Page 89 - Keys To Community College Success

WORK IT Build Your Brand

Explore Career Goals through Personal Mission

21 Century Learning Building Blocks
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■ Initiative and self-direction
■ Creativity and innovation
■ Productivity and accountability

No matter what employment goals you ultimately pursue, a successful career should be grounded
in your personal mission in one or more ways.
First, write a draft of your personal mission. Refer to the section on page 30 to remind your-
self of the elements of a personal mission statement. Use the following scenarios and questions
to get you thinking about your mission.
1. You are at your retirement dinner. You have had an esteemed career in your chosen f eld.
Your best friend stands up and talks about the f ve aspects of your character that have taken
you to the top. What do you think they are?
2. You are preparing for a late-in-life job change. Updating your résumé, you need to list your
contributions and achievements. What would you like them to be?
3. You have been told that you have one year to live. With family or close friends, you talk about
the values that mean the most to you. Based on that discussion, how do you want to spend
your time in this last year? What choices ref ect what is most important to you?
After you have a personal mission statement to provide vision and motivation, take some
time to think more specifically about your working life. Spend 15 minutes thinking about
everything that you wish you could be, do, have, or experience in your career 10 years from
now—skills you want to have, money you want to earn, benefits, things you want to experi-
ence, travel you want to do, anything you can think of. Depict your wishes by listing them, Values, Goals, and Time
drawing them, cutting out images from magazines, or combining any of these ideas—whatever
you like best.
Now, group your wishes in order of priority. Take three pieces of paper and label them:
Priority 1, Priority 2, and Priority 3. Put each wish on the paper where it belongs, according
to its priority (1 = high importance, 2 = medium importance, and 3 = low importance).
Look at the wishes on your priority lists. What do they tell you about what is most
important to you? What fits into your personal mission and what doesn’t? Identify those
wishes that don’t seem to have anything to do with your personal mission and cross them out.
Circle or highlight three high-priority wishes that do mesh with your personal mission. For
each wish, write down one action step you could take in the near future to make that wish
come true.
You may want to look back at these materials at the end of the term to see what changes
may have taken place in your priorities.

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