Life Design is a mindset, decision and a process of taking an intentional, deliberate, and motivating approach to building the life that makes you happy, fulfilled and that feels “right” for you.
Here you can find 7 free tools and resources from Happiness Academy to help you create a life you love. And if you feel like you could use more support and a better-structured process – do join us at our Life Design workshop!
1. A mindset of experimentation
Perhaps the most important thing in the approach to building a life that is most fulfilling for us is to balance well between action and reflection. When we know what we want, we need to act on it without overthinking. When we do a period of action, we need moments of reflection, to sum up our learnings. If we get in action mode too often, we get lost in that action and forget to be intentional and keep the focus on what is truly important to us.
If we get into reflection too much, looking for “perfect” and “right” answers, we get paralyzed with overthinking and miss to realize that our best learnings and conclusions come only from experience.
Ask yourself, am I too much in action without moments to reflect, or am I overthinking instead of getting into action? Adjust accordingly.
2. Start by recharging
It is very hard to get creative, bold, and clear on anything about your life if you are running on empty – that is why it is important to start off this journey by asking yourself How is my level of energy right now? What would help me recharge it? And then create some time and space to do exactly that!
3. Rocking chair exercise
If what is missing in your life right now is a Really Big Picture of what it is that you want from life, the Rocking chair exercise might help you. You will need around 20 minutes for it, and here you can find the instructions both in text and video.
4. Looking for Big Picture guidance? Ask yourself big questions:
Sit in a bit of reflection and explore some of the questions such as
– If I had a magic wand, what would I do right now?
– If I had a million dollars, how would I be spending my time?
– What would I do if I weren’t afraid?
– What would I want to do, regardless of being afraid of doing it?
– What might I regret if I don’t do it in my life?
– What inspires me, motivates me, what do I love doing? What makes me feel alive? How can I do more of that?
5. Remember to enjoy the journey
Staying present on a journey while building a life that is (more) fulfilling, searching for more meaning while dealing with everyday challenges and question marks is all-natural and beautiful part of life.
Don’t sacrifice the enjoyment of the present moment because you are chasing the future too hard – instead, strive for a balance between both. Find a way to enjoy the journey, the search, and the process.
6. Re-focus by recognizing and reflecting on what is working well or less well
If what you are missing is a bit of “measuring” and monitoring what are the small everyday things that you wish to do more of or less off, the +/-/? exercise should help you. It is an exercise to do daily for a week or couple of weeks but will take just a couple of minutes of each day.
7. More meaning in everyday activities: Strengthen the good habits
What is the key to wellbeing, success, health? It is the consistency-building good habits that support all these aspects of our life. Perhaps it is time for you to look into building some good new habits?
Our Habit tracker is here to support you with that.
Perhaps there is not that much to change?
Sometimes, life isn’t about doing big changes – sometimes it is more about recognizing all the good we have, appreciating little things more, and being present in the moment.
You can use these Gratitude prompts to practice your muscle of gratitude, or this article to boost your mindfulness.
Best books about Life Design
Two books we can recommend to help you with your own life design: Design your life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, and Ikigai by Puigcerver and Miralles.
Feel like a major re-focus and re-thinking and re-design is due?
Join us for the “Life Design: Create a life you love” workshop, and allow us to guide you in finding a new level of clarity and motivation – check the dates on Life Design online workshop page
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