Dear Souls & Hearts Member,
It’s been a long time coming.
More than a year ago, in the seminal reflection on July 22, 2024, I opened this series on personal vision, values, and mission statements. And, naïvely, I thought I would wrap it up in about four or five further reflections, I would bang out my own personal vision, values, and mission statements, and be done, bada bing, bada boom. Like that.
It didn’t happen like that.
There was a lot of prep work to do. For me and to be able to offer a thoughtful series to you.
But in the beginning, things started out fast. My original personal vision statement came in a flash. It was so easy, so clear. I did revise it later (see here).
My personal values statement took more time, discernment, reflection, prayer, but it still came relatively easily.
So I thought my personal mission statement wouldn’t be hard to write.
Nope.
I’ve been playing Exploding Kittens with my kids lately, and it was like a big “Nope” card was played on my attempts to write my own personal mission statement.
Image by Brett Jordan from Flickr, used by permission via CC BY 2.0
The truth is that it has taken me more than six months to get into a position to write in my personal mission statement.
Why did it take so long to write a personal mission statement?
Let’s remember what a mission statement is. In my original July 22, 2024 reflection titled Your Vision, Mission, and Values, I defined a mission statement:
“A mission statement differs considerably from a vision statement. Instead of focusing on who you will become and be with (your end state), the mission focuses on your means to get there – the how of becoming your envisioned future you, a you in relationship with God.
Your mission statement focuses not on the future (like your vision statement does), but rather on the present, what you are called to do now to realize your future vision. Mission statements that are clear and precise lay out guidance for how to follow the star – they are your maps and compass.”
Part of the challenge of writing a personal mission statement is keeping it short, short enough so that it can be easily remembered, even under stress. In my February 10, 2025 reflection titled Writing Your Personal Mission Statement, I critiqued Steven Covey’s personal mission statement is being way too long. Part of the inclination toward long mission statements is that different parts each want something to be included, and it can be difficult to get buy-in from all parts on a shorter statement. Why?
Because parts each have an agenda, and parts believe that it would be a wonderful thing if their agendas could be enshrined in one’s mission statement.
Remember, a mission statement lays out the how, the doing that draws us closer to the state of being laid out in our person vision statements. And parts not in right relationship with the innermost self tend to be heavily focused on doing rather than being. (As an aside, I discussed doing vs. being in my July 28 reflection titled Doing Flowing from “Being With,” Grounded in Identity.)
So it took me some time, working with my parts to get to the point where I could gather enough consensus. In addition, I realized that the process of writing a personal mission statement wasn’t as important, if not more important, then the actual product, the mission statement itself. Many important discoveries presented themselves to me along the way. So, I took my time.
The process of writing my personal mission statement
In my reflection titled Your Personal Mission Statement: Who, What, Where, When, and Why? I laid out some basic themes to consider in writing a personal mission statement. They why was addressed in that reflection, and the what and how in Writing Your Personal Mission Statement.
Who?
So I started with the theme of who. If I am to become love, with whom do I start?
I decided to start with God and me. Our relationship. That was primary.
Second, I recall how my spiritual director told me a few months ago in my case, “Your family life is the barometer of your spiritual life.” So in considering becoming love to my neighbor, I thought of my neighbors. My nearest neighbors are Pam (my wife) and my children. Those are the most central relationships, the ones in which no one can easily replace me or my love.
Originally, I included a lot of other relationships, like my parents, my sisters, my grandchildren, my friends, my clients, the RCC and FFF members in Souls and Hearts, etc., but I decided I really needed to focus in on the fewest, most important relationship for my mission statement, because if these are not ordered, the rest of my relational life, the rest of the loving with others is unlikely to be ordered.
So for the who, it was God, me, Pam, and my seven children.
But in going deeper into question of Who, I considered parts. My parts, Pam’s parts, and the parts of each of the kids. To love God more fully, with all my being (as noted below in my vision statement), that would include all my parts. And as I discussed and wrote in this “The One Inside” podcast episode, and in this reflection:
“When you understand your parts better and how your parts interact within yourself and are better integrated, you are much better equipped to understand others. Why?
For two main reasons.
- First, you are much less likely to project something that is going on inside yourself on to the other person (which is very common).
- Second, your parts can help you understand their counterparts in the other person – the counterparts are the parts that are similar in some way to the part of you. For example, if you are in touch with a self-denigrating part of yourself who criticizes yourself and that part is in right relationship with your innermost self, that self-denigrating part of you can help you understand the self-denigrating part of another person.”
And as I questioned with Mike and Alicia Hernon in this Messy Family Podcast episode titled How to Love Your Family, Catholic spouses generally know a lot about their spouses, but do they really know their spouses well? Do they see their spouses in their true, God-give identities as His beloved little sons and daugthers?
When?
