How
to Create a Personal Instruction Manual for Life
By Joe Vitale
US
Imagine if your great, great grandfather
or grandmother had left you a book with her secrets
for living. Maybe it contained nuggets of wisdom,
yummy recipes, favorite jokes, or just insights
for how to lead a good life. Ever since people
learned of my next book, Life’s Missing
Instruction Manual, people are curious how to
create their own “manual” for life.
You can leave such a book for your own family.
What are the key lessons you’ve learned
in your life? Are you ready to share them with
your children and grandchildren – or with
your friend, siblings, parents, and grandparents?
What you’ve gleaned from your life experiences
can make things easier for your children or your
relatives. In fact, the lessons you’ve earned
from trail and error can be the perfect gift for
everyone in your life – or for one person
who matters to you. Here’s how to commit
your insights to writing and share them with your
fellow life travelers.
• Carry a pad of paper around with you everywhere
for a week.
• Jot down your thoughts and observations
as they occur to you. Don’t judge them.
Just make note of them.
• Add personal stories and memories, as
they come to mind. Again, don’t edit your
thoughts. Just commit them to paper.
• Take a few days to go through your notes,
and underline the most important passages, and
make additional comments in the margins.
• From this, distill the lessons you most
want to share with others: your perspective, your
values, what matters most to you, and your reactions
to the world around you.
• Find a beautiful journal or blank book
– one that you feel a strong connection
with. You might find it at a bookstore, an antique
store, an online auction site, a craft store,
or even a flea market. Where you find it doesn’t
matter. How you feel about it does.
• Fill the journal with your own instruction
manual for life. Make sure to include a title
and your name.
• Find a special person to share it with,
and turn the presentation of the journal into
a celebration.
If you don’t feel comfortable writing your
notes and stories, you can dictate them into a
portable tape recorder, and later, you can transcribe
them into a journal. You don’t have to be
a best-selling author, academic, or philosopher
to create an instruction manual that can help
your loved ones every day of their lives . . .
and be passed on to future generations as well.
(Joe Vitale is the author of the forthcoming book,
Life’s Missing Instruction manual,Wiley,
March 2006). Read more about it at http://www.missingmanual.blogspot.com.
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