. Select Your Desired Position In The Field
Once you discover how your skills impact the real-world, your next step is to find a career path that lines up with your goals. The steps below will help you narrow down your options.
- Pick a field: List the field you desire to pursue in your vision statement- for example, is it medicine, finance, social services or law?
- Pick a role: Decide which job you want to pursue within your chosen field-is it to be a doctor, lawyer, or accountant? Be realistic in your selection and look for a job that you can achieve medium term, such as the next 4 to 6 years rather than choosing something towards the end of your career. That way, you’ll have a shorter term goal, which provides better motivational impact on your daily activities.
- Select role-specific goals: Write down some of the things you hope to accomplish in the role. You can start by asking yourself the question, ‘why do I want this position?’
It’s okay to take your time with this step as you may not be able to figure it all out in one sitting.
It’s normal to revise your goal and personal vision statement. However, it’s more important to take the time to create one, so that you can easily determine what’s working from what’s not working. Once you’ve written all of this down, you can put your personal vision statement into action.
Related: Learning The Skill Of Adapting To Change: Personally & Professionally
5. Write Out Your Mission Statement
Aim to make your mission statement as concise and unique as possible. You can do this by writing it in two sentences which helps keep it brief and to the point. Here’s a breakdown of how to write a simple yet concise statement.
a).First sentence: State the field you want to work in or your desired job. For instance, you may write down that you want to be a vet surgeon for a local veterinary clinic.
b). Second sentence: Explain your reason for pursuing the job stated in the first sentence. Perhaps you love animals and want to spend your time tending to their illnesses and have an impact in restoring them to health.
Once you finish, review your vision statement to ensure that it clearly points to your career goal and your reasons for pursuing it. If it feels like it needs to be more clear, revise it until the two sentences clearly explain what you want to achieve in your career and why.
Using Your Personal Vision Statement In Your Career
Once you have complete your statement, you can start using it to advance yourself in your profession. Here’s how to integrate your vision into your everyday life.
- Review it daily: Write down your statement on an index card and place it somewhere that you’re likely to see it. It could be on your work desk or the mirror in your bathroom.
- Let it guide your job search: Let your vision guide you as you search for new job opportunities. Look for a company that will allow you to accomplish your goals. Your vision should inspire you to focus on jobs that will help you get to where you want to go.
- Include your vision statement in your resume: A great place to incorporate your vision statement is in your resume. This gives potential employers a clear idea of who you are, where you are going and why you would be the perfect fit for the role.
Personal Vision Statement Examples
Below are some personal vision statement examples and what they should look like. Remember that your statement is meant to reflect who you are as an individual and what your personal career goal may be.
Be inspired by these vision statements.
- I want to become a doctor. I have always wanted to help people lead healthy lives and cure illnesses.
- My goal is to become a social worker, so that I can help the young in the community. My talent as an approachable person and my strong commitment to justice inspire me to assist the vulnerable in society.
- My goal is to become a start-up entrepreneur for a tech company. I am fascinated with technology, and I believe that I have what it takes to create technological solutions that empower underrepresented people.
- My career goal is to become a personal trainer. I am committed to my own personal health and would like to help others achieve optimal health and wellbeing.
Related: 9 Reasons to Never Give up on Your Dreams and Achieve Your Goals
Reassess Your Goals
One final step is to reassess your goals as you continue along the path of achieving them. As you gain more experience and pursue new opportunities, you’ll have to consider how your vision statement reflects the next stage of where you would like to go. If you have outgrown your mission statement, now is a great time to make necessary changes so that you can keep moving forward with purpose in life.
Overall, a personal vision statement helps you to gain balance in your life. Instead of experiencing stress and restlessness in your career, you’ll be more satisfied and experience more meaning and enjoyment from life, as you choose to pursue a profession that’s in line with your goals.
Related: How to Succeed at Life: 10 Ways to Achieve Everything You Want in Life
