“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.” -William James
Writing your manifesto can get you clarity immediately. A manifesto is a declaration of your life principles and purpose. It can be public or just a guide for yourself. You’ll find out a lot about yourself in one sitting: your values, what your goals are, what’s important to you. You can then use your manifesto to guide what you do in life.
Your Manifesto Is Your Life’s Guide
It’s easy to decide what to do because you don’t have to guess. Just ask yourself: Is this aligned with my values, goals and what’s important to me? If not, don’t do it.
Take GPS, for example. It’s a guide for your car. Without it, you can drive around the streets aimlessly. But GPS tells you how to get to your destination. When you get off track, the GPS lets you know. Your manifesto is like GPS for your life. You’ll know whether what you’re doing is on track with what you want to accomplish in life.
My Manifesto
For years I would question myself constantly whether what I was doing is ultimately important to my life. I lacked clarity. I was just wandering around, trying too many things with no idea. And I got fed up. I wanted to fix this. I noticed how easy it is to do something when you have a guide to check against. You can see if you’re doing it right. If you’re not, you’ll know what to change. I thought, why not have that for my life? I could then compare anything I did against it.
Creating my life guide meant writing my manifesto. I forced myself to sit down and get it done. 30 minutes later, I wrote my manifesto, and I got clarity immediately. I found out a lot about myself in one sitting: my values, what my goals are, what’s important to me in life. I can now guide what I do based on my manifesto. Like creating this website.
It’s easy to decide what to do in my life because I don’t have to guess. I just ask myself: Is this aligned with my values, goals and what’s important to me? If not, I don’t do it. It’s ridiculous how a 30-minute writing exercise makes such a huge difference.
Here is my manifesto:
I’m a:
- Writer
- Musician
- Adventurer
- Entrepreneur
- Freerunner
Live my life:
- With purpose – make a dent, bring value to others
- Full of happiness – have fun, love what I do
- Truthfully – be open and honest with myself and others
- In control – of time, location, relationships, activities
- Around great people – attract positive relationships
Pursue:
1: Truth
- Never be complacent or content
- Regularly test if my beliefs are beneficial
- Be conscious of societal norms disguised as “right”
2: Nature
- Harmonize with the natural world around me
- Listen to my body
3: Beauty
- Surround with and consume what positively stimulates my senses
4: Elegance
- Seek or create simple and effective solutions to problems
5: Simplicity
- Follow the 80-20 Rule: focus on the 20% that brings me 80% of results
- Minimize possessions and activities to the essentials
- Maximize enjoyment of those things
- Ignore unimportant things
6: Travel
- Explore as much of the world as possible
- Seek genuine places and cultures
- Seek beautiful nature
- Meet new, different and exciting people
7: Entrepreneurship
- Work only for myself
- Create profitable businesses around my passions
- Establish passive income
- Be open to new ideas and experimentation
Write Your Manifesto, Get Clarity
Want to know what’s important to you and what you want to do with your life? Write your manifesto, and you’ll get clarity immediately.
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” -Robert Byrne
