What is your personal mission statement?
Tags: essays, programming, beginners, discuss
Published: 2020-07-22 10:54:40

---
title: What is your personal mission statement?
published: true
description: Kicking off a series of "essays in learning" sharing stories, insights and introspection on work, life and tech.
series: "Personal Essays on Tech & Community"
tags: essays, programming, beginners, discuss
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/cpzz1ndn3y7f6ftpnrbu.png
---

_I'm using the #essays tag to start writing a series of posts on thoughts, insights and stories from a long tech career. I hope you share yours too_

### A Time For Self-Assessment!

[Codeland Conf](https://codelandconf.com/) is happening this week (starting tomorrow!!) and I am excited. If you have not been to this conference before, I hugely recommend it. [It's free to attend](https://codelandconf.com/#tickets) and its online and #codenewbie friendly

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It also happens in July - a perfect time for introspection!

We are halfway through 2020 and the timing was right to revisit something that has weighed on my mind lately: _a personal mission statement_

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### What is a personal mission statement?

According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_statement):

> The purpose of a mission statement is to communicate the organization's purpose and direction to its employees, customers, vendors, and other stakeholders. A mission statement also creates a sense of identity for its employees

But how does this apply to our personal and professional journey?

In her fantastic [thesis on managing representation in a digital world] (https://smg.media.mit.edu/people/danah/thesis/) Danah Boyd talks about _faceted identity_. We are multi-faceted human beings and oftentimes (particularly on social media) we are often seen through the lens of a single facet, leading to conflicts or misconceptions that fail to see and understand the whole person and their journey.

We need a way to unify & control our identity and representation.

A personal mission statement can do that. Think of yourself as a "startup" with a purpose, a brand, resources (your skills) and a growing customer base (people you engage with). And get started!


### How do I write a mission statement?

There is no right or wrong way in my opinion. 

This [career advice post](https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/personal-mission-statement-examples) (on Indeed) had 30 examples to provide inspiration. I also liked their definition of personal mission statement:

> A personal mission statement is a statement that defines your values, who you are on how you define success

Here is mine. I pinned it to my Twitter profile (and I recommend you do the same for yours)

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### Discussion

So if you are starting your coding journey this year - or if you have been coding for years - I want you to take a minute and think about this question:

> *"What is my personal mission statement?"*

Share your statements in the comments, and if you post them on Twitter do tag me (@nitya) and I would love to read and amplify them!