A young man once asked the Rebbe for advice regarding his future.

The Rebbe suggested that he remain in a yeshivah environment for the time being, where he could further his studies, develop his character, and explore his purpose in life.

Respectfully, the young man asked the Rebbe for the reasoning behind his advice.

The Rebbe responded by giving the young man a pencil and asking him to draw a perfect circle.

After attempting and failing to do so, the young man quipped that it simply wasn’t possible.

“What would it take to draw a perfect circle?” the Rebbe asked.

The young man replied, “a drawing compass.”

Opening his drawer, the Rebbe gave the young man a compass, which helped the young man complete the task.

The Rebbe asked, “How did the compass help you draw a perfect circle?”

The man replied, “The compass’ needle provided the focal point and fixed center for the circle.”

The Rebbe said: “The same is true with life. All the knowledge and experience we accumulate throughout our lifetime, all of our activities and endeavors are the circles we draw. We may draw many circles. But a person must have a center—a clear and cohesive purpose around which all of their knowledge and activities orbit. Without a focal point, without a mission, the circles in one’s life will be jagged and incomplete.”

The Rebbe concluded: “I see that at this point in your life, your center isn’t yet defined, and I therefore suggest that you first stabilize your center before drawing your circles.”1

As discussed in previous chapters, tangential distractions and conflicting opportunities are so abundant in the course of life that our own unique, Divine mission can get lost in the fray. Indeed, success in any area of life demands discipline, focus, commitment, and careful planning. But where do we begin? How do we ensure that our Divinely-entrusted hopes, dreams, ambitions, and aspirations manifest and come to fruition?

Whether for companies, organizations, or individuals, the first step is to craft a clear and compelling statement of purpose—in other words: a mission statement.

Know Your Role

You may have heard of, or even helped work on, a mission statement if you are involved in the world of business or social entrepreneurship. These brief statements serve to articulate the ultimate purpose of a company and to guide its executives, employees, and partners toward fulfilling its chosen ends.

For example, Disney’s mission statement is: To entertain, inform, and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling.

Disney’s mission contains several essential components.

What they hope to accomplish: Entertain, inform, and inspire.

Who they aim to serve: People around the globe.

How they do it: Through the power of unparalleled storytelling.

This statement is the articulated purpose of Disney, its raison d’être, which helps guide every executive and more than two hundred thousand employees as they go about fulfilling the company’s mission in their own unique way, using their particular set of skills, in their area of the workplace, at their level of influence. Though each individual contributes something unique to the effort, the ultimate goal and impact of those many efforts emerges from a single, carefully crafted statement of purpose.

Similarly, humanity as a whole has its own meta-mission in which we all play a critical and irreplaceable role. As elucidated in Chapter 2, Jewish tradition tells us that at the beginning of creation, sparks of G‑d’s essence were scattered and hidden throughout our world so they could be sought out, redeemed, and reunited by humankind. In this way, we become G‑d’s collaborative partners in the sacred work of unveiling the true, underlying oneness of creation and revealing G‑d’s unified presence on earth. And while this general mission is given to every human being, its implementation is unique for every individual. In other words: You may share a common goal with all of humanity, but your role in this Divine drama, and the mission that defines it, is yours and yours alone.

Mapping Your Mission

What follows is a brief guide to crafting your own mission statement in the hope that it will provide you with an anchor in the storm, something to refer back to as you navigate the transitions and complexities of life. In a few simple steps, you will crystallize your purpose in a statement that will become the axis from which all of your endeavors radiate, providing direction for all of the tools and resources you’ve been given to work toward the Divine purpose for which you were placed on this earth.

The following exercise will help you discern and distill the many options and opportunities on offer in today’s world and identify those that are uniquely yours by Divine design. No one in all of creation can complete the tasks for which you were created, and your mission statement should be as unique as you are.

For example, it is common to reply to the question of “What is your mission in life?” with vague statements of sweeping ambition, such as, “I want to change the world,” or “I want to inspire humanity.”

However admirable and beautiful these ambitions may be, they leave out perhaps the most important aspect of any personal mission statement—the uniqueness of the person making it.

