(Also called Rule of Life or Plan of Life)

Instructions

A Recipe of Life helps you organize daily living around what matters most: J.O.Y. – Jesus, Others, and You. It is not about perfection or productivity. It is designed to help you grow in holiness by rightly ordering your loves. A recipe of Life creates the structure and flexibility needed to live a holy, balanced life rooted in prayer, sacraments, relationships, meaningful work, knowledge, and beauty. This tool can be used for Establishing a Recipe of Life or Revisiting a Recipe of Life.

1. Establishing a Recipe of Life

When someone is just starting out, this tool helps you:
- Cast the vision for what a Recipe of Life is and why it matters.
- Guide the mentee to choose one or two ingredients they can work on right away.
- Emphasize that over the coming months, the rest of their plan will gradually take shape through prayer, discernment, and guidance you provide helping them create it.

2. Updating or revisiting a Recipe of Life

After 1 or more months, or 1 or more years, this tool can be used to evaluate:

- How are you doing with your Recipe of Life?
- Do we need to add, subtract, or adjust any ingredients?
- Are there any areas where you are struggling?
- Should we leave things as they are and continue praying about potential changes?

Step by Step

1. Review the Self-Reflection Questions - Invite the mentee to examine whether they have the right ingredients, in the right order, and in the right proportion.
2. Complete the Survey - Ranking the ingredients reveals strengths and areas needing attention.
3. Discern and Decide - At the beginning: identify 1–2 essential ingredients to begin working on now. - Over time: review the plan and identify any adjustments needed.
4. Form Resolutions - Always end by committing to 1 or 2 concrete resolutions to implement until the next time the tool is revisited.

Self-Reflection Questions

As you reflect on these questions, keep in mind: your state in life, temperament and personal responsibilities.

Do I have the right ingredients in my life?
- Do I have too much of some ingredients and too little of others?
Do I have the right priorities?
- Do I put first things first; and second things second?
- Is God first and everything else is second?
Do I make enough time for a deep friendship with God through
- Daily meditation
- Frequent reception of the Eucharist and regular reconciliation?
Am I going to bed on time?
- Am I wasting the last hour of my night?
Do I exercise regularly?
Do I have meaningful work (inside or outside of the home)?
- Am I working too much or too little?
- Am I making time for spiritual and corporal works of mercy?
- Am I contributing to a mission with a greater purpose than my own?
Am I giving enough time to the essential relationships in my life?
Am I pursuing truth, knowledge, and beauty?
- Am I striving to have a better understanding of God, my faith, the world…?
Am I delighting in beauty through nature, people, books, music?
- Beauty leads us to a greater contact with reality and hence with God.
Do I waste time on entertainment?
- Entertainment is an escape from reality because it is a distortion of reality – an alternative to reality.
Do I have wrong ingredients in my life - those that will spoil the recipe?
- Do I have ingredients that should never go in any recipe – like rat poison?
- What is the rat poison in my life - things like addictions, anger, gossip, lack of gratitude, greed, gluttony, lust…
  Self-Reflection Survey
  (On Page 3 of the PDF)