"Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be." - St. Therese of Lisieux 

There is a little booklet on a shelf in our family chapel - the small space in our basement where I go for morning and evening prayer. Last week, during morning prayer one morning, I noticed it.

Almost two years ago, my wife Suzanne and I went through Michael Hyatt & Company's Life Focus process - a structured approach to personal life planning. The output is a small booklet: your mission statement, your vision across life domains, and your goals. We completed our plans and then, on New Year's Eve, took them to a local Mexican restaurant to share them with each other over dinner.

The waiter came over, saw our booklets and stacks of paper spread across the table, and said: "Oh no. You're not like finalizing divorce paperwork here while eating at my table, are you?"

No - just keeping our lives, goals, dreams, and plans aligned.

That booklet had migrated from my desk to a bookshelf in my office to - somehow - the chapel. And finding it there, during a hour of morning prayer, felt like an invitation to read it again with fresh eyes.

Here's what my mission statement said:

I am a husband and father, encourager, and communicator. I exist to promote wonder, balance, and presence - combatting indifference, burnout, and distraction. I do this by reaching other dads, deacons, and Catholics through writing & online media, and an online community for mutual sharing, support, and growth.

I wrote that almost two years ago. In the months since, I left a corporate career, started building Catholic formation ventures full-time, launched a consulting practice, and have been writing more than I ever have. The mission statement didn't change. What changed was the degree to which I was actually living it.

Most people who write personal mission statements do so once, put them in a drawer, and never look at them again. The exercise feels meaningful in the moment - clarifying, even moving - and then evaporates within weeks. By month three, the statement might as well not exist.

This is the same failure pattern I wrote about in this week's Ad Alta Weekly, but applied personally rather than institutionally. A parish can have a mission statement that fails to orient the new secretary on day one. You can have a mission statement that fails to orient you on any given Tuesday.

The question isn't whether you have a mission. You do - Everyone does. The question is whether you've named it clearly enough to recognize when your life is aligned with it and when it isn't.

Five observations on personal mission that have become clearer to me over the last two years:

1. Your mission already exists. You are discovering it, not inventing it.

Jordan Peterson puts this sharply: you are not the author of your own being. You were thrown into existence with a particular set of gifts, limitations, circumstances, and relationships. Your mission is the shape your life is supposed to take given all of that - not a creative exercise in self-expression.

Bishop Barron says it differently but arrives at the same place: you are a character in a drama you did not write. Your job is to find your role and play it well. The saints are people who figured out what God was asking of them and said yes. The rest of us are still figuring it out - but the role exists whether we've found it or not.

This reframes the whole exercise. You are not sitting with a blank page. You are sitting with a life that is already speaking. The question is whether you are listening.

2. A mission statement that doesn't cost you anything isn't a mission statement.

Chesterton observed that "the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." The same applies to personal mission. A statement that fits comfortably alongside everything you're already doing is a rationalization, not a mission.

My mission statement names things I want to combat: indifference, burnout, distraction. Those are real forces. They push back. If your mission doesn't name an enemy - something you're working against, something that will resist you - it's too safe to be true.

Ryan Michler talks about this in terms of a "Battle Plan." The word battle is not accidental. A mission implies opposition. If nothing opposes your mission, either your mission is too small or you're not actually pursuing it.

3. The domains of your life are not separate missions. They are expressions of one mission.

Arthur Brooks identifies four pillars of a meaningful life: faith, family, friends, and work. These are not four separate containers. They are four expressions of the same self.

My mission statement starts with "husband and father" - not because those are the most important roles (though they are), but because they are the foundation from which everything else extends. The writing, the consulting, the ministry - all of it flows from the same person who is first a husband and father. If those are out of alignment, nothing else will be either.

The Life Focus process I used has a "Body" domain alongside Mind, Spirit, Love, Family, Community, Money, Work, and Hobbies. Here's what I wrote for Body:

I want to take care of my body... I'm in the best shape of my life, have stamina, and maximize & regulate my energy... and I've found accountability & encouragement with my family & the runDisney community.

That's not a separate mission from my work or my family. It's the physical foundation that makes the rest possible. The body serves the mission. When I run a 5K, 10K, and half marathon with my son this weekend in Orlando, I am not taking a break from my mission. I am living it more fully than I have before.

4. Your mission is revealed in what you say "no" to.

A mission statement that can't help you decline opportunities isn't doing its job. The clearer your mission, the easier it becomes to recognize what doesn't belong - even when what doesn't belong is good.

This is the hardest part. It's one of the best pieces of advice I received from one of my former pastors. You have to be ready and wiling to say "no" to the right things.

Most of the things that pull us off mission are not bad things. They are good things - good opportunities, good relationships, good projects - that happen to belong to someone else's mission rather than ours. Saying no to them feels wrong precisely because they are good. But a life spent saying yes to every good thing is a life without shape.

Peterson again: you must be a monster, and then learn to control it. The same applies here. You must be capable of saying no - sharply, clearly, without apology - and then learn to say it only when necessary. A mission gives you the criteria for when it's necessary.

5. A mission not revisited is a mission not lived.

The fact that my Life Focus booklet ended up on a shelf in our family chapel - and that I found it during morning prayer - is not magic. It's providence dressed as accident. The booklet was there because I had put it somewhere at some point, and it migrated. But I found it when I needed to find it.

Most mission statements fail because they are written once and never revisited. The writing is the easy part. The hard part is returning - weekly, monthly, yearly - to ask: Am I still aligned? What has drifted? What needs to change?

The Life Focus process builds this in. The booklet is designed to be reopened. But any process that forces periodic review will work. The point is not the process. The point is the return.

I'm writing as I pack for Orlando, where my son Thomas and I are heading tomorrow for five days together at Walt Disney World for another runDisney weekend. We'll run a 5K on Friday, a 10K on Saturday, and a half marathon on Sunday. My son Matthew is joining us for a couple of days in the middle.

This trip is not a deviation from my mission. It is my mission in action.

Husband and father. Wonder, balance, and presence. Combatting burnout. Finding accountability and encouragement with my family. Taking care of my body. All of it - right here, on this trip, in these races, with these sons.

The question isn't whether you have a mission. You do.

The question is whether you've named it clearly enough to recognize it when you're living it.

What's your mission? Reply to this - I'd love to hear how you've articulated it, or what's been getting in the way.