Chapter 12
Drafting a Self-CONSTITUTION
—William Ewart Gladstone
The United States Constitution is arguably the greatest and most important civic document produced over the last 2,000 years of human history. In addition to serving as the foundation for American civil liberties, personal freedoms, and collective prosperity, it has been replicated in some way or form by almost all other nations on Earth.
Like any nation, the United States has its share of difficulties and problems. It is certainly not a "Perfect Union." However, striving after the IDEAL of a "More Perfect Union"—with its Constitution serving as a perpetually guiding Polaris in matters of politics and governance—has unquestionably empowered Americans to collectively rise to unprecedented heights civilly, culturally, economically, educationally, and militarily.
In short, America is the most remarkable nation that planet Earth has ever produced, and they have their Constitution to thank for it.
There are, of course, other reasons for the United States' nonpareil peace, prosperity, power, and innovativeness. Being sheltered on both coasts by vast oceans and possessing a massive amount of choice land and resources, it is no secret that Americans have gotten the "long end" of the proverbial "stick" compared to any other single nation.
Nevertheless, we at Freedom Focused hold that the Constitution of the United States—and the noble, pure, true, and virtuous principles contained therein—has served as the ultimate loadstar of success to which Americans have individually and collectively "hitched their wagon." (1)
Freedom Focused further holds that composing—and then faithfully living by—a Self-Constitution based on Truth Principles rooted in Universal Laws will similarly guide, inspire, motivate, bless, and prosper YOUR life and career.
A Self-Constitution is similar to a personal mission statement, but more comprehensive.
Components of a Self-Constitution
A complete Self-Constitution has approximately NINE (9) parts (or Articles), each of which is aimed at providing detailed and principle-centered direction for living your life and designing your future. These nine parts include:
- Preamble-----------------------------VISION Statement and/or PERSONAL CREED
- Article I-------------------------------MISSION Statement
- Article II------------------------------VALUES identification, clarification, and prioritization
- Article III-----------------------------STANDARDS of PERSONAL CONDUCT
- Article IV-----------------------------GOALS
- Article V------------------------------SAL Advisory Board (SALAB)
- Article VI, VII, etc.-----------------Additional Content as desired/needed
- Signature-----------------------------NOTARIZATION by self and three witnesses
- Review & Amendments-----------AMENDMENTS can be formally included or informally adopted via piecemeal revisions over time.
A preamble serves as a summary statement for your Self-Constitution. It is a 30,000-foot view of what you aim to become and where you intend to go in your life.
In short, it is a statement of personal VISION.
A VISION Statement provides a snapshot of the future after you have followed through on the principles, practices, and plans you have outlined in your Self-Constitution. It captures a realistically IDEAL picture of you and your life twenty, thirty, or even fifty years in the future.
One way of creating a VISION Statement is to compose a PERSONAL CREED.
According to the dictionary, a CREED is defined as: a set of beliefs or aims which guide someone's actions. (2) A Personal Creed is therefore: an individual's beliefs, attitudes, and aims, which guide one's thoughts, speech, and behavior.
PERSONAL CREED
An individual's attitudes, beliefs, and aims which guide one's thoughts, speech, and behavior.
In my Self-Constitution, I include a brief statement of Vision and a Personal Creed. My personal VISION Statement is composed in a single-paragraph format. And because I love poetry, I chose to compose my Personal Creed in the form of a brief poem.
A Vision Statement and/or Personal Creed provide a brief snapshot or synopsis of your entire Self-Constitution. Because brevity is a key hallmark of a Vision Statement or Personal Creed, you will be able to easily memorize and burn them into your long-term memory in conjunction with displaying it in a readily visible location where it can serve as a continual reminder of who you are and what matters most in your life.
When composing a Vision Statement or Personal Creed, avoid including detailed objectives and values. Instead, highlight general truths and character traits you wish to develop and exemplify as your life's long-term foci.
My personal Vision Statement is too private and sacred to me to share publicly, but I have included my own Personal Creed below as an example of this brief and basic constitutional construct.
