When we first created the Make Your Mark collection, our intention was to give women a beautiful and organised way to reflect on their life and take purposeful steps towards waking up the leader inside of them. We believe that when women are leaders in their own life, they can make their mark in the world.
The Make Your Mark collection contains three elegant stationery pieces: a journal, planner and notebook.
Every item in the collection is divided into 6 sections, one for each of the 6 leadership traits that make up the LH manifesto.
The journal is a great place to start. It acts as a self-coaching tool, and helps you set specific goals towards developing leadership traits. Please don’t feel like you need to speed through the journal—you can treat it as a development program and work on one trait at a time, such as one a month.
The notebook is your travelling companion. It has plenty of space for you to take notes, write down insights during meetings, get dreaming, and more, while inspiring you with relevant quotes, tips and prompts.
The planner is your daily to-do list and accountability partner. Spend a few minutes in the morning to set the focus for your day, and then check in with yourself at the end of the day to see how you went.
We want to help you get the most out of the collection, so we’ve created a guide to get you started!
Make Your Mark Journal
Leadership checklist
Before embarking upon any development plan, take a moment and reflect on where you are today. It’s so easy to get caught up in the wheel of life, going round and round in circles, not knowing if you are making any progress towards where you want to be in life – both professionally and personally.
Complete the leadership checklist to see how you rank in each leadership trait—it will help you to see where you need to develop. Some things will come to you more naturally than others. Taking time to assess your strengths and development areas is a great starting point, and allows you to focus on the areas that need more of your attention.
I am / I will be
Self-awareness is the foundation of self-knowledge. We need to accept and acknowledge who we are, and clearly identify who we aspire to become so that we can assess our progress.
Complete the list of characteristics you already have and are known for, and then think about what you would like to be. Having a clear vision of what you are reaching for engages the ‘reticular activation system’ [RAS] in your brain, which acts as a filter and ensures you notice and absorb the information that is relevant to you and your goal. For example, when you decide you want to buy a red car and suddenly you see red cars everywhere, that’s not because everyone else is buying red cars as well. It’s your RAS ensuring you notice every red car around you, because that’s what you’ve programmed your brain to notice!
Complete this section by identifying the top 3 skills or characteristics you want to be known for. Use this to set your intentions before any big meeting or interaction. For example, you might want to be known for being kind, resourceful and collaborative. You can then focus on that intention before you join any meeting/interaction, and look for ways you can add value by being kind, resourceful and collaborative. How people experience us is how they remember us, and that’s what we will be known for.
Discover your passions
Just as it’s important to know what you can do, it’s just as important to know what lights you up when you do it. Your passions are the things you love doing. They are the things you can do for hours and not notice the time—even though you may spend a lot of time working on that task, you will feel energised as a result. It’s important to identify what you are passionate about so you can incorporate these things into your life more often. Ideally, you’ll incorporate them into your profession and get paid to do it! It’s energising and exciting to live a passionate life!
Core values
It is easy to lose track of what is important to us when we are living a busy life. Our values are our inner compass—they help us stay true to ourselves and not compromise to the point of losing ourselves. True leaders have integrity and authenticity, and that comes from knowing what matters most and living accordingly.
If you have difficulty picking your values, consider the things that really get under your skin. For example, is it unfairness, people lying, or general cruelty? You might find fairness/justice, truth, and kindness are important pillars in your life, and are therefore your core values.
Legacy
We are all here for a finite time. None of us are getting out of here alive! So, it makes sense to be purposeful about how we want to be remembered, and the impact we want to make in this world.
If you find this exercise hard to do, consider the people you admire. Think about the way they changed the world and how people talk about them.
Think about the legacy you wish to leave with your family, your children, your friends, your colleagues, in the industry you work in… is there a common thread?
Remember that ultimately, the impact we leave on others is how we make them feel.
Success
Success is such a popular word—everyone wants to be successful, but what does it really mean? The truth is, success means something different to everyone. One person’s idea of success will be completely different to someone else’s.
Knowing what success means to you is important, so that you chase your definition of success and measure yourself according to that, and not someone’s else’s definition of success
Dream day
How we live our day is how we live our life. Take a moment to consider your ideal day. This exercise will give you clues as to what type of daily routines or rituals you may wish to start.
Life Planning
Now that you know what success means to you, and the legacy you want to leave behind, you can get clear on the milestones/goal posts you need to achieve in order to get there. The only way to achieve anything in life is to break the big goals into achievable chunks.
Creativity
Don’t skip this section or rush through it. Many people tell themselves they’re not creative, but when they give themselves time and work through this section, they realise they’re more creative than they’ve given themselves credit for. The assignments to stimulate your creativity are fun and easy to do. Feel free to involve friends or family as well. Be kind to yourself and enjoy the process!
The good news is once you start boosting your creativity, you’ll find yourself coming up with ideas. Don’t judge them as ‘good ideas’ or ‘bad ideas’. You never know when a seemingly out-there idea will become THE idea. Instead of dismissing them, why not jot them down under “my crazy creative bucket list”?
