How to Craft a Mission Statement When You Have a Chronic Illness
Those of you who have been reading the Living With Multiple Sclerosis column for a while know that I like to use analogies, metaphors, and allegories when describing what it’s like to have multiple sclerosis.
Analogies (or metaphors or allegories) seem to pop up around every corner in my day, although I don’t always notice or appreciate them at the time. Sometimes it’s weeks later when I sit down to write that an experience bubbles up into the air and ends up in a post.
One such experience happened recently.
Long lists of words can feel meaningless
I have helped build a network of food producers in my region of the world. Anyone who’s ever started something from a great heap of ideas that came from an even greater heap of passionate individuals knows that it can be very rewarding work… but work nonetheless.
At some point I had the feeling my beautiful lady Character Eliza Doolittle as we attempted to write the network’s mission, vision, and value statements.
For months our assembled group talked about who we wanted to be. Words representing aspirations and directions. Words about place, goals and history. Dozens of words on virtual whiteboards (we video chatted often because of the pandemic) turned into hundreds of words via email and text.
“Words, words, words. I’m so sick of the words!” I understand you, Eliza.
When it came time to compile this ever-growing list of words and condense them into concepts, phrases, and a document of Mission, Vision, and Values, I realized that this list is backwards — in reverse order of how I came first define and then live my life with multiple sclerosis (MS).
Values come first, then vision, then mission
It’s impossible to embark on a mission (to live my best life in the constant care of an incurable, degenerative disease) without having a vision of where that life is going to take me.
Likewise, it is a foolish attempt to outline that vision without first understanding and acknowledging where my values lie in this life.
We did it all backwards. When we flipped our first priority to establishing our values as an organization, it was as if the fog lifted and our way forward was clear.
Understand the “why” before the “what” and “how”.
I don’t know if they’re still a “thing” as I’ve tried to avoid much of the online world since it’s become a series of echo chambers and memes shared by bots, but articulating a personal mission statement has been it used to be a general suggestion for people making or going through major changes in their lives. Changes such as the diagnosis of an incurable disease.
I might (or might not) have dabbled in one of these in my rehab psychotherapy days, when it all seemed too much at first. I don’t write that “may or may not” part lightly. A lot of those early days are “what’s too painful to remember, we just choose to forget” stuff.
However, if I were to attempt to write such a mission statement today, I would first start by evaluating the values part.
Understanding the “why” before trying to figure out the “what” and “how” seems obvious in hindsight. In the throes of battle, however, we may focus too intensely on the other two – particularly the what – without first doing soul searching to determine the underlying principles upon which we are building the new life we are attempting for ourselves and to define and develop our families.
The right words can have a lot of power
Living with MS and trying to embark on this new path can be difficult. It’s nice to have a few lines written on the fridge or bathroom mirror so we don’t stray too far from our intended path.
However, rather than a mission statement or vision, I think that having a few words to lean on about who I am (or at least aspire to be) might be more helpful as I pull up my pants, lace up my boots and head make this new way go.
Mission (and vision, but above all values) accomplished.
I wish you and your family the best of health.
Cheers,
Trevis
My book Cook interrupted is available on Amazon. follow me on the Life With MS Facebook page and further Twitterand keep reading Living with Multiple Sclerosis.