How to Write a Personal Manifesto for your Content Creation

I did it! I created 150 videos on my YouTube channel. And it was all because I wrote my Personal Manifesto.

Today I’ll share what worked so you can achieve the same results with your content creation and your life.

Plus, I’ll also share what didn’t work.

My Personal Manifesto has three parts – a Purpose Statement, a Mission Statement and my Core Values. Two of these inspired me. But one of them didn’t. It almost killed the entire project. It made me feel depressed and want to stop making videos.

What went wrong? And what should I have done instead?

And most importantly, which Personal Manifesto should you write to inspire your content creation?

This was a shock to me. I’ve collected hundreds of manifestos, helped paying clients create them and used Personal Manifestos in other parts of my life. I knew what I was doing. Well, at least I thought I did.

How long it took me to create 150 YouTube videos

Creating 150 videos has taken me three and a half years.

At an average of 20-25 hours per video, that’s around 3000-4000 hours or 80-100 full-time weeks of work.

And that doesn’t count the hours I spent on YouTube trying to work out how to use my camera, how to write a story, how to edit, how to create thumbnails, how to use Da Vinci Resolve and so on.

There was so much I needed to learn. (And still do).

But what difference did this really make to my life?

My YouTube Content Creation Journey

I first signed up to YouTube in 2011. That was 13 years ago.

But I didn’t post anything for the first four years.

I then posted 11 videos. They were pretty crappy. And my results were pretty crappy too. So I did what any sensible person would do. I quit.

But a nagging thought stayed with me.

And 3 years ago I started again. It was my Pandemic project. I started making sourdough bread. But it went mouldy each time. So I quit that and took up making YouTube videos.

Below is my first-ever video on YouTube (2017). It’s basically a webinar style with me talking to slides, no face-to-camera)

A Mission Statement for Content Creation

To inspire myself I created a Mission Statement to “attract one million views”.

It was a nice big round number. I thought it would take about 18 months. But it didn’t work out as I expected.

In three years and 150 videos, I have attracted 41,000 views and 470 subscribers (Thank you!)

And I’ve earned $47 in direct sales and picked up one new book-writing client. (Thank you!)

Has it been worth it? I only have to attract 959,000 more views to reach one million. At this rate, it will take a further 10 years or more.

But if you look at these results, the obvious answer is no. I could have made more money working at McDonalds. Or if I’d put the same amount of time and effort into LinkedIn…

TIP: To create your Mission Statement, you simply need to quantify a result. In other words, put a number on an outcome you want to achieve.

The Design Flaw of Mission Statements

The lack of results made me want to stop many times.

And that’s one of the big flaws with Mission Statements – especially when you set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

Yes, they can inspire you especially when you create them.

But they also have a design flaw. And that flaw is that as soon as you declare a goal or a mission, you create a gap. A gap between where you are and fulfilling your mission.

Every day you haven’t achieved it, you’re saying ‘I’m not there yet. I’m not there yet.’

If you can see yourself making progress toward your mission or goal, this design flaw can be overcome.

But, when starting a YouTube channel, your stats will be terrible.

My first video took six weeks to make. I didn’t know what I was doing. Eventually, I got this down to one week. Even now it takes 4-5 days to create a video.

But in the early days, there were many days when not a single person watched any of my videos. Even my Mum wasn’t watching. (see the graph above)

I just wasn’t getting anywhere. What was I doing wrong? I found this depressing. It made me want to give up.

Why a Purpose Statement is Better than a Mission Statement

That’s when I had to change the focus of my Personal Manifesto. And that’s when I created my Purpose Statement.

The big difference between a Mission and a Purpose is that you can be on purpose every single day.

While a Mission Statement has a gap between where you are at and where you want to be, a Purpose Statement doesn’t. You can be on purpose at any moment on any day.

How I Created My Purpose Statement

My purpose is to Create New Worlds.

I’m an ideas guy. I get excited about ideas that change my thinking. Plus, I help my thought-leader clients create ideas that resonate in the marketplace.

I created my purpose statement by asking the question, ‘If I’m an ideas guy, then what results do I produce?’

On the surface I write books, I create videos, I make artworks, I create presentations. I also help my clients do similar things.

But at a deeper level, I want my viewers and my clients to change the way they see the world. That’s what new ideas do.

They make you see the world differently. And they let you see a new set of possibilities, a new set of opportunities, a new world.

TIP: To create your Purpose Statement, ask yourself what are the results you create for your clients. Notice the surface answers (eg a book) but also dig deeper into the psychological, philosophical, emotional and social results you provide. (This is one way to define your purpose, but not the only one.)

A Purpose Statement for Content Creation

This became a better way to stay on track with my content creation. That’s because my Purpose Statement lets me see the other side of creating videos.

My Mission Statement was all about views – results that needed other people to take a certain action. But it was missing the creation side of things. I couldn’t control how many people watched my videos but I could control how many videos I created.

Sure, I could have put a number on this and created a new mission to publish 500 videos. But I felt it was better not to as it would simply create another gap.

And this has worked.

A purpose doesn’t have a finish line. It’s something you can be and do every day.

And as I create each video, I know I’m on purpose – I’m on track with my life – doing things that are important to me. That feels good. And because it feels good I want to keep doing it.

Core Values for Content Creation

To ramp this up, I added one more thing: my Core Values.

By defining my Calues in line with my purpose, I was able to identify practical actions I could take each day.

For me, a Purpose is a broad brush stroke, the big picture context. But adding my Values, gave me a much finer brush stroke to focus my attention and be inspired throughout my day and through the different stages of content creation and video production.

And that’s because I can express my values in each of the steps along the way.

For instance, creativity drives most of the process. But being generous kicks in when my energy is flagging. Rather than focus on my creativity, I can focus on the value this might provide for others. That keeps me going. And this is how I’ve used my Personal Manifesto to create 150 videos. Now for the next 150…

Which Personal Manifesto should you write?

In this post, I’ve shared my experience using three different types of Personal Manifesto for my content creation. Two of them worked for me – the Purpose Statement and Core Values. My Mission Statement didn’t work.

Will this be the same for you?

Creating your Core Values is my number one recommendation for creating a personal manifesto for any situation. This will work for your content creation too. They are easy to create and flexible to use.

A Purpose Statement can be a powerful context to operate from. But they are usually trickier to create. If you can come up with a good one that inspires then use this for your content creation.

And a Mission Statement? While they didn’t work for me, it might for you. Especially, if you are goal-oriented or task-focused then a mission. They are easy to create and can be inspiring.

To overcome the challenge of The Gap, simply create smaller milestones between where you are and where you want to be. For instance, I could have added a goal for my first 100 views, then my first 1000 and so on. Minimise the gap to stay inspired.

More on How to Write a Personal Manifesto

If you would like to create a Personal Manifesto (ie Mission Statement, Purpose Statement or Core Values) to help with your content creation or your life, then read these posts next:

• Write a Personal Manifesto – Seven Ways to be Inspired
• 12 Personal Mission Statement Examples by Famous People
• How to write a Personal Manifesto in five steps