Creating your mission statement
Documenting your vision
Identifying your club values

Top 10 values
- Honesty
- Integrity
- Humility
- Professionalism
- Discipline
- Toughness
- Work ethic
- Enjoyment/fun
- Passion
- Respect
- Growth mindset
- Self control
- Perseverance
- Teamwork
- Modesty
- Responsibility
- Effort
- Sweep the Sheds – “Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done.”
- Go for the Gap – “When you’re on top of your game, change your game.”
- Play with Purpose – “Ask ‘Why?’”
- Pass the Ball – “Leaders create leaders.”
- Create a Learning Environment – “Leaders are teachers.”
- No Dickheads – “Being of Team”
- Embrace Expectations – “Aim for the highest cloud.”
- Train to Win – “Practice under pressure.”
- Keep a Blue Head – “Control your attention.”
- Know Thyself – “Keep it real.”
- Invent Your Own Language – “Sing your world into existence.”
- Sacrifice – “Find something you would die for and give your life to it.”
- Ritualise to Actualise – “Create a culture.”
- Be a Good Ancestor – “Plant trees you’ll never see.”
- Write Your Legacy – “This is your time.”
I like the idea of creating mantras that reflect your values as they bring the values to life and are much more relatable. One thing to bear in mind is that the NewZealand All Black are a high-performance team. While many of their mantras could be appropriate for a martial arts club heavily focused on coaching children, you may not want to include the ones that talk about dying for your cause or performing under pressure (until they are a little older at least ).

Infographic produced by Inner Drive
Your mission, vision and values - not just for the wall in your office
- Put them on your website so people understand what drives you as a club before they even consider booking a trial session.
- Include them in your ‘New student’ pack so the parents can read them while their children are taking park in their first session
- Have them on a banner in your training room so you can point to them when you need to highlight the WHY of the club and how you operate
- Put them on your outdoor signage so everyone in the local area knows what you stand for
- Put them on your social media banners so they are front of mind for visitors and members
- Include an abbreviated version in your email signature
- Use them on pull up banners that you use for internal events such as gradings
- Include your values in the requirements for your grading syllabus
- Make sure they are included in your job descriptions if you have staff
- Include them in the training courses for your Martial Arts Leaders
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Model your values
In a few of my past articles I have talked about the important of congruence between what you say and what you do. If you read any of them, you will already know that it’s not enough to just tell someone to do something, you must model it too. Almost every day I see martial arts coaches posting comments on social media that contradict the values at their clubs. You are the same person whether you are at your club or sat at home. Don’t just prescribe your club values, live them!
Club objectives
- Build and maintain rainy day fund of 3-6 month expenses
- Operate at 90% of capacity with <3% monthly dropout
- Maintain clean, tidy, innovative training facilities
- Run a staff development programme and payment structure that motivate and retains great staff
- Only use theory/research-backed training programmes that produce measurable results
- Build a reputation for a friendly and professional service
- Be known as an authority for martial arts and personal development in the local area
- Generate at least 25% of new students through recommendations
- Leverage technology to maximise efficiency
- Maximise the benefit of the clubs ’not for profit’ status
Good article Phil and a lot of people don’t realise the hard work and effort that goes into just getting your average class on for the students behind the scenes. Ki has had a couple of statements over time “Making better martial artists – Making better people” or “Everything is Ki (energy) – Everyone comes back to Ki” tying in with our Ki arrow logo which shows the arrow pointing back. Here’s a thought for you that you may be able to write about – What about a mission statement, values or objectives for senior instructors in a larger group setting that perhaps want to convey their thoughts or get across things to a broader base than their own club to enhance the martial art knowledge or even sport for the benefit of the country etc – tying the art & the sport together that is mutually beneficial and compliments each other without losing the benefits of both is something that would be good to strive for…
That sounds like a great idea Stephen but that would mean getting a group of martial arts instructors to agree on a general direction 🙂
I think that all we can do is create an organisation/group with a mission, vision and values and then find others who want to go on the same journey.
Some thought provoking stuff there Phil, all very interesting. I for one find that its a constantly changing dynamic as to what people want and their expectations of the club.For example we have never had so many SEN students as we do now. Despite not deliberately targeting this audience, it seems to have developed of its own accord and I have had no formal training in this area.
We have many as well OZ. To be honest I am not sure if we have more than we used or if more are just diagnosed.
It would be interesting to dig out a few studies to get more information.