JJ's Personal Creed
I am a simple man
With a simple plan.
To live each day the best that I can:
To live simply and pace myself,
With an eye ever focused on long-term ends.
To learn what is right and then do it;
To know what is wrong and eschew it.
To practice fidelity unto my wife—
My best friend, my lover, the joy of my life.
To hearken to conscience—the voice of God's Spirit—
And e'er do my duty whenever I hear it
Call me to lift child, sister, or brother,
And e'er be the change that I wish in another.
God give me strength to always be true,
In Christ's name I pray, through whose blood I'm made new.
Amen.
In addition to committing my Personal Creed to memory, I also display a copy of it in my bedroom in the corner of a large portrait of my wife (bride) in her lovely wedding gown. Because I pass by this picture of Lina and my Personal Creed several times a day, both images serve as a constant reminder of what matters most to me in my life and career.
Article I: MISSION Statement
Examples of long-term objectives include: raising a family, building a successful business, becoming a published author, achieving a position or title in an organization, or accomplishing some other significant and measurable long-term goal.
Like a VISION Statement, a MISSION Statement focuses on the long-run. Longer missions may require twenty, thirty, or even fifty years to complete. Shorter missions might require two, five, or ten years to complete.
Article II: VALUES
In Article II, YOU identify, clarify, and prioritize your personal VALUES.
These three separate steps involve asking and answering the following questions:
- IDENTIFICATION: What is important to me?
- CLARIFICATION: Why are these people and things important to me?
- PRIORITIZATION: How do I rank my values from most to least importance?
Values Identification
Identifying your VALUES involves making a list of the beliefs, concepts, entities, people, things, activities, et cetera that are important to you.
Examples of VALUES might include: Significant Other, family, friends, financial security or independence, health and fitness, music, art, sports, integrity, peace of mind, spirituality, clear conscience, influence, hobbies, food and drink, entertainment, travel, freedom, etc.
Values Clarification
Clarifying your VALUES involves describing why you have chosen to value someone or something.
For example, if you value good physical health, you might clarify that value in a statement such as: "When I'm physically healthy, I feel good, have more energy, and am more motivated to serve other people."
 |
| Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 |
"Give me health and a day, and I will make
the pomp of emperors ridiculous."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Values Prioritization
The Prioritization of your VALUES involves listing them out in order from most to least important.
VALUES prioritization is a vital part of Article II because whatever you really value most will drive your decision-making processes. As Jesus so smartly and succinctly stated: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (4)
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
—Jesus Christ
As you carefully prioritize your VALUES, you will likely discover areas of your life where your current thoughts, speech, and actions are misaligned with your stated values.
For example: let's say you state that you value your relationship with your spouse or significant other more than you value your own leisure time. But, as you examine your habits, you discover you have been spending far more time on your hobbies than you have been on cultivating and nurturing your primary relationship.
YOU have therefore discovered an area of your life where your VALUES and ACTIONS are misaligned.
Such discoveries can serve to trigger your conscience, which can then prompt you to realign your attitudes and actions with your deepest-held values.
Prioritizing your values also empowers your decision-making processes by making it easier to make many choices.
How does prioritization make it easier to make decisions?
When your values are prioritized, many choices become easier to make based on where they land on your prioritized list. For example: if I value health and sobriety above the opinion of my peers, I'll know exactly what to do when someone offers me a substance that could dull my senses, cloud my judgment, or jeopardize the safety or myself or others.
All decisions are not as straightforward as this clear-cut example.
Nevertheless, prioritizing YOUR VALUES remains a vital step in enabling and empowering good decision making.
As you consciously rank your life's various values, you will notice that over time, you'll face fewer choices between right and wrong or good and bad. Instead, you will find yourself increasingly choosing between two or more good things, or among good, better, and best options. As St. Jerome is said to have stated: Good, better, best. Never let it rest 'til the good is better, and the better is best.
"Good, better, best.
