By Ntombenhle Khathwane
Life is a live event with no pause and rewind. We do have opportunity to look back and learn, we can even pause and check out so to speak, but everything else around us keeps on moving.
I learned this when I fell pregnant at 16 in 1994. There was no way to go back and undo my wrong decision of engaging in sexual intercourse. Moreover, the consequence, my baby, was permanent. Nothing changes a woman's life like having a baby. Having a baby when you are still a girl, a child is traumatic to say the least.
Before my pregnancy I was floating through life without much regard for the future. I did well at school and I knew subjects that interested me but I was likely to study anything I was told was good for my livelihood. Pregnancy changed that in many ways. I started questioning the purpose of life, the purpose of my life, I explored my spirituality deeper but importantly I started planning.
I knew I had to finish high school and go to university to be able to give my child half the life my parents had given me. I no longer had the luxury of time. I would have most likely studied up until my PHD at once had I not had a baby. Now I had 3 years to finish a degree and work to support my child.
The good work of searching myself deeper when I was pregnant meant that I knew my interests and chose to study what I was really passionate about even though I had no idea what kind of jobs lay on the other side of a politics and philosophy major. I knew I was passionate about African development and wanted to be involved in the African Renaissance project and end poverty in Africa and end us being dependent on aid. I knew I had a profound love for the continent and it's people and used university to learn about our history as much as possible considering most of our historical texts have been destroyed.
Fast forward to now that I am an entrepreneur, I knew that my entrepreneurship still had to speak to what I have been passionate about since young. And so last year for the first time I took on the task to write my Personal Mission Statement.
All companies, even governments, have vision mission statements. This tells the world and employees "who" the company is, "what" it wants to accomplish, and then the different departments and employees must craft the "how" through business plans and strategies. If businesses have mission statements and business plans, so should we, right? Life is a serious business.
Most of us realize this later in life, we don't sit down and right a business plan for our lives that covers all aspects of our human experience. We have goals for our career and maybe family, but neglect health and spirituality. We don't set measures for success and evaluate our progress yearly.
I only started doing this a couple years ago and boy has it made a huge difference in my life. Last year I was finally able to craft my personal mission statement that resonates to the core of my being. And it was by connecting the dots in my life that I was able to do so and really define my values and my purpose.
"I create a world of equal opportunity by igniting African capability."
It would take pages to unpack how I arrived at this statement and how I am working towards it now. What I can say for sure is that ever since defining it I wake up excited every day with goals to achieve towards creating a more equal world. Even my business AfroBotanics is built around my mission statement, and I did so unconsciously at first and do so deliberately now.
Other people define their personal mission statements earlier in life, like my friend Tracey Webster, CEO of The Enterpriseroom wrote hers in 1999 and finds that it still applies almost 20 years later. Watch her short video on her beautiful, powerful personal mission statement and brief explanation how it came about. I can testify to the fact that she lives it every single day!
"To be a voice for the voiceless.
To be a bridge between the people that have and those who have not.
To always have an ear to hear the cry, a heart to respond to the need, a voice to verbalize that need out to a global platform."👊🏾 - Tracey Webster
All successful people the world over have a personal mission statement. A personal mission statement is grounded in your purpose. Purpose is not some wishy washy thing that only NGO workers have. Even if your pursuit is to acquire wealth you can do that purposefully. The thing about purpose is that it includes being of service to others.And being of service to others influences how we do things, and not what we do. So you can still build a profitable business, have 3 mansions if you please, travel the world and do it in a way that purposely positively impacts your community and the environment.
If you would like to work on your business plan for your life and work on your personal mission statement. Then join our free "My Beautiful Life" on 22nd September at 12pm - 5pm in Midrand.
Please RSVP attendance by emailing us atMyBeautifulLife@afro-botanics.com
"To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be." -Oprah Winfrey
"To have fun in (my) journey through life and learn from (my) mistakes." - Richard Branson
"To raise a family of leaders" -Rose Kennedy
"To improve lives" - Will Smith
I look forward to meeting you.
