Life Handbook - How I Accepted Responsibility for my Own Life

Revisiting my Life Handbook

Back in January I found authenticity by mapping my goals, dreams and life plans in a dedicated Life Handbook. I loved having a notebook of my favourite motivational quotes, my one-, three-, and five-year plans, and ambitions for my life time. I spent the rest of month feeling motivated. I took action in some key areas (most notably under my Relationships goal).

But as the month ended, I forgot about my goals. With the Handbook put aside, they were out of sight and out of mind.

June approached and I found myself almost half way through not only the year, but also my Romeo Project. While reflecting on my progress so far, I looked back on my first resolution and remembered that I had plans and aspirations for the year that I was not fulfilling.

How could I achieve my dreams, goals and ambitions if I didn't accept responsibility for implementing them? I needed to take action.

"If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them." - Wally Lamb

Creating a Mission Statement

Regular readers of my blog will know that I’ve just created a Life Handbook. However, I ran into a bit of a road block – What on earth was my mission statement?

Well, Personal Excellence describe it as a life purpose. So all I had to do was define my very purpose for existence! Shesh, not hard at all.
But why do we even need one?

“As long as you wish to live a more meaningful and conscious life, a life purpose is for you.” - Source 

Oh right, that’s why. So I decided to persevere and come up with my own life purpose. It didn’t matter if it was pretty lame, or that I ended up hating it a few months down the line. I really felt I just needed one so I could tick that item off of my Be Authentic to-do list.

Creating a Life Handbook

My Life Handbook

A big part of my Be Authentic month is creating a Life Handbook. It sounds cheesy, I know, but hear me out first.

I got the idea of starting my own Life Handbook from Personal Excellence. The website is basically a self-help blog encouraging and helping readers to reach their potential.

On the site, Celes discusses a Life Handbook and how creating such a book can guide you along the way to living the best possible life.

“A life handbook is your guidebook to live your best life, consisting of everything from your life purpose, to life adages, to long-term goals, to short-term goals, to action plans to realize said goals. Just like the Bible reflects the doctrine and creed of Christianity, your life handbook reflects the essence of what it means to be you and what it takes to live your best life. Think of it as your GPS for life.”

A GPS for life. Amazing.

I was sold, so I decided that I should create one to help me Be Authentic.