Finding Your Life Purpose Part 10 – Writing Your Manifesto

This article concludes the series 'Finding Your Life Purpose' and discusses the final step in the process, which is writing your manifesto.

So far in this series we have discussed a number of factors that contribute to your life purpose.

In the previous article we summarised these in order to bring them into focus.

In that way you can clarify your life purpose and state it in one sentence.

The final step in this process is to express your life purpose in a number of sentences that go together to make a manifesto.

So what exactly is a manifesto?

You may know that many organisations have a 'mission statement' that clearly what they believe and what they value.

It also places these beliefs and values into a framework of action statements.

You may also have heard of some famous (and infamous) political manifestoes such as 'The Communist Manifesto', the US Declaration Of Independence, or even of that of the infamous Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.

A personal manifesto is a similar to a mission statement, but it is more self focused.

It's more about your own personal values rather than a collective or corporate identity.

Bear in mind that the strict definition of a manifesto is a public declaration of your intent.

Now I am not asking you to make it a public declaration, but when you write it out, you need to imagine that it is public.

You need to imagine that you are going to be as accountable as if it were public, even if the accountability is only to yourself.

Life Purpose Manifesto or Mission Statement?

Another difference between a manifesto and a vision or mission statement is that the latter are end focused and more or less static.

That is, they indicate a direction rather than current actions. By contrast, a manifesto is designed to bring ideas and actions into existence.

In reality, to get the best of all worlds, all three should be used: define your vision, transform that into a mission statement, and finally morph it into your manifesto.

This is an example of chunking. Starting at the top of the hierarchy, define the most important ideas to you (vision).

Move down a level and think about the mission you have that supports that vision. Finally, turn that into a manifesto.