Never let it rest
'til the good is better,
And the better is best."
—St Jerome
Article III: STANDARDS of PERSONAL CONDUCT
Successful organizations typically specify explicit expectations of agent or employee conduct and decorum.
Freedom Focused certainly does!
We therefore invite individual self-action leaders everywhere to apply this method to their own lives.
The purpose of Article III is to identify standards of character, conduct, and decorum you expect YOURSELF to uphold in the following life arenas:
- Spiritual
- Physical
- Mental
- Social
- Moral
- Financial
SPIRITUAL standards relate to spiritual beliefs and religious practices.
PHYSICAL standards relate to diet, exercise, nutrition, sleep, sexual activity, etc.
MENTAL standards relate to formal education, informal reading and personal study, etc.
SOCIAL standards relate to friendships and other human associations and relationships (work colleagues, dating, partnering, collaborating, etc.).
MORAL standards relate to fairness, honesty, integrity, relationships, religious worship, spiritual practices, virtue, etc.
FINANCIAL standards relate to a personal budget, investments, savings, holdings, assets and liabilities, insurance, etc.
While you will not always perfectly perform to your self-imposed expectations and standards (no one is perfect), clearly conceptualizing IDEALS of speech and conduct promotes steady and continual progress toward those ideals—and the establishment of good habits along the way.
Article IV: GOALS
Unlike VISION and MISSION Statements—which forecasts several (or many) years into the future—GOALS include short-, mid-, and long-range goals you aim to accomplish over periods of days, weeks, and months, up to a few years into the future, according to the following approximate time frames:
- Short-Term GOAL = 1-day - 1-week to accomplish
- Mid-Term GOAL = 1-week - 1-month to accomplish
- Long-Term GOAL = 1-month — 1-year to accomplish
GOALS serve as stepping-stones along the pathway to achieving your MISSION and realizing your VISION.
Goal-setting is a hallmark of Self-Action Leadership.
Your Self-Constitution will usually include Long-Range GOALS only. This is because mid-range goals, short-range goals, and daily tasks will typically be recorded in a notebook, calendar, day planner, or technological device that you consult more regularly than your Self-Constitution.
Guidelines for GOAL Setting
"You are the best YOU."
You will always be the second best anyone else."
—Leo Buscaglia
Self-Action Leadership is always primarily about INTRA-personal, rather than INTERpersonal competition.
You will always be happier and more satisfied if you focus primarily on simply being your best self as opposed to continually comparing yourself to others.
Your journey up the SAL Hierarchy should not be a carbon copy of someone else's journey. You aren't competing with anyone else. Because human beings possess Existential Equality, the challenge is not to beat someone else. The challenge is to reach YOUR highest potential. There is, after all, only ONE person living your life and running in your singularly unique existential race.
Rising to the highest levels of the SAL Hierarchy is ultimately a battle with YOURSELF and existential crabs. Someone else's Existential Growth will never come at the expense of yours, and vice versa. Everyone who desires to rise up the SAL Hierarchy will eventually achieve it; there is plenty to go around for everyone.
Another person's successful rise does not diminish yours.
If anything, it compliments, empowers, and enriches it.
Stephen R. Covey referred to this principle as the Abundance Mentality, championing it over its opposite: the "scarcity mentality."
According to Covey, those who embrace a scarcity mentality—and most people typically do—see life as if it were a pie—with a finite amount of dessert to go around. The scarcity mentality says that if someone else gets a big piece, you'll end up getting a small piece—or no piece at all. (5)
Self-action leaders embrace the Abundance Mentality.
They comprehend the reality that there is, in fact, plenty to go around for everyone—both physically and metaphysically speaking. In other words, the Earth is not going to run out of resources (physically) and the only limit to YOUR Existential Growth (metaphysically) is the limit that YOU yourself place upon yourself.
Thus, you need never fear that someone else will obtain more than you will—at least not in an Existential Sense—because everyone ultimate has the same limitless potential for Existential Growth. That's just part of the reality of the law of Existential Equality—everyone has the potential to rise to the highest levels of Existential Growth (Level 9: The Creation Stage) if they desire it strongly enough to pay its price over time.