Anyone can aspire to make a difference in the world. But your true mission is one of a kind. If your general mission is to “change the world,” for example, what follows will help you discover what makes your contribution to changing the world unique.

In the first portion of this exercise, you will explore through writing five providentially orchestrated aspects of your life: personality traits, talents, people, places, and opportunities. Clarifying and codifying these fundamental aspects will help you craft a mission statement as unique as you are.

You will need either pen and paper or a digital device.

1. Personality: You were created and blessed with a unique personality comprising specific characteristics, passions, quirks, and interests. Are you sensitive, smart, strong, and/or sagacious? Perhaps you are methodical and rational. Or maybe you are spontaneous and rely on your intuition. Perhaps you are adventurous and fiercely independent. You may be an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert. Are you passionate about the environment, education, art, spirituality, or human rights? Whatever the particulars, every aspect of your personality is a signal that can help point you toward your unique mission. An empathic and caring nature means you are uniquely empowered to provide comfort and healing to those around you. If you are born with an ambitious, industrious, and calculating nature, perhaps you are suited for business or organizational development. If you are ideological, charismatic, and inclined toward leadership, perhaps you are suited for public office or communal service. Take a moment to reflect and write down two or three fundamental aspects of your personality that might play a part in defining your mission.

2. Talent: Your natural gifts and talents can be mobilized and expressed as part of your sacred purpose. You may be a painter, a tech whiz, or an athlete, or you may have a talent for public speaking. Do you have a great memory and a gift for articulating complex ideas? You may be well suited for a life in academia. Are you a good listener? This might position you to thrive as a counselor, for example. Take time to assess and write down two or three natural talents that could be put to use in service of your mission.

3. People: The people in your life—whether they be family, friends, or strangers who cross your path—all carry sparks of G‑dliness that relate to crucial aspects of your mission. They may need help that only you can provide, or vice versa. They may challenge you in ways that bring out your greatest strengths or help you grow. They may have a lesson or some critical information that will help you discover new aspects of your purpose. Think of the people in your life and write down a few individuals or groups of people whom you are positioned to influence for the good.

4. Place: The places you find yourself throughout life contain sparks that are waiting to be redeemed by you. Indeed, G‑d directs you to those very places because the elevation of those specific sparks is essential to your mission. It may seem counterintuitive to consider where you are right now while deciding where you want to go in the future. But your own unique place—your neighborhood, community, school, or place of employment, for example—contains fundamental indicators of your mission. These places each contain their own sparks, needs, and possibilities. Wherever you find yourself, you are there because there is a Divine purpose waiting for you. Take time to think about and write down two or three places that are central to your life.

5. Opportunities: The field of your life is seeded with myriad Divinely orchestrated opportunities for making a meaningful impact. Your work in the world preps the soil of your soul for all kinds of possibilities to elevate sparks awaiting activation in various projects or in the lives of the people with whom you work. Your neighborhood or community may present opportunities to build coalitions or improve the lives of your neighbors. Even a seemingly random trip to the corner grocer positions you to reveal G‑dliness along the way—a kindness to bestow or an encounter with someone who needs your help. Every step and every circumstance that presents itself contains sparks waiting to be revealed and elevated. Take some time to identify and write down at least two significant opportunities to serve that currently exist in your life.

At this point, you may discover that the rough contours of a mission have begun to emerge from the assembled sparks of your life. Give yourself time to reflect on these components and consider how they might coalesce into your sacred mission. You may want to pause and digest what you have learned about yourself so far. Take the time you need. When you are ready, move on to the final step of this exercise, which will guide you in weaving these elements together into a brief statement summarizing your mission.

A Powerful Statement

Working with the template below, plug in the different opportunities, personality traits, talents, places, and people that you wrote down in the previous stage. This will become the first draft of your personal mission statement. It may be helpful to first refer to the examples that follow as you construct your own mission statement.

My soul was selected by G‑d and given a portion of the world that is mine to elevate and illuminate. I awake each morning knowing that my _______________________________ [personality] and my ____________________________________ [talent] can bring benefit to _______________________________ [place/s] _____________________________________ by achieving __________________________________ [the desired impact] for ____________________________________ [the people in your life], thereby channeling my __________________________________ [opportunity] for the greater good.

