When I started my practice, I felt pretty fuzzy about the difference between mission and vision statements. And I had never given any thought as to WHY they were necessary. My general feeling about mission and vision statements was that “people said you should have them if you’re running a business.” So I wrote them and hid them in a binder. Helpful, eh?

What started my brain churning about mission and vision statements this week? One of my favorite blogs, Acupuncture Flow, is written by second-year acupuncture student Danielle. In a recent post, Danielle mentioned that she’s starting to think about graduation next year and how overwhelming the idea of starting a business is.

Regarding mission and vision statements, she asks,

“How can I string a few words together to represent how I want to practice and live my life?”

Well, when you put it like that, heck yes, that’s a lot of pressure!

The first thing I would say is that although mission and vision statements may seem overwhelming or difficult to get just right, remember that you’re allowed to change them as your business matures and you begin to understand better what you personally want to accomplish with your acupuncture practice.

So let’s take that crazy heavy pressure off right now, and remind everyone: mission and vision statements don’t have to be perfect. They just have give you direction and provide inspiration. They are so essential to have that it’s better to have something, than to be intimidated by perfection and write nothing.

Before we get into why they’re important – essential – we should talk about what mission and vision statements are, and the difference between them.

The three important questions to be answered in this post:

1. What is a vision statement?
2. What is a mission statement?
3. Why are mission and vision statements so important?

Vision Statement:

A vision statement is one specific, concise sentence that describes your big vision for the ultimate goal(s) you wish to achieve through your business over the long term. It’s what you hope your business will accomplish on a large scale, perhaps in ten years or over the life of your business.

To get an idea of what this means, this excellent article by Jennell Evans, President and CEO of Strategic Interactions, Inc., provides a brief list of vision statement examples from big name companies like Microsoft and Avon.

For example, my vision statement for this blog is: Modern Acupuncture will help acupuncturists be more successful by making marketing and practice management an easier, more positive, and enjoyable experience.

Small Business BC states that your vision statement should be specific enough that it allows you turn down opportunities. In other words, if an opportunity comes along, you should be able to turn to your vision statement to help you decide if the opportunity is worth your time. If it doesn’t promote your business’ vision, you can say, “No, thank you,” and put your time to better use pursuing opportunities that align better with your goals.

Mission statement:

A mission statement is one to two concise, memorable sentences that describe the current state of your business by answering the questions: What do you do? Who do you provide it for? How do you provide it?

A mission statement should be concise in order to be memorable. And memorable because you should be able to use it as a mantra, to remind yourself of why you do what you do. It should be specific to you and your business because that will help you keep your personal goals a priority (just like in the vision statement, above).

My mission statement for this blog is: Modern Acupuncture will provide marketing advice and inspiration (what) to acupuncturists (who) by regularly delivering high-quality, relevant content (how).

Yahoo Small Business Advisor adds that a mission statement should be “applied consistently over time.” So it’s a fairly big, sweeping statement that will last you a few years, ideally, and guide you towards achieving your vision statement.

Again, though, that doesn’t mean that you mission statement can’t change. As I mentioned earlier, it can. And for some small business owners, it must change as they progress towards their vision.

If you’re still having trouble defining your mission statement, I think this advice from Small Business BC is a great approach:

Ask yourself: If my business suddenly disappeared from my community, what would my community be missing? Use this angle to work backwards to help clarify what it is you currently provide in your community, who you provide it for, and how.

A good test of whether your mission statement is specific enough to your business is this: Could other businesses (acupuncture or otherwise) also use your mission statement? If yes, then it’s not specific enough to you, and it won’t provide much guidance or direction for you in the long run.

Why are mission and vision statements so important?

I think the “why” question is a really important one that most small business owners don’t ask. (I didn’t when I started out.) We just create mission and vision statements out of a sense of obligation because someone said they were important.

But mission and vision statements are actually meant to be inspiring reminders of what your big goals are (vision), and how you’re going to get there, day by day (mission).

If you read a lot of the literature available online about mission and visions statements, it’s mostly geared toward large companies. In a nutshell, mission and vision statements are important for big corporations because they allow the CEO and upper management to clearly explain to employees what the overall purpose of the business is. They help each employee understand how their work fits into the big picture, which is important for morale and understanding why certain decisions are made.

But what about the very small businesses that many acupuncturists run, with only one employee (yourself)? How does your mission and vision serve you if you are a single individual, running a business on your own?

In this case, the mission and vision serve the same purpose, but they only have to be meaningful to you specifically. They should provide you with direction (help you make decisions, as mentioned above) and inspire patience, on good days and bad days.

I like to think of mission and visions statements like this: on a crummy day, when everything seems to be going wrong, and patients are unhappy or the landlord is being a pain or the internet (and your online schedule) is down, repeating your mission and vision statements should remind you of why it’s all worth it. Why you get up in the morning, and push through the difficult times – because you have your purpose, which supersedes all of that.

Shall we have one last summary of mission and vision statments? In a nutshell, your mission statement describes what you’re doing now, that will eventually take you to that future you describe in your vision statement.

What are your mission and vision statements? Share them with us! How do they help you on a daily basis, and how do they help you move towards your big goals?