Have you ever thought about the term of designing your life？ May you feel confused of this term when you heard it for first time? This concept is created by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans who are desired to share the mindset of life design and methods of building a joyful and well-lived life. This book leads me to think deeply about the wayfinding of my life path. Many choices are made in our lives and there is no perfection and so called “failure” as well. If the path doesn’t fit to your goal, just try another one. Fail again and again results in failure immunity and please remember that, failures are the fundamentals of success.
Table of Content
• What is well-designed life
• A. 7 steps in designing your life
° Step 1: start where you are
° Step 2: draw the dashboard of health, work, play, love
° Step 3: Building a compass: a workview and a life view
° Step 4: wayfinding
° Step 5: list three odyssey plan alternative
° Step 6: build a team
° Step 7: failure immunity
• B. 5 mindsets of life design
• Conclusion
• Book information
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans:
A well-designed life is a life that makes sense. It is a life in which who you are, what you believe, and what you do all line up together.
A. 7 steps in designing your life
Step 1: Start where you are ( what problems you try to solve)
Determine the Problem Type. Find the solution to the problems.
If it is a Gravity Problem, it’s not a real problem.
Step 2: Draw the dashboard of Health, Work, Play, Love
Here is the dashboard to help you evaluate your current life status, which help you know more of yourself.
The above sentence reminds me from the book giving the exactly same message, which is called “Mutant Message Down Under”. It is an impressive story about spiritual experience. One of the story revealed that the aboriginals thought that winning the game is not the ultimate goal in the competition, which may lead the “failure one” sad. To build a good relationship and bonding with each other, playing should concern about fun, but no win. (The Chinese version of the reading notes about this book was provided, please visit: https://rhythmoi.com/mutantmessagedownunderreading/
Step 3: Building a compass: a Workview and a Lifeview
What does work mean to you?
What is work for?
Why do you do it?
What makes your life valuable?
What is your relation to family and community?
Step 4: Wayfinding
Pay attention to the clues, & do your best with the tools you have. Adjust the schedule to surround yourself with the activities that make you happy, and make sure you have well rested. Here are the guides for you
- Goal: Back home with more energy after work
- Flow/ Energy/ Engagement: Find 3 activities that involve these states.
- Good Time Journal: Finish the journal included below items to see what you discover and learn.
- activity log
- reflection
- flow state
- energy state
- engagement state
Step 5: List Three Odyssey Plan Alternative
Imagine & Explore 3 lifestyles that you can parallel to switch the plan if one of them fails.
If your mind starts with multiple ideas in parallel, you will be open-minded and able to think about the innovations.
There is no “right way”, just try it.
Step 6: Build a Team
• Respectful
• Confidential
• Participative
• Generative (not judging)
There is no bad advice, people just got good advice that didn’t fit.
Step 7: Failure Immunity
Action, then failing fast. Focus on the learning value of a failure.
• Failure Reframe Exercise:
• Log your failures
• Categorize your failures° screwups: simple mistakes that you normally do that right
° weaknesses: mistakes that you make over and over again – you have ° work at correcting them already
° growth opportunities:
• Identify growth insights
- Be Curious: See opportunities through curiosity.
- Try Stuff: Prototype some potential life and get real experience. It helps you to test-drive some possibilities. Create prototypes, failing often, until you find what works and what solves problems. Designers embrace change.
- Reframe Problems: Find the right problems & solutions.
- Know it’s a Process: Focus on the process and see what’s next.
- Ask for Help: form a team to have collaboration
Above provided a very simple and clear steps of building the life style you want. Please follow the steps to “wayfinding” your life path. If you look for more details, authors have provided many little stories to support the concept. You will be more clear at each step through their explanation. Lastly, I would like to share the life quote from this book:
Follow the joy, follow what engages and excites you, what brings you alive.
Book Information
✎ Book Title｜Designing your life: how to build a well-lived, joyful life
✎ Author｜Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
✎ Publisher｜Alfred A. Knopf