*Example: My soul was selected by G‑d and given a portion of the world that is mine to elevate and illuminate. I awake each morning knowing that my love for people [personality] and my consensus building skills [talent] can bring benefit to my neighborhood [place] through building community solidarity. This empowers neighborhood improvement programs [impact], which enhance the lives of the people in my community [people], thereby channeling my influence as a community leader [opportunity] for the greater good.

*Example 2: My soul was selected by G‑d and given a portion of the world that is mine to elevate and illuminate. I awake each morning knowing that my passion to care for those in need [personality] and my talents for cooking and community organizing [talents] will help me provide company, comfort, and sustenance [impact] by hosting cooking classes at the nearby community center [place], thereby channeling and elevating my connection with my elderly neighbors [opportunity].

Using the template above, fill in the fields with the corresponding words from the previous portion of the exercise. If something needs to be adjusted or changed, feel free to tinker with the statement until it feels right.

When you have finished writing out your draft mission statement, sit with it, read it out loud, and note how it feels when you have put it all together. If you have someone nearby and are so inclined, read it to them and note how it feels when you say it out loud and share it with someone else.

Once you have a statement that deeply resonates, write it down and place it somewhere conspicuous so you can regularly refer to it until it becomes second nature. If your mission is broad, as in the first example above, it may be useful to try applying the statement to the specific circumstances that arise throughout your day.

Testing your statement in the field, as it were, may help you discover ways that your statement requires adjustment or embellishment. That is to be expected. Mission statements and the missions they refer to are alive, and they often change over time, depending on the shifting course and circumstances of your life. As with life, mission statements are always open to revision, adjustment, and improvement.

That Reminds Me…

Once you have a mission statement and have begun to actualize it in your day-to-day life, it is essential to be reminded of it regularly. Knowing and being constantly conscious of your why will help shape and inform the what and how of your life’s work, and it will help you remain focused amid the perpetual distractions and demands of daily life.

As Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once observed:

“Timothy Ferris, compiler of the book Tribe of Mentors, once asked me an interesting question: ‘When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?’

“I told him that just before I became chief rabbi…I realized that the sheer pressure of unexpected happenings, especially when you are in public life, can blow anyone off course…

“So it became clear to me that I had to set out my objectives in advance, in such a way as to ensure I would never forget or be distracted from them.”

At the time, which was before the era of iPads and smartphones, Sacks decided to put a list of his greatest goals on the first page of his daily organizer/diary.

“This meant that I saw them every time I looked in my diary. I was reminded of them several times daily.

“I still have them, and they have not changed in all the intervening years. How far I was successful, I do not know. But this I know: I never forgot where I was traveling to. I never lost sight of the destination.”2

We all need reminders, because, while the human brain is wired to calculate and invent many incredible things, one thing our minds are not very good at is remembering. Our brains have a remarkable capacity for compiling millions of data points received from our senses to create a single image, and at lightning speeds. Yet, keeping our core principles and values at the forefront of our minds is often difficult, especially in a dynamic world that constantly pulls us in multiple directions and overwhelms us with distractions.

In the words of philosopher Alain De Botton while describing the existential function of the religious calendar: “In the secular world, we tend to believe that if you tell someone something once, they’ll remember it...Religions [however] are cultures of repetition. They circle the great truths again and again and again. The religious calendar is a way of making sure that across the year you will bump into certain very important ideas. In Jewish chronology, Passover reminds us to reflect on the importance of liberty and freedom. Now, you won’t typically do that by accident; you will do that because you are guided to do that. In the secular world, we think that ‘If an idea is important, I’ll bump into it. I’ll just come across it.’ Nonsense, says the religious worldview. We need calendars, we need to structure time, we need to synchronize encounters.”3

Indeed, as the following study suggests, the key to acting on our values is how regularly we are reminded of them.

