5 Intriguing Examples of Personal Purpose Statements
“Leading From Purpose” by Nick Craig — Book Review
Clarity. Focus. Confidence. During uncertainty.
That first sentence sounds a bit like a telemarketing pitch from a dishonest contrepreneur. But these are the words of from author Nick Craig, as he was summarising what he learnt conducting an interview for his book, Leading from Purpose.
The book guides you on a journey into personal purpose, why it matters, and how you can start the process of creating your own personal purpose statement.
A Purpose Statement That is… Personal
One thing the book doesn’t do well is actually explaining what a purpose statement is. But after getting about 3,750,000,000 results (0.43 seconds) from Google, I guess the author didn’t feel that the internet did a good enough job defining it.
My favourite definition so far (out of the about 3,750,000,000 results) is from this LinkedIn article (I didn’t know they had articles!):
A personal purpose statement defines who you are and the mark you want to leave on this world. It provides clarity and reflects commitment to your goals. A purpose statement anchors you in the direction you want your story to go.
The Process
The book goes into way more detail about how you could create your own personal statement. If you’re interested in finding out more, go ahead and grab the book.
However, in this blog post, I’ll just touch on the process outlined in the book. That’ll give us a bit more time to spend with the real life examples of purpose statements below.
During the course of writing the book, Nick figured out the 3 steps that helped lost souls explore and define their personal purpose:
1 — Magical Moments:
These are moments that get your heart racing, whether they happened 2 weeks ago or 20 years ago. What Nick learnt was that a lot of our formative experiences happened in our childhood, and tapping into those experiences gets you closer to reconnecting with your purpose.
2 — Challenging Experiences
We learn who we really are when life chucks lemons at your face. You realise your limits, and those of the humans round you. When you know what you can withstand, and what others can’t, that insight can help clarify the story of your life so far.
3 — Activities That Excite You for Many Years
What activities/hobbies/passions have you found fascinating for years? These things usually point out what we believe about the world and how we engage with it.
Examples of Great Personal Purpose Statements
These statements are taking straight from the book. What I’ve done is choose the most interesting examples of a purpose statement. I think the range of examples below give you a great taster of what a personal statement could be. I mean one of them was just a draining and I thought trying to explain that would be a bit too MoMA of me.
CHRISTINA — To catalyze people who fly a kite to build the rocket.
Christina’s first purpose statement was, “To help my team succeed, while I also succeed”. Thank goodness she didn’t end up with that. It’s a bit too beige. A bit vanilla. A bit Microsoft.
She retells a story of when she moved to Bahrain, where she hated that kites were not allowed to be flown (during a war). Her dad eventually helped her to imagine more than “fun = kites”.
With her purpose statement, Christina likens kites to processes and approaches that might have been a great way to achieve amazing things. And these kites got them where they are now. However, to get where they want to go to next, they need a different approach. They need to ditch the kite and build a rocket. And Christina is the one to show them how to build that rocket.
It’s interesting because Christina recounts a few jobs where she joined an organisation that was already building a rocket, or had no wish to build one. In those situations, she felt stuck. This purpose statement clearly clarifies the dynamism she needs to feel connected to her purpose, and those jobs gave her no space to do her thang!
JACQUI— Through tenacity, deliver brilliance.
- At 15, Jacqui found out she was pregnant. As a practicing Catholic, she decided to marry the guy who knocked her up.
- At 25, she was eight months pregnant with 2 kids, and she decided to leave her alcoholic husband.
- For 3 and a half months, she and her kids lived in shelters, until she had another baby and got housing assistance.
- In her new home, she found herself in the midst of donated boxes, packed with stuff she needed, but no-one else wanted.
And through all of this craziness, she has this realisation that she is at peace when dealing with situations that others would find demoralising.
RIKKYA — Input = ∫Data * People @me.
Rikkya defined themselves as an integrator of people and data. At work, they identify cost saving opportunities.
However, personal statements aren’t just about work. I’d actually argue they can’t be just about work. That just limits your ability to live life to the fullest.
In Rikkya’s personal life, the purpose statement is clear when you see that they started up a “nerdy book club” (their words, not mine!).
MAARTEN — Being the good Machiavelli, creating beauty and greatness.
This is such a good paradox.
Machiavellian usually carries connotations of manipulation and scheming. And here we have someone here who thrives on office politics. To me, that feels slimy.
Yet, Maarten woke up one night with an axe in his door. After being assigned to close down a factory, the illegal smuggling ring operating out of the factory was trying to send a message. LEAVE!
But his clear purpose meant he knew how to handle the people of the factory. By communicating to the employees of the factory often, sometimes divulging more information than his corporate rules would allow, Maarten helped the employees process the whole situation by giving them as much context as he could.
Whether you call this office politics or Machiavellian is irrelevant. Maarten viewed their own ability to handle manage relationships as a gift, and it helped them navigate the crisis in a way only they could.
LUCA — To liberate the perfect seagull in me and others.
There is little explanation about this statement. I’m quite frankly baffled! The book explains that Luca believed this purpose statement helped them lead rather than micromanage.
But why the hell is Luca acting like seagulls are something to aim towards? And who the hell wants to liberate seagulls! If you are someone that likes seagulls, I’m sorry for the trauma you’ve experienced in life. Go get help.
Anyhow, I added this statement because of how much I didn’t get it. And in all honesty, it’s not about whether I get it or not. It’s how Luca feels when he reads his own purpose statement.
Maybe he feels free. Free as a bird…
What Makes A Great Personal Statement
Make Your Personal Statements …Personal
This last personal statement (the seagull one) illustrates a major point about great personal statements. They need to be special to you. If you have a generic one, other people will understand it, and then just yawn. But the more head scratching your statement is when someone else tries to read it, the more Tabasco your personal statement has. SAUCY!
Keep It Loosey Goosey
Another point that I think is important is this; to be truly personal, your statement needs to be flexible. It needs to be applicable to work, your community, at home, in bed, when you travel i.e. all the frikking time!
It has to be flexible because it speaks to your core. A core that you take everywhere with you. Your core should not just be popping up at work.
“If we commit ourselves to stepping into purpose, we find that our roles no longer define us. Our identity becomes centred from our purpose”.
I’m a soon-to-be author…building (Writing) my book in Public — “Purpose: Antidote to Happiness”.
You can follow my journey on:
- LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/malachi-dingis-12949267/)
- Or keep up to date on my project homepage — https://bit.ly/pathbook-biphomepage
I’m writing this book to explore the tension between happiness and purpose. Between surface and depth. Desires and needs.