That is what Existential Equality is all about.
The goal of Self-Action Leadership is not to rise above others. The goal of SAL is to transcend Existential Gravity to the best of your ability and help others to do the same, all the while humbly recognizing that everyone possesses the Existential Potential to rise to the very highest levels on the SAL Hierarchy.
Thus, the way to reach the highest levels of Existential Growth is not to beat others to the punch. The way is accomplished by developing your own unique talents, abilities and innate capacity for growth with the aid of Serendipity.
Those who fail to rise to higher levels of Existential Growth typically spend their lives comparing themselves to others. When they surpass another, they arrogantly bask in their supposed superiority. And when they lose they are surpassed by others, their souls stew in rancorous jealousy and self-loathing.
Neither of these mindsets have any place in the authentic exercise of SAL.
Granted, this is not an easy paradigm shift to make; but it is a mindset change that must be made if you are to obtain authentic Existential Growth.
Like many self-action leaders, I had to learn this lesson the hard way.
Growing up, I was a serious athlete who took great pride in my accomplishments as a high school and later collegiate middle-distance runner. My talent and work ethic as a cross-country and track athlete helped shape my youthful identity and winning raced—beating other and being labeled the best—gave me enormous satisfaction.
As a junior in high school, I took first place in a State Championship race and captained my team to a team title in the classification in which we competed. This was a "heady" experience for me and added even more fuel to my innate competitiveness and fiery ambition for excellence, success, and winning. I liked the feeling of being the best at something and my avarice for more accolades, recognition, and victories began to swell. As such, my subsequent goal for the upcoming track season was to win not just one gold medal, but four.
I had become greedy.
As fate would have it, I did not accomplish my goal. In fact, I fell short of victory in all four of my races. Instead of going home with four Gold Medals, I went home with two silvers, a bronze, and a fourth place finish.
I was deeply disappointed!
Furthermore, I chose to view my junior track season as being something of a failure as a result.
This was really sad because in reality, I had turned in outstanding performances at the State track meet. In fact, I had scored new Personal Records (PRs) in three of my four events. I finished nearly all of my races faster than I had ever run before. From a SAL-perspective, I should have been thrilled with such stellar and unprecedented personal performances.
Sadly, I was unable to fully appreciate my personal achievements because I was too focused on my interpersonal results and not focused enough on my intrapersonal results.
Thankfully, in college, I was able to better recognize the error and counterproductive nature of this kind of thinking. I won a lot of races in high school, but in college, I almost never won. In fact, the only race I ever won in college was in a "B-heat" race. For those unfamiliar with how track races operate, the "B-heat" is where the slower athletes compete. The "A-heat" is reserved for those with the best incoming times.
While I didn't win many races in college, my personal best mile time in college was ten seconds faster than my very best mile mark in high school. I also scored personal bests in the 400 meters, 800 meters, 1500 meters, 5K road race, and 8K cross-country course as well. Regardless where I may have finished in comparison to other runners, the bottom line was that I was getting faster, and it felt GREAT!
Over time, I came to understand and accept the reality that I was not destined to be an elite runner, and that was okay. But, I was still a very good runner. In fact, in many people's minds (other than my own), I was even a great runner. When I finally retired from serious athletic competitions, I did not have any Olympic medals or world class stories to share, but I still did have a lot of medals and a lot of track tales to tell.
Most importantly, I had given cross-country and track an authentic and solid effort for many years. In the process, I learned many worthwhile life lessons and grew as both an individual and athlete. For all of these reasons and more, I knew I could rightfully consider myself as having been a successful runner and winning athlete.
Over time, I have discovered the existential fallacy of "Fair Competition" with others. In a precise sense, there really is no such thing as fair competition because no two human beings have precisely the same SAL Variable Quotient. Thus, the only truly "Fair Competition" occurs intrapersonally—between YOU and your own past results. Indeed, the notion of any truly fair interpersonal competition in this world is really a misnomer.
