We make the claim in our upcoming book, My Manifesto: a compassionate guide to reveal your best life, that the seven steps will minimise internal conflict; help you navigate life; build hope; raise your awareness of what is important to you; provide greater clarity in your life; uncover rich personal insights and assist you to make difficult decisions.
I take this opportunity to look at each one of those claims from the vantage point of having lived with my current personal manifesto for some time now. How is it holding up to the claims?
Minimise internal conflict.
The interesting thing about this claim, is understanding that although I have done the work of the seven steps towards creating a personal manifesto, I still have internal conflict – and I am glad we added minimise – but now that I have identified who I am and what I stand for, I can eliminate many of the worries, concerns, choices, which do not align with the me that I have revealed. Personally, I now have less things which create inner conflict for me to consider. On the occasions when inner conflict presents I have refined my process to arrive at the quintessential element – my congruent choice – to act upon.
Help you navigate life.
We adopted the navigation metaphor such as the compass, or the roadmap in our book; we see your personal manifesto as your guide against which you measure the choices which present to you. Life takes circuitous routes for all of us human beings, but if you have done your work and have created your manifesto, you are less likely to unintentionally travel into a blind alley or come to a dead end. Of course, you will still encounter roadblocks – those random ones that pop up – and these will be out of your control. Within your control though, is a way that is congruent with your inner best self, that you will recognise and be able to intentionally set out upon.
Build hope.
Hope is the antidote to despair. Hopelessness is a dark place. We have found that the act of spending time working through the seven steps, is an act of caring. This caring, the longer you sit within it, equates to respecting yourself, and then incrementally grows to believing that you are worthy of this examination. Feeling personally worthy, valuing yourself, is hopeful. If enough of us have hope, the more chance there is of generating a transforming positive ripple.
Raise your awareness of what is important to you.
We maintain that you have all that you need within. However, knowing what you know – or don’t know – at a conscious level, is awareness. Once you have completed your seven steps, you are aware of who you are, what you stand for, and the life you’re choosing to lead. In other words, you know, are aware of, what is important to you. We have written about ‘right and right’ decisions. Every decision is not necessarily binary, falling into an ethical ‘right and wrong’ choice. Knowing which decision is your right decision, is made so much easier if you know already what is important to you.
Provide greater clarity in your life.
If you’ve read to this point and granted the thinking so far, it is not too much of a stretch to see that all the above claims enable greater clarity. If I have done the self-examination required in the seven steps, I will be clearer about my life. This work is by its very nature subjective, so the clarity I gain about me, will be the clarity I need in my life.
Uncover rich personal insights and assist you to make difficult decisions.
Having created your personal manifesto, you will have gained greater understanding of yourself. You will have brought to the surface the aspects of self which are at the heart of you. With this understanding, you will be equipped to make difficult decisions. These decisions will still arise, but you will have the rich insights, the raised awareness, the greater clarity, and the hopefulness to make the choice that best suits you, and the courage to stand behind it. Of this I, Justin and all our my manifesto mates, can attest.