Innovation
If you’ve ever wanted more time for yourself, and to be with your loved ones, this section is here to help you increase efficiency and productivity in your life.
Tip: Go through each exercise and answer the questions in as much detail as you can. We all get 24 hours in a day and the difference between people who achieve their goals and those who don’t comes down to how they use their time. Therefore, it makes sense to properly assess how we spend each hour.
Confidence
This section encourages you to be on your side and back yourself. If you find it hard to say positive things about yourself, reach out to a trusted friend who can remind you of your achievements and things people value in you. Don’t skip the confidence challenge! If you’re struggling with it, enlist a friend as your accountability partner so they can support you through it.
Determination
Every successful person will tell you two things.
1. You must have focus and determination and,
2. You can’t do it alone.
There are many ways to expand your network, and this section will help you to do it authentically.
Kindness
Leadership is all about getting things done through not only your efforts, but others’ as well. Whether you lead yourself, or whether you lead others, kindness is key.
Research shows that positive reinforcement and inner calm can help us to get out of our comfort zone and to bounce back quicker whenever there are setbacks. This section will help you to become the type of person you want to be around—the person you were always meant to be. It will bring out the leader in you.
Goals
This section gives you dedicated space to get clear on the top 3 to 6 goals you want to achieve this year. Take the time to complete the questions we have listed for each of your goals—there is space for you to go deep on 6 goals, but you may have less than that. We suggest aiming for at least 3 key goals for the year.
We’ve also given you space to make a list of all the actions you’ll need to take in order to make each goal happen. Think of this as a brain dump. Set the timer for at least 3 minutes and write down everything that comes to mind. You can still keep writing once the 3 minutes is up—the time limit is just to keep brainstorming the whole time!
Reflection pages
As a creative person who’s full of ideas, it’s always nice to have some blank space to let your creative juices find a release. For all thoughts, ideas, insights and other random things, we’ve provided blank pages at the back of the journal.
Mark Your Mark Notebook
Sometimes, all you need is a notebook to record everything and anything going on, whether at home or in the office. We created this notebook with an elegant flair so you can take it everywhere and it won’t look out of place.
It’s more than a blank notebook—like every item in the collection, we’ve designed it to help you grow as a leader. It’s full of daily assignments to develop one of the six key leadership traits from our manifesto. We’ve deliberately made them simple so it’s easy to get started!
We’ve also filled the notebook with our favourite quotes to keep you motivated, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.
Mark Your Mark Planner
We created the daily planner because it’s so easy to wake up and be overwhelmed by everything you need to do for the day. How many times have you thought about everything waiting for you and wanted nothing more to pull the covers over your head and go back to bed?
Priorities
The planner starts with a section for the top three priorities for the day. Use this to decide on three things that absolutely HAVE to be done, or else everything falls apart. These will be your focus for the day—all other tasks can wait.
To keep you motivated, add a reward for completing each task. It can be something big like eating an entire block of chocolate, or something as simple as taking a 10-minute walk outside.
Under your priorities, list out everything you need to do to get them done. All the to-dos that are strictly for your priorities, and nothing else. By breaking up each task into bite-sized chunks, you’ll find it easier to start, and keep going!
Of course, you’ll have other to-dos as well, and there’s space for you to list those out—but don’t forget to complete everything for your top priorities first!
Follow-ups
Anyone you need to talk to, or anything you need to check in on—that’s where these tasks go. If you don’t, or can’t, complete any today, simply copy it over to the next day’s spread so you don’t forget!
Everything else
We want to make the planner work for you, so there’s a blank space in each spread for everything and anything else you might want to record for the day. We like using it as a space to reflect on the day. How did you go with your priorities? Did you learn anything new? Was there anything you were grateful for?
You can also use it as a place for meeting notes, reminders, doodling and dreaming… anything that strikes your fancy!
Inspiration
As a little bonus, the planner includes 6 full page quotes. Feel free to cut them out and hang them on your vision board, or around your home or office!
I created the Make Your Mark collection because I want to see more women stepping up and making their mark in the world, no matter how big or small. I’m so excited that I have the chance to share it with you! I hope these tips will help you get the most out of each item in the collection, so you can discover your dreams, define the steps to get there, and DO IT!
Of course, these tips are based on how I use each item in the collection–don’t forget that you can share your own tips with us by posting photos or videos of how you use your LH Agenda products, with the hashtag #LHAgendaSetter.
If you’re looking for a community of like-minded women, we’ve also created a Facebook group! Share how you use your journal, notebook or daily planner, your goals and plans for the year, or perhaps ask the other ladies a question!
I can’t wait to see the impact each of you will make on the world as you strive for more than the everyday. Strive for the extraordinary, in whatever form that takes for you.
Make Your Mark.
Share and Win
If you love this collection, please share it with all the ladies in your life who also have big dreams!
Help them to dream, define and DO. If you share any of our products, tag @LHagenda and use the #LHAgendaSetter hashtag, you’ll go into a monthly draw to win another of the inspiring items in the LH stationery line!
Thank you for all your support. Together, we can gently shake the world.
Dream.
Define.
DO.