This epiphany changed my life.
I came to realize with growing clarity that my success wasn't ultimately contingent on beating someone else, but rather on maximizing my own personal potential in any given situation or endeavor.
Thus it is with SAL: it's not about beating others; it's about making gradual and piecemeal improvements upon your own past performances. It's all about individual Existential Growth, which, in the final analysis, is always an intrapersonal (or inner) achievement, not a defeat of anybody else.
SAL Master Challenge
EXERCISE #13
Self-action leaders focus primarily on Intrapersonal,
not interpersonal, COMPETITION.
With whom are you currently competing or otherwise comparing yourself?
Are these comparisons and competitions helping you, hurting you, or perhaps a little bit of both? Explain...
What are some specific ways in which you could begin reframing your focus away from interpersonal competition and toward intrapersonal competition?
What are some possible benefits of making this mindset change or paradigm shift?
I have completed the SAL Master Challenge EXERCISE #13
Your initials:__________ AP initials:__________
Article V: SAL Advisory Board (SALAB)
Your SAL Advisory Board, or SALAB, consists of an informal and creative council of people upon whose character you desire to model your thoughts, speech, actions, attitudes, and beliefs. The purpose of forming a SALAB is to provide you with "world-altering strategies" in the form of "positive cues," which refer to anything visual or creative that can prompt positive, productive, and desirable thoughts, speech, actions, attitudes, and beliefs. (6)
Your SALAB doesn't have to be a literal advisory board, although some of its members may indeed be real, living persons from any of the first four relationship tiers described in Chapter 5 (Building Relationships). It may also include persons unknown to you personally, but that you admire and respect from afar, or deceased persons to whom you are related, or that you have studied. It might even include fictional characters from literature, the stage, or film.
My own SALAB includes God, members of my family (immediate and ancestral), personal mentors, and inspirational and successful persons I don't know personally, including a few professional athletes, a movie star, and a comedian.
It is up to YOU whom you will choose to serve on your SALAB. The important thing is not who you include, but that your completed SALAB inspires and motivates you to become the best self-action leader of which you are capable of becoming.
After you have selected your SALAB members, it's important to prioritize them—just like you did with your VALUES in Article II. Doing so will help you identify which of their achievements, contributions, and characteristics are most important and meaningful to you.
After this step, you can begin to use their examples as a source of encouragement and inspiration for your behavior in the present and future. As a creative and proactive SAL exercise, it might be useful to envision yourself actually holding a formal board meeting with your SALAB, wherein you share information and issues with them in your mind's eye (or out loud), and then contemplate and reflect upon how they might respond to you—theoretically speaking—in return. You might also conduct one-on-one interviews and/or more casual tête-á-tête's with individual board members—in person or in your imagination (as each case scenario may be).
This creative and proactive mental activity can be encouraging, instructive, and uplifting. It may also provide you with insights and motivation about your priorities and values in addition to spawning solutions to the problems and questions you face in your life.
In preparation for completing your own SALAB in your Self-Constitution, consider the following examples from my SALAB.
- Lina M. Jensen (1987-present): My best friend and wife — for her considerable intellect, cautious wisdom, innate goodness, warm and comforting companionship, easy-going personality, extraordinary trustworthiness, and unconditional love. SALAB Rank: #4 (7)
- Stephen L. Jensen (1946-present): Retired Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force, and former F-15 fighter pilot, LDS Mission President (Trujillo, Peru), husband, father of 4, grandfather of 16, great grandfather of ??, and my UNCLE — for his honorable service to Church and Country, and for his amiable personality, made all the more likeable by his authentic humility. SALAB Rank: #14
- Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948): Father of India and legendary self-action leader — for his discipline, self-control, sacrificial will, and integrity. SALAB Rank: #16
- Abigail Adams (1744-1818): Wife of President John Adams — for her connubial love and loyalty, considerable intellect and communication skills, and her advocacy of women's rights. SALAB Rank: #17
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Playwright, poet, business manager, director, entrepreneur — for his extraordinary knowledge of, and matchless capacity to frame, the English language. SALAB Rank: #22
- Roger Federer (1981-present): Professional athlete (retired) and ambassador for the sport of tennis — for his excellence, sportsmanship, class, graceful play on the court, fidelity to his family, and life balance on and off the court. SALAB Rank #27.
