A Personal Manifesto
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
I have spent most of this first week of September sitting at my desk. I am delving into new projects, cleaning up files, and replenishing office supplies – indulging in my favourite Pilot fineliner pens and bright, coloured Post-its. I love September! I love the cooler days, the quality of the light, the return of hummingbirds to our feeders, and the dew reflecting off the spider webs spun across our backyard.
September has also always been my time for making resolutions - determined to make myself healthier - both body and mind. These days, however, older and wiser, I have put resolutions aside and now I take this time to plan and set goals.
I’m someone who loves the many tools and quizzes available to help us chart our course in life. These last few years, I have turned to a quick and easy practice to launch the ‘new year’, writing a personal manifesto in half an hour! This began three years ago when I came across an article, No More New Year Resolutions. Do This 25 Minute Exercise Instead To Imagine What You Want in 2018. I tried it, it worked – and I have been writing a personal manifesto every year since – sometimes twice a year, both in January and September!
What do you think? Is this something you might be interested in? I’ve just written my September 2020 Personal Manifesto and thought you might find it helpful to follow the step-by-step process I used.
I do want to acknowledge though, before we start down this road together, that I knew this year would be a transformative one for me. My work world experienced a lifequake last year, and over the first few months of 2020, I began to accept that my life is changing. Then this pandemic hit us, casting a shadow on my planning, shifting my world with challenges and opportunities. This week as I began writing my personal manifesto I have been very intentional about treading softly into this next year. I want to live a fairly unplanned life – and yet I still need goals to move me forward.
So, if you’re still with me, here we go! First and foremost, you need to know that speed is part of this process! Give yourself about 30 minutes. Go with your gut. Put self-judgment aside.
Step One:
Reflect back on the last year - or 9 months if you only want to look at 2020. On a piece of paper draw 6 columns and, without too much thinking, write your reflections under each of the following headings.
1. Emotion: What emotion were you feeling when you woke up this morning? How about when you think back over the last year? Write the good and the bad as emotions often show up in opposite pairs - having a sense of purpose/feeling lost, confident/self-doubt, etc.
2. Information: What can you quantify about your work and your life over the past year? List tangible information in this column – achievements, successes, losses.
3. Constraints: What were your constraints, the negatives that held you back, or niggled at your mind? This may be your own constraints, like lack of confidence or leaving things to the last minute, or they may be constraints out of your control – like this pandemic!
4. Opportunities: What were your opportunities, the positives? These are things that were in your favour, that excited you, that helped you to grow and dream and accomplish. Sometimes constraints can actually hide opportunities (i.e. being in lockdown may have been limiting, but may also have lead to rewarding new projects) - take a look at your constraints and see if any can be transformed and added to the opportunity list.
5. Out-of-the-box opportunities: What big goals do you have that you only admit to yourself? These could be big shifts, dreams, or life changes. If opportunities are evolutions, these are the revolutions. Anything goes here as this list is for your eyes only!
6. Choice: What would you choose for the next year? We can’t always choose what we want, but we do have choices! List the choices that really matter to you.
Step Two:
Take a few moments to reflect - do you see any patterns, are there hidden opportunities, what would it take to bring your out-of-the-box opportunity to life? What choices really matter to you?
What is the one thing that rises to the top for you in each column? Draw a circle around that one thing. Go with your gut. These are your 6 ingredients that will go into your personal manifesto.
Step Three:
Now take your 6 ingredients and blend them together to write your manifesto. Your paragraph will contain your top emotion + information + constraint + opportunity + out-of-the-box opportunity + choice. This is your manifesto, so write it in a way that works for you. Maybe a bulleted action list works for you. Or you can write a paragraph that captures all your ingredients. Here’s where I spent a bit longer than 30 minutes! The manifesto below was my first draft. I put it away for a day so I could take some time for reflection - then I re-phrased a few things so it would have a bit more oomph!
Step Four:
Save your personal manifesto somewhere you will see it regularly. I created a postcard of my manifesto in Canva and posted it on my bulletin board – in my inspiration corner! I won’t read it every day, but often enough that it will be a guiding light on those days that I stumble on my path.
So, give it a try! It’s a quick and easy exercise – an exercise that for me, as in past years, has been surprisingly helpful.
Let me know if you decide to give it a go, I’d love to know what you think of the process!