What's Your Personal Manifesto?

Jake Parker

I put up a new video last night that poses the question: What's your personal manifesto?

You can watch that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Tjg7l9qYU

If you're not sure, start by asking yourself these three questions:

What do you want to accomplish in life?
What do you like to do?
What are you really good at doing?

Answer those and then figure out how to put those answers in to work by using them to guide your actions and decisions.

Kendra Minadeo

Really loved your video, Jake.
Can't say my manifesto is quite succinct yet but here's the run down.

Art Making

Make art that makes me happy
Do the things I'm good at and like doing
Make art that inspires happiness in others
Make art that my kids will love
Make picture books and comics that are meaningful and speak to people on more then one level

Family

Have a Family
Make enough to support myself and my family
Make sure my family is happy and comfortable but not spoiled
Maintain loving friendships

Brain & Skill

Keep learning and getting better at everything
Share what I know

Ferdinand Landry

Hello Jake,
Here is my attempt to answer the questions posed by this discussion.

What do you want to accomplish in life?

Provide a great life for my daughter
Become a concept artist
Make a contribution to art education

What do you like to do?
I like drawing, playing the bass guitar, mathematics, programming, and problem solving.
What are you really good at doing?
I’m good at problem solving and explaining complex subjects.

Thanks
Freddy

Steven Watson

Great Video Jake

What is My Personal Manifesto?

Q1) What do I want to accomplish in life?
A1) I want to provide the retirement income my
wife and I wish for to enjoy our Golden years.

Q2) What do I like to do?
A2) Create life, both live and fictional, on paper, canvas or digital medial
from pencils, pens, brushes or stylus.

Q3) What am I really good at doing?
A3) I love teaching others, especially the young artists, what has brought me the
most joy in life.

Kathryn Klingensmith

I found this post/video at a time when I needed them most! I thought to myself this morning, "OK, it's time to prioritize and take action". These questions are a great place to start. Thank you for the inspiring video, Jake!

What do you want to accomplish in life?
I want to inspire my daughter to work hard and to be persistent when striving to meet her goals. I want to have a somewhat flexible career in a field that I enjoy working in.

What do you like to do?
Solve problems/help people, spend time with my family, create, learn, cook, read.

What are you really good at doing?
Being happy, organizational tasks, working with people/team, coming up with creative solutions

Peter Jarvis

@Jake-Parker said:

What do you want to accomplish in life?
I want become the best children's book writer/illustrator I can possibly be and leave a lasting legacy for my son and his children.

What do you like to do?
I like to sit in cafes and draw the people I see. I love listening to peoples stories as they can inspire me to be more creative.
I have started to draw scenes from cafe windows.
I love sitting and doodling with my son.
I love creating stories ready for me to illustrate in the future.

What are you really good at doing?
I am really good at telling myself I am not as good as everyone else and taking days before I show anyone my work.

Jeszika Lee

This has been really interesting for me to think about. As the usual artist personality, I am always so interested in so many different things that it can be very hard for me to focus in on a single direction or goal. I just got a degree in chemistry, with the goal of entering the field of neurochemistry, I am writing a philosophy book on ethics as well as several scifi/fantasy novels, teaching myself austrian economics, reading anything and everything and collecting books, learning to sew and do carpentry and entering a whole new phase of my journey as an artist by transitioning from traditional fine art to digital illustration. So, I tend to be very scattershot in my focus and I am just now realizing that I can't do everything masterfully. Whatever time I spend on one, takes time away from all the others. So I have really had to think about which ones are the most important to me. So, I have been thinking about these questions you posted. I found them very difficult to answer but this is what I came up with:

What do you want to accomplish in life: I would like to excel at creating things - to leave behind work that will be of value to others after I die. I would like to be able to represent my philosophical values and principles in the things I create to enrich the world around me and to create things that have a beauty, that show that reality is improved and created by what we put into it.

What do you like to do: I love learning new things. I love developing skills and watching the progression I make from struggling to mastering. I love generating ideas and finding ways to bring them to life and share them with others. I love problem solving. I love looking at something and finding a way to add to it or improve on it or change it in a way that gives it a new dimension.

What are you really good at doing: I think that learning and generating ideas are my two greatest skills. Both of these combined have made me more capable of developing creative skills, such as visual art and writing. Because I learn quickly, I have found there are not many things that I could never be good at (short of sports lol hand eye coordination is something I can't learn!) but I can't be great at anything unless I am selective about what I put my time into. So, I have decided that many of my non-creative interests must take a back seat and serve to inform what I create but never overtake my focus.

It feels a little strange writing this all down in such a straight forward manner - but I think it does help to clarify what my priorities are.

Leontine

@Jake-Parker Thank you so much for the inspiring video. People like you really change the world.

My personal manifesto is more of a letter to myself, so later on I can force myself to read it again and again so that I don't lose track

My family means everything to me. I want to support them mentally and financially in every way that I can. That means that i have to take care of myself really well. i have to take time to develop myself, and work on a good career. I love making art, teaching children, to spent time with my five boys, sports and cooking. The last year i have been working way to hard. I found out that the effort putting into a new business has not given me what i was looking for. I'd spend to much time and did not earn enough. This year I'm gonna try to be more efficient in my work. I'm facing a very large illustration job that gives me time to ease down on other business. Im gonna give myself one day of every week to develop my skills as an artist. And finally I really want to illustrate more childrens-books.

Maile McCarthy

@Jake-Parker Wonderful video. Thank you so much for sharing it and for pointing to your youtube channel here in the forums. I ended up listening to several of them while I painted this morning.

Here are my preliminary thoughts on my manifesto:

What do you want to accomplish in life?

I want to guide and support my son as he grows, so that he can become his best self. I want to become more fully who I am (and not who I've felt I should be), so that I can model for him the value of listening to his own inner voice. And I want to create art that speaks to that same value. I would love to some day illustrate a picture book that connects with a kid who needs that message of self-love, just at the moment when they need it most.

What do you like to do?

I like to day dream. I like to garden and to kneel down and get a bug's-eye-view of the plants, especially first thing in the morning. There's so much going on in there that we usually miss. I like to walk in the fog on cold evenings and see the warm light shining from my neighbor's houses. I like to watch people and sketch people.

What are you really good at doing?

I'm good at learning new things. I'm good at catching moments of awe and beauty in the world around me.

And I'll have to think more about how that all comes together into a personal manifesto. This is a great jumping-off point. Thanks Jake!