Achieving Your Life Mission

By Randal A. Wright

Reviewed by Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury
On 12/18/2009

Cedar Fort, 2009 Paperback:
224 pages
ISBN-10: 1-59955-348-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-59955-348-1 Price: $14.99

If you receive Mormon Times with your newspaper subscription on Thursday mornings, you may have seen ads for the handbook that accompanies this book: The 3 Word Journal and you may have wondered about it.

Even if you haven't seen the ads, you may be aware that as members of the LDS Church, we have been urged again and again to keep journals and to include our own personal histories with our family histories. In fact, these things are commandments.

Well, with a new year coming, and the opportunity to get serious about a New Year's Resolution to get started on your personal history (as well as a great opportunity to give a wonderful last minute Christmas gift to those in your family who need to get serious about journal keeping and personal histories), I can not more strongly recommend that you consider this book and the handbook as gifts — to yourself and your loved ones.

Not only does the handbook give you ample room and guidance on personal histories and journal keeping, but it provides wonderful memory triggers to help you bring the important experiences in your life to your remembrance. I almost couldn't sleep the night I started reading The 3 Word Journal because my mind was racing with ideas and memories.

And Achieving Your Life Mission explains that there is more to personal histories and journals than just keeping a record. Each and every one of us was sent here for a purpose. Not just the general purposes that we all have come for, but for specific, individual purposes that are different for every person. Some have no problem figuring out what they are supposed to do with their lives, but many of us need a little help.

Achieving Your Life Mission not only discusses the steps to creating your personal history and keeping your journal, even for those who believe they can't write so much as a shopping list, it also helps you see how the things that have happened in your life have prepared you for your life's mission. Our Heavenly Father didn't send us here and leave us stranded. He truly is in the details, and He has been involved in preparing us for our lifes' missions. If you can examine your life through the wonderful memory triggers The 3 Word Journal provides, and if you incorporate the insights Achieving Your Life Mission offers, with the help of The Spirit, you can learn what you're supposed to be doing, and you can turn your life in a direction that will bring you greater fulfillment and happiness.

Achieving Your Life Mission shows you how to start with your patriarchal blessing, and then goes on to encourage the very kinds of asking-questions-and-writing-down-the-answers sessions with the Lord that Elder Scott described in his October 2009 conference talk. Gifts, talents, and strengths and how to use them are also covered, as well as overcoming weaknesses.

Personal history writing helps us to "Discover Why You Are the Way You Are" and makes it possible to "Write a Personal Mission Statement," "Create a Vision," and "Set and Achieve Worthwhile Goals." These are all chapters in the book that are followed by chapters on education, planning, work, desire and determination, perseverance, decision-making, overcoming procrastination, keeping physically fit, getting plenty of rest, and having a positive attitude. Practical and basic approaches to making your life better and happier.

One of the last chapters encourages recording the things learned in the process. Not only will this help those who actually keep such records, but the stories of such learning experiences will be of help and inspiration to others, just as the stories included in the chapters of this book and in the talks the author has given to numerous groups have been an inspiration to his readers and listeners.

The 3 Word Journal is not available on Amazon the way Achieving Your Life Mission is, but it can be ordered through www.3WordJournal.com. The workbook explains the 3-word summary approach which is amazingly inspiring and simple to use. There are also worksheets for "Valuable Lessons Learned in My Life"; a place to list at least 100 life goals; places for listing strengths and weaknesses, how weaknesses hold you back, and commitments to change; page after page of sheets with memory cues for listing 3-word summaries of important memories; and spaces for more than one attempt at a life mission statement; all clearly explained with samples that are faith-promoting and encouraging.

It isn't too late to get these books, for yourself and for your loved ones. Christmas may be a week away, but the New Year is a week after that. And the new year is not the only time for life-changing resolutions. You can start to discover your purpose, record your experiences, and share what you've learned any time. But the sooner you do it, the better. I've already started and I love what I'm learning and remembering.


Copyright 2009