Many of us go through our lives without taking the time to focus on what is most important to us. Our lives can seem chaotic, overly busy and adrift. The key, however, to having a happy and successful life is finding out who you really want to be and what you really want to do, and then aligning that with your daily activities. One of the most important tools in achieving this is the personal mission statement.

You will not have time to accomplish everything and you can’t afford to waste your time on issues that don’t fulfill you or get you closer to accomplishing your long-term goals. If you take the time to craft a personal mission statement, you will always be able to refer back to it and make sure that you are still on track, still effectively using your time to become the person you want to be.

There is no single, ‘correct’ way of writing a personal mission statement. It can be as short as one sentence and you can revise it as often as you want. It often takes time to find the words for a statement that inspires and excites you.

The first step in leading a successful life is deciding what matters most to you. Ask yourself the following questions: What gives your life meaning? Who are you? Who do you want to become? What do you stand for? What matters deeply to you? Write down the answers to these questions. This is the story of your life, or the story of the life you want to have

Read more: http://realscreen.com/2010/10/01/biz3-20101001/#ixzz1W6PIxh8U

Professor Chris PalmerAuthor of Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom  (Sierra Club Books, 2010)Distinguished Film Producer in ResidenceDirector, Center for Environmental FilmmakingSchool of Communication, American Universitycell 202-716-6160; office 202-885-3408Center website: www.environmentalfilm.org SOC profile: http://www.american.edu/soc/faculty/palmer.cfm Shooting in the Wild on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/gOTUlc Shooting in the Wild website: http://bit.ly/a4L3LU Chris’s Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/#!/chrispalmer47 Follow me on Twitter @chrispalmer_au Chris’s blog: http://soc-palmer.blogs.american.edu/  President, One World One Ocean FoundationPresident, MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundationcpalmer@mffeducation.orgwww.mffeducation.org Chief Executive Officer, VideoTakes, Inc.chris@videotakes.comwww.videotakes.com