For instance, in a study conducted by UCLA Professor Dan Ariely, half the participants were asked to recall the Ten Commandments while the other half were asked to remember ten books they had read in high school before taking a quiz. The results overwhelmingly indicated that the mere fact of being reminded of the Ten Commandments reduced the tendency to cheat.4

Ultimately, it isn’t what we believe but how regularly we are reminded of our beliefs that transforms our day-to-day behavior. Hence, the final step in our mission statement exercise asks you to identify specific times each day to return and rededicate yourself to your mission.

Purposeful Prayers

Judaism itself is replete with such “reminders,” regular practices that refocus our awareness on our deepest beliefs and commitments. Some examples of these ritual “reminders” include reciting the Shema, morning and evening, as a reminder of G‑d’s unity; observing Shabbat weekly as a reminder of creation and the exodus; and various Jewish festivals throughout the year that recall different providential events in Jewish history. Another example of Jewish tradition orchestrating rhythms of recalibration is the practice of reading from the Torah scroll every Monday, Thursday, and Shabbat. This regularly scheduled reading ensures that three days do not go by without Torah study, so that our connection to the core practices and principles of Judaism are never far from our minds. In fact, when you look closely, the entire regiment of the observant Jew seems to revolve around such prompts: prayer, study, ritual, dress—these are all experiential “reminders” designed to keep the religious practitioner focused on their mission.

Most relevant to our discussion, it is worth noting that Judaism liturgically bookends each day with the recitation of two particularly purpose-focused prayers to help frame our day and direct our consciousness from the moment we awake to the moment we go to bed. In this way, our every waking moment becomes imbued with a deep sense of our Divine mission and existential raison d’être.

The first meditation, titled Modeh Ani, is said immediately upon awakening, before one gets out of bed.

“I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me. Your faithfulness is great.”

Feel free to personalize the above in ways that resonate with you personally and include reference to your chosen mission after washing your hands. For example:

“Thank You, dear G‑d, for another day to fulfill the mission for which I was created.

Thank You for making me Your partner in creation, and for giving me everything I need to play my part in Your Divine plan of healing and redemption.

[Your mission statement]”

If you have plans for the day, you may want to envision yourself living out your mission statement while conducting this meditation or for a few moments afterward.

The second prayer is offered at the end of the day and concludes the recital of the bedtime Shema. It is recited after this verse from Psalms: I entrust my spirit into Your hand; [I have faith that] You will redeem me, L‑rd, G‑d of truth.

“Master of the worlds! You have created Your world in Your good will, as it has arisen in Your primordial thought, and You have created the heavens and all their hosts, and the earth and everything that is on it; You have created man upon it, and You have blown into his nostrils a living soul, so that he may recognize Your greatness and glory; and You give life to them all, for You are the Soul of all souls and the Life-force of all living things.

“And You, L‑rd, my G‑d—I entrust my nefesh, ruach, and neshamah into Your pure and faithful hand; and You, L‑rd, my G‑d, will cleanse them of every impurity and malady that has become attached to them through my wrongdoings, and You will return them to me in peace, tranquility, and security…

“Blessed is He Who hears prayer.”

Take some time to personalize the prayer above by including reference to your mission. For example:

“L‑rd, my G‑d, I return my soul to You knowing that today I did my best to [your mission statement].

Refresh and nurture my soul so that I may awaken revitalized and empowered to continue my mission tomorrow.”

You may also find it helpful to spend some time reviewing some of the ways you lived out your mission statement throughout the previous day as part of this meditation. Did you take every opportunity to share your light with the world? In what ways were you successful? In what ways did you fall short? In what ways did you surprise yourself? Where is there room for growth?

No matter who you are, no matter where you are, there is a providentially arranged mission waiting for you to fulfill. Arming yourself with a succinct, personal, and meaningful mission statement is among the best ways to ensure that you don’t miss a chance to maximize your unique contribution to creation. It doesn’t matter if your mission and its impact is great or small, visible or unseen. It is yours, and no one before or after you in all of creation can bring that particular set of potentials to fruition. Your life is your garden. It is upon you to cultivate the gifts and opportunities you’ve been blessed to elevate and leave the world more beautiful than it was before you arrived.