The Surprising Benefits of Writing a Personal Constitution

Karim Elsheikh
Aug 24, 2017 · 7 min read

I am willing to bet that 97% of people don’t have a personal constitution.

What’s a personal constitution? It’s just like the constitution of a country, such as the United States.

Just like how countries set specific ideal beliefs and systems that they intend to uphold, we can set up a similar set of beliefs for ourselves.

These beliefs can set us on the right course in life, and remind us how we should react to every situation. Having a personal constitution is very useful for many reasons.

Today, I’ll explain the benefits of creating a personal constitution and how you can go about creating one for yourself.

I’ll also explain what will likely happen if you don’t have a personal constitution.

The Benefits of Having a Personal Constitution

There are so many underrated benefits of having a personal constitution.

First of all, it’s very hard to achieve anything substantial in life without high levels of mental clarity.

Having a personal constitution helps you establish high levels of mental clarity in your life.

That’s because it is essentially a document where you are telling yourself how you plan to live your life.

When you have a direction for your life, you’ll be much better off than the average person.

That’s because the average person drifts through life like a leaf in the wind, letting themselves get carried away by all kinds of diversions and distractions.

As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”.

When you are mentally clear, you are able to focus hard on the things that are most important to you in life.

You also get less distracted by the little, unimportant things that suck away all of your time and energy.

This means that you’ll be many times as likely to achieve your goals, and live a happy and fulfilled lifestyle.

Another benefit of having a personal constitution is that it will tell you what to do in life’s toughest moments.

Having a personal constitution helps you achieve mental clarity and guides you during tough times.

Often in life, we are faced with many difficulties and problems. The difference between being successful and unsuccessful is how we handle those problems.

When we are faced with difficult decisions with high consequences, we often enter what is called the “fight or flight” response.

That means that we tend to think emotionally instead of rationally when we are under a lot of pressure.

That’s not a good state to be making a decision, because it will often lead to making short-term decisions with long-term negative consequences.

A personal constitution helps because you can always refer to it under time of great distress.

Because you probably wrote your constitution when you were in a calm and rational state, it will be a powerful guiding force when you are in an emotional state.

The final benefit of having a personal constitution is that you will almost never compromise your values.

Living a good life all comes down to being consistent with what you value most.

If you value family most, you’ll be most happy when you spend enough time with your family.

If you value your career the most, you’ll be most happy when you’re growing throughout a company, or when your business is growing.

Having a personal constitution helps bring your most important values to your awareness and aligns your actions with those values.

When your values and your daily actions are aligned, you’ll be living a much happier and fulfilling life.

Think About Your Life’s Purpose

Now that you know the benefits of having a personal constitution, it’s time to actually sit down and write one.

The first thing you should write is your personal “thesis statement”. A thesis statement is a 2–3 sentence paragraph that addresses the main idea of your writing.

You’ll want to write your life’s main purpose in your thesis statement, and make it very clear what you want out of life.

Write down the main purpose of your life, as it stands.

For example, my thesis statement is this:

My main purpose in life is to become a massive catalyst for people and help them overcome resistance, accomplish their goals, and achieve self-mastery. I want to learn and grow every day, achieve financial freedom through my business, and impact the lives of thousands of people.

As you can see, your thesis statement should be clear and concise. Think of it as asking the universe/nature/god (or whatever you believe in) for your perfect lifestyle in a nutshell.

Your life goals should be aligned with you talents and abilities so that you can actually achieve them.

After your thesis statement, you can also add a bulleted list of all of your major long-term goals in life.

Try to make them realistic for the time-frame that you want to achieve them in.

For example, if you want to become a millionaire but you haven’t even graduated high school yet, it’s probably not realistic to believe that you can do it in (let’s say) 2 years.

The average millionaire is 62 years old. Based on that statistic, it’s probably realistic for an ambitious person to set a 20 year goal to become a millionaire.

If you don’t set realistic goals, your subconscious mind will reject them altogether.

Having your list of long-term goals will further solidify your values, and drive more clarity and less clutter into your life.

Write Down a List of Laws for Yourself

The next thing you should do when you’re crafting your personal constitution is to write down a list of laws for yourself.

Just like a country’s constitution, you should have laws that tell you how you should act in certain situations.

This sounds strict, but it’s not as bad as you think. In fact, this process can be extremely powerful.

Here are some questions to get you thinking about what kind of “laws” you should write down for yourself:

  • “How often am I allowed to eat junk food so I don’t become overweight?”
  • “When I’m stressed, what should I do so that I don’t make bad decisions?”
  • “How should I act when someone double-crosses or back-stabs me?”
  • “How should I treat people who are less fortunate than me?”

These kinds of questions will help you write personal laws that put you on the right track.

Personal laws tell you how to act in tough situations.

Integrity and consistency are key pillars of an effective person. Having personal laws in your constitution facilitates the development of these traits.

Another benefit of personal laws is they help you structure your daily life in a way that is congruent with your long-term goals.

Here are some examples of personal laws you can create for yourself:

Law 1: When faced between the choice of my work and my family, I should always choose my family. An exception to this law is if the results of this work are so important, they can greatly benefit my family.

Law 2: I will make sure to get at least 1 day of rest each week. I believe in the power of recovery for productivity and success.

Law 3: I will exercise at least 3 days per week at the minimum. If I am in a situation where it is difficult to do my normal routine (such as a hotel), I will do body-weight exercises at the minimum.

Law 4: When people hurt me, I will not seek revenge. I will be the bigger person, and show them forgiveness.

Law 5: I will eat healthy food 80% of the time, and allow myself to indulge in tasty (unhealthy) foods for the remaining 20% of the time.

Follow Through

The final and most important step in building a personal constitution is to actively use it. Refer to it at least once a week, and reflect if your actions match your personal constitution (your beliefs).

Remember to refer to your personal constitution when you are faced with difficult problems or decisions.

Your personal constitution should also be the basis for your daily goal setting.

It will feel silly at first, but you’ll be amazed at the changes in the quality of your decision-making if you can make it a habit.

Better decisions lead to better actions, which lead to better results.

It doesn’t matter how long you spent writing down your life purpose and beliefs. If you don’t follow through, you will surely fail.

Don’t let your effort go to waste. Stay accountable and refer to your constitution when you are facing tough decisions in life.

If you stick with it, you’ll be amazed at your transformation!

Conclusion

I hope this post helped you learn my method for writing a personal constitution.

Remember, having a strong “why” is much more important than learning “what” or “how”.

If you discipline yourself to write down your life purpose, personal beliefs, and personal laws, it will pay off down the road.

Want more success strategies?

Click here to learn how to gain the 5 most important qualities of successful people.


Originally published at www.innerconqueror.com on August 21, 2017.

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