I didn’t earn my Bachelor Degree the traditional way. I took classes at an off campus satellite school where professors came to the students and we were able to continue to work our full time jobs; we were non-traditional students. The following was written not because I wanted but because it was an assignment for a grade. I received an A!

Personal Mission Statement

I value my family the most over all things, which includes my husband, children, parents and all other extended family. I value them because of the love they have for me. I want to be my best for them.

I want to be remembered for the accomplishments in my life such as leading a happy life, with a loving relationship with my husband, three healthy, well taken care of daughters, and being a Christian person who set a good example. These are roles in my life that I am proud of and work hard to do a good job.

My role as a teacher to the teens at church is challenging but joyful. I will continue to be open with the teens and offer them what I can. I need to remember to be one “with” them and not one “of” them. I also need to find the best way to touch them with the spirit. I cannot take the job too personally and need not to feel responsible for the actions and choices of the teens. I can only share the knowledge that I have with the best of my ability.

I will continue to keep my extended family and friends close to me by writing letters. This gives me a sense of myself by putting the words of my life on paper, and helps me find out about myself by reading how others see me. Writing letters is my own form of therapy, because I am able to come to many conclusions in my life by writing out what is going on in my life on paper.

I want my three girls to look at me and see a good mother. I want to teach them how to choose what is right and wrong, to have a healthy self-esteem, and to learn the value of unconditional love.

I want to give my parents back all of the tremendous gifts that they have given to me.

I want to continue to have a place to call home. Regardless of the location of the place, whether homeless sleeping in the streets, or in a million dollar mansion, I want to always feel as if I am home with my family around me.

In this module we have had to do some odd activities. Included in these were the three exercises we participated in to help prepare for the personal mission statements: writing our own obituary, listing our goals in the roles we play in our lives, and looking into the future. The purpose of these exercises was to give each student some research to help them write. They enable the students to think about their lives and to find out what we really find important in our lives.

I personally found writing my own obituary silly. My family, friends, and co-workers are very open with how they see me. I am also very aware of giving and taking in relationships, so I am often giving. I firmly believe in the motto: Treat others, as you want to be treated. Living with that motto, I know what people would say about me at my funeral.

I tell my husband often that I wear more hats than he does, meaning that I have many more roles in life than he does. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a co-worker, a student, a classmate, and a teacher. Within each of these roles, I play many other parts too. I am continuously struggling to decide which hat I will start the day off with and which ones I will be trying on before the days complete. Listing the goals for each role was not a new activity for me. I start each week with a similar list in my head and review each day my successes and failures with each roles goal.

The final activity of looking into the future made me realize that I am a very “in the now” kind of person. I cannot visualize past the beginning of the new school year for my children in August. I will be turning thirty in the year 2002 and as far as where I will be at that time; my goal is wherever my family will be.