Statement

Today at the annual American Montessori Conference, Mitchel Adler, the keynote speaker, challenged everyone in the audience to write a personal mission statement. He asked if anyone had a written personal mission statement. I was surprised to see that a number of people in the audience raise their hands. I wasn’t sure what it was, let alone did I have one written.

Adler explained that a personal mission statement is a written paragraph about who you want to be and why you want to be that way. It’s a set of guiding values and beliefs that you strive to live by. It’s an aspirational document.

He told us to write our personal mission statement by 12:oo tonight. He said that if we didn’t write it by then, the chances that we’d ever write one would drop dramatically.

So here it goes…

I aspire to be vulnerable, to share my honest self with others as an invitation for others to share their honest selves with me. In this way, I wish to cultivate true, meaningful, and lasting relationships. I aspire to be compassionate toward self and others, to forgive mistakes and embrace failures so that I, and others, can safely take risks that lead to growth and change. 

Wow, that was harder than I thought it was going to be! I think that’s all I have in me tonight; I’m not finished, but it’s a start. I hope that starting it will be enough to encourage me to return to it and finish.