As I noted in Your Personal Mission Statement: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?, the when of a mission statement is now. The present time. So I needed to reflect on how I need to become love in my relationship with God, myself, Pam, and my children right now. Not a year from now, right now. Today. This week. This month.
Because mission statements are about the means to be used right now to pursue your vision, mission statements will likely need to change to adjust to different life circumstances. But I needed to think about right now.
The 14 steps of writing my personal mission statement
I listed and discussed these 14 steps in Writing Your Personal Mission Statement:
- Pray for wisdom and guidance
- Connect with your parts
- Review your personal vision statement
- Review your personal values statement
- Write down your vocation and your duties of state
- Write down a list of your closest relationships
- Write down a list of your key roles
- Reconnect with your parts
- Use a template to write a first draft
- Check in with how the current draft lands with your parts
- Bring the current draft to God in prayer
- Practice living your mission statement draft
- Share your mission statement
- Go through these steps again to revise your personal mission statement.
I spent time on many occasions on steps 1 and 2. Step 3, my personal vision statement is: I will become love in union with God, in all my being, in every moment.
Step 4, my values statement (from the reflection I Share My Values Statement) is as follows:
Dear Lord, I value:
- Partaking of Your divine nature – Divinization/deification
- Loving my neighbor with all of me
- Interior integration
- Trusting in Your Providence – ROTATE the PIECES
- Drinking in the PHOD-CA (where PHOD-CA) stands for
- Patience
- Humility
- Obedience
- Docility
- Confidence in God
- Abandonment to God
- Caring for my body as Your temple, Holy Spirit
- Joy, peace, and play
So for Step 5: My vocation is to be a husband to Pam and a father to my children, and my duties of state are to love them, lived out through sacrifice for them, protecting them, providing for them, and being with them in a way that brings us all in closer relationship with God.
That’s it.
What was striking to my parts in the process of this step is how much time I think about other people and other things. My clients, my friends, Souls and Hearts, the Resilient Catholics Community, the Formation for Formators Community, our homestead, books I am reading, hobbies, and so many other things.
In this step, I learned I had to get back to the question “Who is my neighbor” and zero in on those closest to me. Charity begins at home. As a psychologist, I’ve seen so many people so highly accomplished in so many areas, but who paid a steep price from turning their attention away from their primary vocations and their nearest neighbors. And I get it, especially as now some people consider me a teeny-tiny fledging little “Catholic influencer.” That can be heady stuff.
For me, Step 6 was subsumed in Step 5.
Step 7 was initially easy – I’m a beloved son of God, a husband and father. But as I thought about it more, it came to me that if I am to be love in these relationships, I need to think about the love languages of Pam and each of my children.
And not only considering the love language of Pam and each son or daughter, but getting deeper into the love languages of each of their parts as I discussed in these reflections on: touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, and service.
And then, thinking about what people in general, and what my wife and children need specifically, I considered the three legs of the Stool of Security and Stability. I realized I need to deliberately and regularly consider attachment needs, integrity needs, and identity issues in loving Pam and my children.
In my reflection titled Catholic Personal Vision Statements, Revisited, I shared with you a summary of the conversation my parts had inside about the drafting and revision of my personal vision statement. The process for drafting my personal mission statement was similar in some ways, but much lengthier and more complex, and I won’t try to reproduce that here.
Drafting my personal mission statement
In beginning to write my mission statement, I know I didn’t want a list of goals, but rather, I wanted to focus on habits and processes, as I discussed in the reflection titled Doing via Goals, Habits, and Virtues. So I focused on the processes and habits that would deepen my love for Pam and the kids.
I also considered what I am already doing. I have seven children, and for years, I have prayed in a special way a particular child on each of the seven days of the week. So I knew I could build on that. And since the children were little, Pam and I offered each child each day 5-10 minutes of special, individual time, which we called “snippets,” which were very popular with the little ones.
So with all of that, I reconnected with my parts (Step 8) and considered a template for a mission statement (Step 9) which is as follows:
I will [process action] for [my close relationships] by [specific means] to [desired outcome for neighbor / offering to God / moving toward the vision].
So here was my first attempt at writing a personal mission:
I will deliberately check in with each of my parts each day, specifically on how that part is doing in my relationship with God, and identify, write down, and resolve to do one right next step to bring my entire system closer in union with Him (Who is Love) today.
I will deliberately pray for and either journal or parts map about my relationship with Pam each day and each of my children on his or her day of the week, considering their parts’ attachment needs, integrity needs, and identity issues and write down and resolve to do at least one deliberate act of love attuned to their parts’ love languages that day to better connect with them in love and convey a sense of delight in and appreciation for them.
This is where I am starting. My Evaluator parts thinks the statement is long, but the components of it are easy for me to remember. My Collaborator parts wonders if it is a lot to bite off all at one time. We will see. My Adventure part likes it, seeing it as an adventure; my Lover part loves it.
