Categories: Manifesto

Write a Personal Manifesto – Two Quick and Easy Ways

What’s the easiest way to write a personal manifesto? Is it a List, Motto, Purpose, Vision, Mission, Ideal Day, Values or Worldview manifesto?

Today I’ll share the two easiest ways to write a personal manifesto. Each one only takes ten minutes to complete. And they can keep you inspired for years to come.

Plus, at the end, I’ll share how you can live true to your personal manifesto every single day.

A List Manifesto

A list is an easy way to write a personal manifesto. But when you collect a lot of items to go on your list it can take a while to collect the right ones. Plus, you need to dress up a list manifesto so it looks good on your wall to make it useful. It’s easy, but not quick.

Rob Cressy created a great-looking list manifesto (right). Read how he did this here.

Likewise, many of the other ways to create a personal manifesto can take a lot of reflection time to come up with the most inspiring answers. It’s rare that you can just come up with something in a spare moment and make it work over time.

Values

One of the easiest ways to write a personal manifesto that has lasting value is your… Values.

Your values are what’s important to you.

They are a great way to write a personal manifesto because they can be interpreted and expressed in many different ways. For instance, one of my values is to be generous. I practise this by sharing my ideas and content online, like in this blog post. But I can also express this when I’m with other people by being supportive and encouraging.

Best of all, your values are written as keywords which means you don’t need a fancy layout to make them work. It’s much easier to remember 3-5 values than a long list of items.

To define your values there are three simple steps:

First, make a list.
Second, prune your list.
Third, define what your values mean to you.

What’s your #1 value?

Read this for more on how to define your values.

Ideal Day

The second easy way to write a personal manifesto is to design your ideal day.

For some people, this is being on holiday without a care in the world. For others, like me, I’d rather be working on my creative projects. This is what makes me happy.

To define your ideal day the three key questions to ask yourself are:

Where are you?
What are you doing?
And who are you with?

Then you can write this out more fully into a one-page description of your day (like my example below).

What’s the best part of your ideal day?

Read this for more on how to define your ideal day.

How to Live True to Your Personal Manifesto

Now for the big question. What’s the secret to living true to your personal values or living your ideal day?

It’s pretty simple really.

First, you need to define what they are.
Second, you need to turn them into habits you can practice daily.

For instance, my primary value is to create. The obvious habit and a big part of my daily action needs to be me creating something. That’s why I spend so much time creating videos and writing these blog posts. It’s something I enjoy doing.

How to Build Habits: Step-by-Step Guide for Success