Writing Personal Vision Statements and Why It’s Important
Personal vision statements are helpful for keeping track of your long-term goals. It can also be a guiding factor to keeping you on track for your short-term goals. While they envelop several important aspects, personal vision statements are fairly short, averaging 30-50 words. More than that and you become too wordy or may lose your audience.
In the middle of a job hunt, you may ask why a vision statement is important to this journey. The answer is simple, personal vision statements help to keep track of your goals, both long-term and short-term. It showcases everything about you, including your own goals, values, and skills. It can be for personal, or professional development. Though they are most commonly found on resumes, personal vision statements can live in a number of places. These include places such as a blog, your professional networking profiles, or your own personal planner or journal. They do not have to be public statements, but they are always welcome publicly.
Importance
Personal vision statements often serve as a sense of direction, like a compass through stressful times. When you lose sight of what you are searching for or working towards, a personal vision statement can help orient you back to the goals you previously set. They can serve as an agent of accountability and can aid in decision-making for difficult points in life. For the job hunt, it gives a clear and easy outline of what kind of employee a potential employer is getting. For personal use, the vision statement will be a constant reminder of who you are now, and who you are striving to be.
How to Write a Personal Vision Statement
-
Plan It
The planning phase of writing a personal vision statement involves brainstorming your values, skills, goals, and what you want to see from yourself and the world around you. Since this is just the brainstorming process, you don’t have to worry about keeping it short and simple, that’s what the editing process is for. At this point, you are strictly working on getting your ideas from your brain to your paper.
-
Edit
The long thought process above needs to be trimmed down to about 30-40 words, about one paragraph long. It is important to have not only a stern eye when editing but an unbiased eye as well, which can be difficult. You have to try and separate yourself from the writing itself, and put on your editing cap to make it as wonderfully written as possible. Bonus points if you send it to a friend or colleague you trust.
-
Continue to Look Back
Once you have written your personal vision statement, and are happy with it, you can apply it to all aspect that it is needed. The important part of this step is to continue to look back at it whenever you need guidance, or just as an everyday reminder of why you are doing what you are doing, and what your goal is for the journey you are currently on.
-
Change as Needed
Life doesn’t always stay the same, so your personal vision statement doesn’t have to either. When your journey changes it is absolutely within your prerogative to also change your statement too. After all, it is yours. The personal vision statement of a fresh college graduate may be quite different from someone who has been in their field for 25 years.
Wrap Up
Now that you know how to write a personal vision statement, you can begin crafting your own. No matter what journey you are taking part in today, you will be able to look back on your vision statement for guidance and decision-making because your goals and values will be in one place.
