Designing your life: A step by step approach

We all want to live a great life. Hoping to live a great life is never an effective approach. We need an approach to proactively design our life. The approach to designing our life needs to be practical. Most importantly it should deliver great results i.e. helping us live a better life. Having a structured approach to design a life will take away the confusions of how to start and what to do next. We can create an approach which maximizes pleasure, minimizes pain and makes you strong to look at things you were avoiding and sweeping under the carpet.

Build a high-level view of life

• It is a high-level view
• The intent is to create an accurate view of life
• It need not a precise view of your life

How do I do build a high-level view

• Get ready with paper and pen
• Be ready to write
• Writing sounds scary but you have to write
• I insist that you use paper and pen
• Don't use an electronic device for write

Write what?

• The good in your life
• The bad in your life
• The missing pieces of your life

What do I write about the good things?

• Things you like about yourself
• Things you like in your life
• Things that add to your life positively
• Things you are grateful for
• Don’t miss out the small stuff 
• Be kind to yourself and give yourself a pat on the back 

What do I write about the bad things?

• Things you don’t like about yourself
• Things you don’t like in your life
• Things that add to your life negatively
• Things that trouble you
• Complain about all the small stuff
• Easy to complain about others ... Difficult to complain about others
• Don't forget to complain about yourself
• Don’t miss out the small stuff 
• Be hard on yourself and point out all the ugly stuff you don’t want to confront

What are the missing pieces? 

• The dreams that you have killed
• The aspirations you have ignored
• The ambitions you have forgotten
• Things that you don't give yourself the permission to think about
• Things that you are scared to think about
• Things that you want to do but you are hold yourself back
• Things that you want to do but have told yourself that you are incapable to do
• Things that you want to do but have buried in the noise of your life so that it stays buried
• Things that you want to do but have numbed yourself to its absence
• We are not referring to things that our dark side wants us to do
• We are referring to the things that are good for you, but you are too scared to start or just unable to start

What after the writing

• Making a starting choice ... Bold or Cautious
• Starting boldly vs cautiously ...  there is no superior way to start
• Just making a start is important
• There is no problem with starting cautiously
• There is no additionally benefit with starting boldly
• Your choice depends on your temperament
• Your choice depends on you
• We all are different and hence there is no one right answer

I chose to be bold

• Pick out things from you good, bad and missing from your life which if changed would make a huge impact
• Pick a good if increased would make your life awesome
• Pick a bad if reduced would make your life awesome
• Pick a bad if add would make your life awesome

I chose to be cautious

• Pick out things from you good, bad and missing from your life which is easy to change, and you have confidence that you will make the change
• Pick a good that you are confident that it can be increased
• Pick a bad that you are confident that it can be reduced
• Pick a missing that you are confident that it can be added

What does it mean?

• Good ... Your favorite song is playing ... what if the volume was increased
• Bad... There is noise all around ... what if its volume was reduced
• Missing... Waiting to listen to your favorite song... You pressed the play button

What next?

• Get stuff done
• Get stuff done within a target date ... set a monthly target date
• You have to increase the volume of the music
• You have to reduce the noise
• You have to hit the play button
• You have to do it ... no one other than you can do it for you
• All the previous steps count for nothing if you don’t press the buttons
• If you don’t start, then you are just wasting your time out here
• If you did not bring in 100% intensity, then you are wasting your time out here
• If went all in with 100% intensity and failed ... bad luck ... try harder ... keep trying
• If you succeeded then move on to the next thing in your good, bad and missing list

What else?

• Maintain a report card
• Grade yourself every month
• Count the number of things accomplished
• Grade the impact on your life of each item accomplished as High, Medium or Low
• You need to have a high number of High impact items in your life
• Go back to the first step
• Instead of writing about the good, bad and missing ... relook at the list you already have
• Add, delete or edit the existing list 
• Repeat the process
• Be a hard taskmaster  

This is too long ... I could not even go through this

• This is a structured approach to design a great life ... not a short cut
• If you are not ready to invest the time and effort designing a life demands, then good luck to you
• I don’t know of anything easier
• If you know of a better, easier path ... I would like to learn from you

This approach helps you to identify the things that matter. Once you know the things which matter it forces a discipline to act on it. It forces you to improve the good, bad and the missing pieces of your life. It gives you a sense of fulfillment and balance that all aspects of your life are taken care of.