What is your personal mission statement?

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 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 and its online and #codenewbie friendly

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

What is a personal mission statement?

According to Wikipedia:

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 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 (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)

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!