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In the hurry burry of living, have you ever found yourself in a place where you start wondering if you are suffering from the Imposter  Syndrome or feel that you have lost your true identity and are out of authenticity?

Ever started wondering about your life purpose? Then consider checking in on your Life Stance Manifesto or if haven’t got one, creating one to be your touchstone.

As we travel on the journey called Life, we do change. The person who you are today is not going to be the person you are tomorrow.

We grow with our experiences but when you start to feel that you are getting out of alignment with your core values and what you truly believe in; then it is as good a time as ever to craft your Life Stance Manifesto to remind you of what really matters.

It’s often a sign that you have experienced a Wakeup Call and are being beckoned to answer your Call to Adventure as I outline in my book, Wakeup Calls: What happens when you accept Your Call to Adventure.

A manifesto is a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. It is derived from the Italian word manifesto, itself derived from the Latin manifestum, meaning clear or conspicuous. Manifestos that relate to a religious belief are referred to as creeds.

Often political (like Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto) or artistic, I remember reading The Zen Manifesto by Osho many years ago which outlined his philosophy.

A Manifesto can also represent a person’s Life Stance which is what we will create in this post.

What is a Life Stance?

Before we can craft our Manifesto, it is important to actually understand what we mean by Life Stance.

Harry Stopes-Roe, of the Humanist movement, defined Life Stance as

– the style and content of an individual’s or a community’s relationship with that which is of ultimate importance; the presuppositions and commitments of this, and the consequences for living which flow from it.

Your Life Stance is your relationship with what you believe to be of utmost importance to you and encompasses your belief system and perspectives of reality by which you choose to live. It is your core essence and what comes into play when you ‘walk your talk’.

The beauty of about a Life Stance Manifesto is that no two are ever alike because no two people are ever the same. Each Life Stance Manifesto is unique and holds up a mirror to the creator of the Manifesto to check if they are living according to their truth.

Your Life stance Manifesto can be as long or short as you want; all it really requires is that it represents all that is of utmost importance to you and in a manner of speaking, non-negotiable.

Here’s an example of my Unapologetic Manifesto that I wrote recently to summarize what was important for me – to live my life without apologizing for my beliefs and on my terms.

(Update: Post recent WordPress security updates, you need to click below the image where it says to click here to be taken to the presentation on Slideshare. The presentation will open in a new window and I invite you to follow me on Slideshare-Vatsala Shukla)

Click here to see the presentation

What you see is taking sentences and completing them with what holds value for you and what you really believe it.

Write Your Life Stance Manifesto

Want to have a shot at writing your own Life Stance Manifesto?

First you need to work out what really portrays your true and authentic self.

To get you started on identifying this element, check out the following posts for ideas on your life purpose and how you would like your obituary to read.

How to discover your Life Purpose and fulfill your Destiny

and How would your obituary read?

Then, choose 5 or 6 that are most important for you and create your statements. Remember, the key – utmost importance to you and are truths that you live by.

Here are some sentence examples that you can use.

When I wake up in the morning………

I am………

I believe………

I am happiest when…….

The one thing I want to be remembered as………………..

This is just an idea of the proclaiming sentences that you can create.

To be effective, you must be able to see the Life Stance Manifesto whenever you are feeling out of alignment with your purpose.

Take it a step further. Find images and superimpose your statements on them using power point slides. You might want to create a power point slide with all your core statements and print it.

Keep it in a place where you can see your Life stance Manifesto when you feel out of alignment with all that you hold close to your heart.

Give it a shot, you might just see the effect trickle into your Vision and Mission Statements and who knows, your Brand Statement too.

Your next mission, if you choose to accept it is to share some of your lines of your Life Stance Manifesto here and inspire other readers to create their own. So, are you game to share?

Written By: Vatsala Shukla