Who do you want to become? (3 min)
3 min read and 20+ min exercise. This article is part of Dare Be's Leadership Handbook, a guide to help people lead with impact and heart.
Greg in Patagonia in 2016 wondering who he wanted to become
How to define your roles and priorities
This article will help you establish your key roles and priorities. This will help you clarify the leader you want to become. This is one of the first key steps to lead with impact and heart. It will also help you allocate your time where it matters
This means knowing when to choose quality time over dinner with your wife instead of reading the news mindlessly. It means brainstorming with your leadership team on a future business solution instead of holding a stale monthly update. It could even mean prioritising time to rest instead of burning yourself out on more work.
We all play different roles in our lives
You can be the son, the wife, the father, the friend, the team leader, etc. For each of these roles, we hold different aspirations or priorities. They make our lives rich.
However, the more roles we play, the more likely they are to compete for our time and attention, and the more complex it becomes for us to make decisions that feel right.
When we are clear about our roles and priorities, it is far easier to establish what is truly important for us to accomplish in the next minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months. The clarity helps us plan around our priorities.
Would you rather be a leaf in the wind?
On the other hand, when we are not clear about our roles and priorities, we’re a bit like a leaf in the wind: an email calls our attention, and we spend an hour thinking about the best reply.
One tweet has the power to distract us and lead us down a rabbit hole of article links and argumentative comments. In the meantime, we never start the important project we meant to work on in the first place.
There will always be a set of urgent and unimportant tasks that scream for our attention, and it feels good to tick the boxes in our to-do list—even if these activities are unlikely to get you closer to your highest goals. Sound familiar?
I have definitely been there. When I was not clear about what I wanted to accomplish in the different areas of my life, I struggled to make decisions that felt right. Actually, looking back, I was not making decisions. Instead, other people and events were making decisions for me!
Be clear on ALL your key roles
While we may feel clear about our priorities for some of our key roles, we’re often unclear on the others. For example, you could be clear about your role as a leader, as a contributor to your leadership team, and as a friend, but you might be neglecting your role as a spouse.
It’s a bit like driving a car with a flat tire. The car will continue to drive, but it will damage the vehicle, and you’ll be in for a bumpy ride. Eventually you’ll have to put air in that tire to keep everything rolling smoothly!
Feel empowered and liberated!
By looking at all your key roles and clarifying your priorities for each of them, you make it possible to work with determination towards your true priorities. Doing so creates inner alignment and self-esteem, and it boosts your confidence.
So let’s get to business! Take 20-30 minutes to do the following exercise:
First, name 3-10 key roles that you play in your life (including the very important role of developing yourself).
Then rank them from the most to least important.
Finally, for each of the roles you’ve listed, write the answers to these questions:
What is important about this role? (It’s okay if answering this question leads you to change your initial ranking of importance!)
What does success look like for this role? How will you know that you are playing this role in the way that you aspire to?
Your North Star
Now that you know which roles are most important in your life and how you aspire to behave in each of them, you are ready to write your personal mission statement.
This mission statement will serve as your North Star. It will act as a reminder of how you want to be with yourself and others, and it will help you decide how to allocate your time, so that you can focus on activities that truly serve your priorities.
To do this, for each role, write down the attitudes and behaviours you have when you play this role successfully. Write each statement from the first person (“I”), in the present tense, and in an affirmative sentence.
For instance, for the role of father, one statement could be: “Every day I spend a few minutes chit chatting with each of my children. During these moments I actively listen to them.” As a manager it could be: “Every working day, I share my appreciation to people who have done a good job or have shown a useful attitude.”
Writing your sentences this way is important because you trick your brain into believing that you are already doing the things you’ve written down. Instead of thinking you “will” do these things, you behave as though these actions are already regular habits.
For instance, for the role of father, one statement could be: “Every day I spend a few minutes chit chatting with each of my children. During these moments I actively listen to them.” As a manager it could be: “Every working day, I share my appreciation to the people who have done a good job or have shown a useful attitude.”
Writing your sentences this way is important because you trick your brain into believing that you are already doing the things you’ve written down. Instead of thinking you “will” do these things, you behave as though these actions are already regular habits.
Bring your mission statement to life
Well done! You now have your personal mission statement. But how do you use it?
Ideally, you should make it highly visible. You could print it out and put it on a wall in your office. One of my coachees put it next to his monitor.
Personally, I keep my personal mission statement stored in my Notes app, and I read it most mornings.
You can also measure your days or weeks according to your mission statement, rating your “performance” against each sentence. If you choose to do this, stay kind to yourself. Nobody’s perfect. Remember that perfect is the enemy of good. Instead of noting whether or not you’ve completely achieved each of your ideal attitudes and behaviours, assess how much you have “tried your best” to behave according to your aspirations.
Finally, your personal mission statement should be a living document. Your aspirations will change, and your priorities will shift. Review your personal mission statement from time to time, and make sure that it still aligns with the person that you want to be.