My Personal Mission Statement
Since my first reading of “The 7 Habits” I’ve been possessed by the idea of creating my own personal mission statement. You know, that self-defined concise written expression of the purpose of one’s existence. And as it is obviously not the most trivial thing to do, I decided to approach it slowly and carefully.
First, I did a lot of reading on spiritual and personal development topics. In particular, following the chain of references by my favorite authors I discovered the works of Mahatma Gandhi and Dalai Lama which impressed me very deep and actually changed the way I see things in the world.
Then, little by little I started acquiring yet non-verbal feeling of what I definitely must reflect in my mission statement. The next step of choosing the right words was probably the most challenging one. To break it down I set up a couple of simple lists and over the course of several weeks had been accumulating items there. Among others, for example, I had the following lists:
- Qualities I want to possess throughout my life (e.g. calmness, integrity, kindness, etc.)
- Areas of life I want to focus on (e.g. family, friends, communities, work, etc.)
- What I want to do to myself (e.g. grow as a person, grow professionally, learn new skills, etc.)
- What I want to do to others (e.g. inspire, serve, make happy, etc.)
Self-Development Report 2009 and Goals 2010
The year 2009 is coming to an end. It’s hard to believe that it has been one whole decade since the millennium. The time does pass quickly and it’s true that the older we get the faster its pace seems to become. Caught in the minutiae of everyday life, we seldom get a chance to reflect on the big picture. That’s why New Year, being a tangible check point, gives us wonderful opportunity to think over what we’ve done during last year and set up our goals and resolutions for the next.
Described in one word, 2009 was the year of awareness for me. My sensation of life seems to have shaped itself to some definite and stable form. I was trying to spend every minute consciously, by doing good things that will have impact in a long run. During the year I gradually came the point where I feel ready to define my values and start developing my own personal mission statement (using Stephen Covey’s words). And even though I’m still thinking about exact wording, I know for sure that I want my life to be based on self-discipline, integrity, open-mindedness, non-complaining, and abundance mentality.
At this post I would like to report to my own self about the last year’s accomplishments along two different lines. First, I want to appraise how good I adhered to my plans and goals and then tell about the fascinating new things I experienced, learned and started during this year. Also I want to share some interesting personal statistics and of course, I’m going to set up some challenging and exciting goals for the year to come.
Vegetarianism in Practice
I’ve been longing to write a piece on vegetarianism ever since I decided to try it fifteen months ago. Up until this moment, however, I didn’t feel like I was into it for enough time to really appreciate the changes involved. Now that I have gathered a handful of observations I’d like to put those here, just for the record.
To give some background I shall tell how I end up becoming a vegetarian in the first place.
In July 2008, just after graduating from university I met the first real embodiment of vegetarianism in my life — Kate. She told me that it had been six years without meat for her and that she felt great about it. As we shared many common interests we soon made friends, and I became intrigued by this vegetarianism thing.
At that time my university hostel accommodation was expiring and I had to find a place to rent. I was not very successful in my searches, so Kate kindly suggested that I could take her apartment during the summer, while she would stay in her native town with parents. So I agreed.
When moving in I remember thinking “All right, while staying here I am not to bring into this home anything that is against its owner’s views. If I want meat I shall do it elsewhere”. It so happened that during next couple of weeks I didn’t go out, nor did I visit any friends. Having suddenly realized that I had spent half a month without meat and felt quite good I resolved to extend the period, now as a conscious experiment.
My friends and relatives immediately found out about my decision and started asking what the reason was. The only answer I had was “just curiosity”. It was indeed interesting to try something new and to remain for some time on the side of minority.
The Simplest Way to Conjugate Spanish Verbs
I came up with an elegant solution to conjugate a Spanish verb in seconds using Firefox. Here’s how.
As you maybe know there is a wonderful resource for learners of Spanish out there called SpanishDict. They have a section on the site where you can type in infinitive and get complete conjugation tables for any verb. This is not rarity on the web of course, but the format they have is particularly convenient and clear, at least for me.
To make things simple I use Firefox where I create a bookmark:
Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > New Bookmark
Then I enter following into the fields:
- Name: Conjugate Spanish Verb
- Location: http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/%s
- Keyword: con
Now all I have to do whenever I need to conjugate a Spanish verb in Firefox is following:
- Press Ctrl+T to open a new tab
- Type “con escribir” and voilà!
Perfect Order — The Keystone of Productivity
I love when things are in order. For me this is the necessary condition for any productivity. I sometimes think that my passion for order in everything is too strong and may even be considered by someone as a sort of paranoia. But it is not so. At least while it helps me be more efficient and agile.
There are people who think that order is the sign of boredom and it takes too much time to practice it, which otherwise might be spent on some fun activities. However, for me it is not true. I believe that keeping things in order isn’t time consuming. It may seem so in the beginning, until the habit is fully developed. But in a long run it actually helps to save a great deal of time. Also order doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be creativity. I for one cannot do anything creative when surrounded by clutter.
Here are some of the manifestations of order in my daily life:
- In my wallet I always have all the bills laying strictly face-up and sorted from the highest denomination to the lowest. It only takes a couple of seconds to arrange but it makes me much quicker when it comes to pay for something.
- On my bookshelf I have separate piles for English, Spanish and Russian books. Of course, this is more aesthetic than practical, but it encourages me to read when I have a free minute.
- In my wardrobe I have long-sleeve shirts on one side, short-sleeves on the other. I also have a separate corner in there for those shirts that I already wore once after last washing (usually I wear one shirt twice before washing it).