In assembling your own SALAB, it is not necessary to include only those whose character is deemed to be beyond reproach. After all, even the best humans remain imperfect. Some members of my SALAB over the years have had glaring deficiencies and shortcomings. Nevertheless, I included them for one or more specific achievement or character trait I admired and wished to incorporate and improve upon in my own life.
The goal of a SALAB is not to configure a council of perfect people; that's impossible! The idea is to assemble a group of individuals who collectively represent a wide variety of worthy characteristics you desire to amalgamate into your overall character and personality over the course of your life.
With that said, I should also add that your SALAB membership will almost certainly evolve over time as YOU grow and progress as a self-action leader. That is just a natural outgrowth of the existential maturation process. I have, over the years, let some of my own SALAB members go after learning about actions that were just too distasteful to me. As a result, the collective maturity of my SALAB has steadily risen over the years.
Creating my own SALAB was one of the most enjoyable aspects of composing my Self-Constitution. I hope you also have fun identifying the individuals you most admire and desire to emulate. More importantly, I hope you will effectively use the creative processes of the SALAB principle and thereby allow your board members to motivate and otherwise influence you in positive and productive ways.
How many board members should serve on your SALAB?
That's entirely up to you.
I personally have 31 members on my SALAB, but that is just my preference. You could potentially have more or fewer than me, and your SALAB could be just as effective.
At a minimum, I would encourage you to include 5-10 persons in your initial SALAB. Then, if you want to add more, fine; and if not, that's okay too. Your numerical guide in this regard should be based on whatever works best for and motivates YOU. Over time, you may expand or contract your SALAB based on a variety of variables. It's your SALAB, so you are free to establish and then reshape it according to your desires, needs, and preferences over time.
Article VI, VII, etc.
You may want to add additional components to your Self-Constitution. Such addendums will be representative of your unique personality, style, and desire for life structure and design. Such material can be included as additional articles (i.e. Article VI, VII, VIII, etc.).
As you consider additional material for your Self-Constitution, be careful about adding too many articles or addenda. Quality should always trump quantity. Moreover, there is often a beauty to be found in simplicity. However, there's nothing wrong with initially writing as long a constitution as you feel is needed/wanted in an effort to get all your thoughts out on paper. Over time, you can tighten up the text and otherwise abridge it as you gain insights and clarity into your life's vision, mission, purpose, goals, etc.
My original Self-Constitution started out at about seven (7) pages. Within a few years, it ballooned to nearly 30 pages. Over time, I've gained a lot of clarity about my life's purpose and direction. This clarity has led me to greatly simplify the text of my Self-Constitution. As a result, I've trimmed it down by about 50-percent, to about 15 pages. This revision occurred naturally as my life and career vision, mission, values, and goals became increasingly and gradually clearer and more specific over many years' time.
I personally do not include any additional articles beyond Article V.
But that does not mean you can't.
Remember, your Self-Constitution is YOURS and yours alone. As such, you may ultimately frame, construct, and articulate it any way you want. The formal structure set forth in this Life Leadership textbook serves as a basic guide and template of the ideal principles incorporated in a solid Self-Constitution.
Signature
 |
| John Hancock famously signed his name so that King George would be able to see it without his reading glasses. |
When you have completed your Self-Constitution, you should do the same thing as George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and 35 other delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787: YOU should affix your signature as a visible symbol of your commitment and dedication to the new document that will guide and direct your future life and career.
Signing your name to your Self-Constitution doesn't guarantee you will always follow it perfectly.
No one is perfect.
