Create A Mission Statement
It’s important to conceptualize your goals. A mission statement can provide a crystal clear idea of what you want to accomplish. It’s a concise, important “letter of intent” that helps define your goals and can even show you the path to reach them.
A mission statement forms the very essence of your operation; more than a business plan, a central mission can be the guiding hand that directs your every decision; it creates a living foundation and basis for all your actions.
Just as a seed takes root and develops into its predetermined life form, a mission statement will help shape your core philosophy and set your goals and business strategy upon a path having a greater potential for success. Without a significant, well-defined vision, you’ll likely attain only limited, random results.
A Powerful Advantage
Too few people realize the dynamics of visualization, though it’s a powerful tool you can easily utilize. A well thought out and properly written mission statement can enable you to quickly bridge the gap between your vision and the steps needed to actualize your goal.
A thought must precede anything that’s to be accomplished or created. Your mission statement will provide you with an ultimate purpose inside your goal and make manifest that connection between dream and reality.
An effective mission statement is about one sentence long, so simple that a 10 year old can understand it and easy enough to remember even under gun point. Don’t diminish its effectiveness by making it overly complex or lengthy.
Although it may be your most difficult task, a mission statement is crucial. Avoid statements such as, “Make A Lot of Money”, “Become a Millionaire and Retire Early”, “Develop A World Famous Dental Practice”, or other self-centered goals; there must be more substance. Think win-win.
Get Ideas
Brainstorm multiple ideas with family, friends and colleagues. Ask yourself, how will (or can) my website, or my business model help other people?
Your services must provide a needed benefit or you wouldn’t be a dentist, right? In effect, even if you were only providing free information, your mission could be: “Offer quality stuff in a way that will provide great benefit to other people — and to myself, simultaneously.”
Effortless Decisions
Whether for your dental practice, your website, your marketing plan, or even your personal life, a mission statement will clarify your purpose and give meaning to your actions. After it’s established (hopefully based on a win-win philosophy), it will represent the fountainhead, the core source of your business purpose. Once defined, all your decisions will flow effortlessly from it.
Write it down and keep it posted where you can see it and make sure everyone within your organization knows the company’s mission well. Repeat it frequently too while visualizing the successful conclusion of your endeavor.
Who It Addresses
The mission statement speaks to you — to your heart — it’s about helping other people — in a way that will naturally return benefit to you in kind. If we truly care about our fellow humankind and look for ways to enrich their lives, we have, in fact, helped ourselves.
Think about adopting a mission statement as if it were written by your patients themselves. What would they say? What do they want and need?
Once the mission is in your mind’s eye, the only things remaining to accomplish your goal are creating the steps to get there and the measured persistence of following through.
John