My system agrees that we can make a lot of mistakes in trying this out; the bigger mistake would be not to try it. So there is permission inside of me to refine and tune this statement and to fail at times.
On her RCC retreat last month, Pam had a breakthrough in her parts work and 10 of her parts revealed their names to her and who they were much more clearly than ever before, so it is easier to connect with Pam in a parts-informed way than before. And I will work on inferring parts of my children if parts are not clear.
Step 10 is looking at how this draft lands with my parts – and it’s pretty good, but like my personal vision statement, I am sure we will tweak the draft to make it clearer and better. I will bring it to prayer for ongoing discernment (Step 11) and start practicing it now, today (Step 12).
I am sharing it with you and my spiritual director (Step 13) and in a month, maybe sooner, after some experience with it, I will consider revisions (Step 14).
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New daily podcast from Souls and Hearts launched today: Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts
Scripture for You Inner Outcasts is a daily podcast where Souls and Hearts members bring Jesus’ ministry inside, to all parts of us. Just as Jesus reaches out to the outcasts of society, we reach out to your inner outcasts– the parts of you that feel unworthy or unlovable. Join us in seeing Scripture through a new lens, coming alive for those parts of you that may have experienced spiritual neglect and need healing. This podcast aims to help listeners integrate inside, heal from emotional burdens, and grow to flourish in accepting being loved and loving yourself in an ordered way. Each day we reflect on a verse from Sacred Scripture taken from the daily Catholic Mass readings. All informed by Internal Family Systems and other parts work approaches, and all firmly grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person.
This podcast speaks directly to your exiles, via direct access and it’s the only one I know that brings together IFS and Christianity.
Check it out on YouTube or wherever your listen to your podcasts. The RSS feed is here.
In today’s episode, on September 8 for the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, I explore Romans 8:28 from the first reading of the Mass: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Our parts can be very out of touch with this reality. We may know this is true intellectually, but not experientially, across our parts. Let’s check out how this verse lands with our parts.
If it resonates with you, please “like” it, subscribe to it on YouTube, read and review it on Apple podcasts, and share it with those you think might benefit.
IIC 173 Aristotle and Aquinas on Proper Self-Love released
IIC episode 173 titled Aristotle and Aquinas on Proper Self-Love (105 minutes, Video Audio) was released last week. In it, Catholic philosopher Anthony Flood and Catholic psychologist Eric Gudan join me as we explore love in Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. How do we love with the three loves in the two Great Commandments? And what are the relationships among love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self? We address flourishing, friendship, virtues, interior integration, inner unity, union with others, trauma, healing, selfishness, humility, magnanimity, where to find truth, and so much more, all through a Thomistic lens. Join us!
Are you going to the IFS conference September 18-20 in St. Charles, IL?
For any who might be going to the Internal Family Systems Conference in St. Charles, IL from September 18-20 and would like to gather for preparations, connections, prayer, support, and debriefing, let me know and we’ll get organized. I’ve blocked time off Thursday, September 18 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM and Saturday, September 20 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM as Souls and Hearts sponsored gathering times. Our activities during these time will flex, depending on our needs, but likely will include some prayer, some demos, experiential exercises, and debriefing with our parts about the IFS Conference (which can to and often does move away from a Catholic anthropology). The specific meeting places are TBD.
If you are attending the IFS Conference in person and interested in connecting “in real life” in St. Charles, text me on my cell at 317.567.9594. We will probably set up a WhatsApp group for communicating. I’m hoping to see at least of a few of you there!
Countdown to the Resilient Catholic Community reopening to new members
It’s coming! We are only about three weeks away from reopening the Resilient Catholics Community to new applications for the St. Kateri Tekakwitha cohort.
Join Dr. Peter, Bridget Adams and David Saunders for a live information meeting about the Resilient Catholics Community for those considering joining us. Learn how to apply for the St. Kateri cohort and ask any questions you may have about the application process, the PartsFinder Pro and community membership. Join us on Tuesday evening, September 30 from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Here is the link to register. If you can’t make it, we’ll post a recording here the following day.
Nearly 400 faithful Catholics are journeying together in this human formation adventure, learning how to love self, God, and others more fully and in a healthy, integrated way.
Last call for fall Foundations Experiential Groups (FEGs)
If you are a Catholic spiritual director, Catholic therapist, Catholic coach, or someone else responsible for the formation of others, our fall programs have officially begun. If you are interested in your own personal human formation and in Internal Family Systems, consider joining Souls and Hearts’ Formation for Formators (FFF) Community.
In the FFF, you have an opportunity to work on your personal human formation in a small group setting for five months. Dr. Peter Martin’s FEG begins this coming Wednesday, Sept. 10, from 6:15 PM to 7:45 PM Eastern, and Abby Roos’ starts on Friday, Sept. 12, from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM Eastern. Each group has a couple of spots remaining open. Find out more and register here.