📝 Keep Rewriting Your Mission Statement

It is super important to get this right: your mission statement — why are you doing what you are currently doing? The actual reason behind your every day life. Maybe you are working a super boring 9-5 day job, but you are actually saving up for your next trip or next business venture. That gives the boring day job an actual meaning and turn the whole thing as a journey, the every day step as a footprint towards the North Star.

Recently, I listened back to one of the classics written by Mr. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, on my Audible. Super, super soul-shocking when I was listening to the part about rewriting your mission statement from time to time. Do I have a mission statement? For my business, yes. For my life, yes. But as days go by, the mission statements get covered up by dust. Here are my real examples.

In 2018, I started my first legit business. Not a side gig, or side hustle, but a full-time battle of my dream against reality. Every day, I watched the clock ticking, and no sales happened. I watched the clock for as long as I was awake every single day. I tried this and that approach. I built this funnel, that social media channel, and tried tons of software that had tons of testimonials. Since I had literally zero sales after I started my business for days and weeks, I had so much time to think. I constantly think about the “why” behind the courage to start a business from scratch and alone. Oh, so it was because of my personal experience as an international student studying abroad, and I wanted to provide the most personalized study abroad consulting to my students. That was such a great and shining mission statement for that moment. As time went by, the company grew to about ten employees. People come and go. New product ideas pop up here and there. The original mission statement still feels valid, but it contains that dated sense as in a young Pinot noir.

Besides the mission statement for my business, the mission statement for my life actually gets rusty as well. It becomes unclear, too, because it just caught such a thick layer of dust as years go by. I had a super strong moment of sense of purpose when I was on the plane flying from LAX to Taipei, as I put a pause (or maybe an end) on the 5-year journey of studying and working in California. It was a super, super strong moment in life because things you thought would not change just changed without any caring about your permission. I was not kicked out of the country, just to be clear. But, it was that moment to leave the country because you had already got your degree and some experience. You know, an international student visa does not guarantee you to be a Forbes 30 under 30. Some hardworking folks just got extremely lucky to be offered an extension to stay longer, work longer, or even an opportunity to become a citizen, but most hardworking folks do not get that lucky draw. An international student visa, especially with a bachelor’s degree, can get you so far. So, on the plane, I decided that as I went back to my home country, Macau, I would not waste a second of my life.

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