HOW TO WRITE YOUR LIFE PHILOSOPHY
THE SIMPLE VERSION AND THE DECISION TO ADD MORE
Whether we intend to or not, we formulate a philosophy of life just as a natural part of life. But if we don't think about it on purpose, it becomes a hodge podge of un-thought-through conclusions that are often not true and which can cause some harm. (Yikes!)
Thinking them out for yourself and coming to reasoned, fact-based conclusions is essential for having a happy life and being effective in life. There are no shortcuts that have even worked.
However, we can begin with what is simple first, so that it doesn't feel overwhelming or undoable. It is very, very doable and also as important and impactful on your life as anything can be.
And one of the ways to construct a sound beginning of a philosophy is to copy elements of life-successful, happy people. Then you can build and redesign it yourself. But never, never leave this with an incomplete life philosophy in the normal shambles that most people leave it (and live it). You construct it from the links and guidance in Philosophy Contents, Links, where you will link to the identified pieces below.
THE "CATEGORIES"
If you look at the My Philosophy Of LIfe Notebook - Table Of Contents, you'll get a "complete" version of what a life philosophy looks like. However, you need only set up tabs in a divider or files to hold the materials (or organize these on a computer) of the key categories:
My View Of
Life
Myself
People
The "Universe" (religion, laws of life, etc.)
My Bill Of Rights
My Foundation For My Life (Purpose, values, rules, standards, stands, creeds...)
That's it! (For the dividers, that is.)
HOW TO PROCEED IN PUTTING IT TOGETHER
Of course, set up a place to store and refer to what you write. (A notebook with tabs, a large file with labelled folders in it, and/or organzed in the computer under My Philosophy, with files labelled as per the above outline.)
Then I'd recommend you do a "quick pass through", as that is the way to make lots of progress and not to bog down, all in a relatively short span of time. You can go back later and add to it, but this will be helpful. (You will be following the links in "The Book" and/or the links in Formulating A Powerful, Practical Life Philosophy.)
In this "quick pass through" technique to start projects fast, you write on each of the above items in the outline for a specified short period of time, spreading out your writing in comfortable time chunks over several days. You can do this in less than a week or go ahead and take two weeks, doing one per day. I'd recommend writing each page initially for 15 minutes for most people, though some will prefer 30 minutes. (In ALL cases, it will not be a "finished" product - but it will be a great start and something is useful and extremely beneficial.
You can add what I (and others) have written and/or copies of them with your added modifications written on them. (See My Philosophy Of Life - The Book, that I've written and compiled for easier referencing and gathering of your ideas, with alot of research and thinking all of this out! It links directly into pages that discuss each aspect of what it takes to formulate a complete, well-done philosophy of life for yourself.)
I am pretty darned sure that you'll want to spend some more time, later, at your own pace, writing more on these - and spend time reviewing them as reminders for your life, perhaps in the morning grounding session, using perhaps The Reminders Notebook system.
HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD I ALLOW FOR THIS?
A sticky, messy question, or at least the answer is rather variable. The correct answer is "until you get the result of having a solid, strong philosophy of life that allows you to be happy". The practicality is that we can only do this in increasing levels of completion and power - but we should do those levels as rapidly as possible so you can live your best life really soon and have a really much better life while you are working even on the lower levels.
I would recommend that you initially do the basic reading, via the links in The Book, and write up as many pages as you can but without super-polishing them, inserting them in your notebook. You would do this over a month, where you are spending at least two hours a week (which you could do in 1/2 hour segments most days, with a focused extra hour or two on the weekends, especially when you are fresher). Do the initial thrust at a lower level of excellence, although I think you will benefit alot even by the amount of clarification and power you will have at level one.