But it does represent an authentic desire and genuine intention to try your best. It also provides a noble start to your official SAL journey. After all, kinetic successes always begin as potential successes rooted in the intent and will to try.
To quote a favorite movie line of mine: There are no perfect men in this world; only perfect intentions. (8)
"There are no perfect [people] in the world; only perfect intentions."
—Pen Densham & John Watson
Since Freedom Focused is all about IDEALS, we are happy to start off with perfect intentions. In fact, we're pleased to begin with just good intentions. If YOU have an intent to be and do good, that is all you need to get started as a self-action leader!
While no human being is perfect, those who come closest thereto are those who have the noblest intentions, explicitly articulate those intentions in writing, and then consistently back up their intentions with action and integrity over time.
The meaning, power, and value of the United States' Declaration of Independence and Constitution does not lie in the ink and parchment upon which they are written. Their value, power, and meaning are derived from its citizens' and leaders' loyal adherence to the principles and practices set forth therein.
Unless they are backed up by the gold standard of ACTION and INTEGRITY, the words themselves are as worthless as hyper-inflated paper currency.
YOUR OWN Self-Declaration of Independence and Self-Constitution are likewise meaningless, pointless, and useless unless you animate their words with your thoughts, speech, actions, attitudes, and beliefs.
Review and Amendments
In other words, your completed Self-Constitution should be a "living" rather than a "finished" document, evolving, growing, and maturing as YOU yourself evolve, grow, and mature.
At a bare minimum, Freedom Focused encourages all self-action leaders to review their Self-Constitution at least once a year.
As the sovereign commander of your own life and world, YOU hold the ultimate veto power over everything in your Self-Constitution, so you may amend it as you see fit.
SAL Master Challenge
EXERCISE #14
Return to the beginning of this chapter and reread the steps for drafting a Self-Constitution and then create YOUR own as you go. You may also use the template below as a guide.
The Self-Action Leadership
Personal Constitution
of
_________________________________________________
Print Name
Preamble
Statement of Personal Vision
Personal Creed
Article I
Statement of Personal Mission
Article II
Values Identification
Values Clarification
Values Prioritization
Article III
Standards of Personal Conduct
Spiritual:
Physical:
Mental:
Social:
Moral:
Financial:
Article IV
Long-Term Goals
Article V
Self-Action Leadership Advisory Board
(SALAB)
Signature
In Your Journal
Reflect on your experience writing your Self-Constitution. Then answer the following questions:
- Did you find the process of creating your Self-Constitution to be hard, easy, or mixed? Why?
- Did you enjoy the process of creating your Self-Constitution?
- What did you learn about yourself along the way.
—Dr. JJ
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
Author's Note: This is the 443rd Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 245th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.
Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 442 FF Blog Articles
Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL QUOTES
Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL POEMS
Click HERE to access the FULL TEXT of Dr. JJ's Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection
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Click HERE for a complete listing of Current Events, Cultural, Philosophical, & Miscellaneous Articles
Click HERE for a complete listing of Dr. JJ's Autobiographical Articles
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Chapter 13 Notes
1. This phrase references Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote: Hitch your wagon to a star.
2. New Oxford American Dictionary for Mac OS.
3. Emerson, R. W. in Ziff, L., Ed. (1985). Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Page 43. In his essay, Nature. Pages 35-82.
4. Matthew 6:13, New Testament.
5. Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York, NY: Fireside. Pages 219-220, 300, 304.
6. World-altering strategies & positive cues are concepts from Mastering Self- Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence (Fifth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Pages 15-16.
7. The reason my wife ranks #4 and not #1 is because the first three places on my SALAB incorporate figures of Deity, religion, and spirituality, which are the only things I prioritize more highly than my best friend and connubial companion.
8. The quote – There are no perfect men in this world; only perfect intentions – was spoken by Morgan Freeman’s character, Azeem, in the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. (1991). Warner Brothers. Morgan Creek Productions. Directed by Kevin Reynolds. Screenplay by Pen Densham & John Watson.
