I consume a lot of content (visual, written, audio, etc) from creative pros who often talk about their “mission”, and how certain topics relate back to this core thing. Usually, it’s some version of “inspiring, equipping, or teaching creatives across the globe to have better creative practices”… which is very noble and nice!

I just kindof wonder if they started their podcast, blog, or YouTube channel because of this compelling mission, or… did they concoct this “mission statement” because of the success of their work? Which came first, the mission or the method?

Generally, I think it’s the latter — when you publish enough work, share enough content, and connect with enough people, it seems you can simply connect the dots and figure out what your mission was all along! As usual, we’re killer at pattern recognition, so it would make sense that this is the most likely (and maybe effective) way to figure out your mission.

Maybe that’s the whole thing about mission vs vision: Mission is about looking back and realizing what you care about via your past actions, and Vision is looking forward to make predictions about how your work will fit into a changing world. Establishing a mission without a track record is just BS, and creating a vision without belief is just guessing wildly at trends.

What’s your mission?