Determine where you want to go
To design and build a rich, full and meaningful life, you need to know where you want to go.
In the previous life design phase you determined where you are now in four major areas of life: physical health, emotional health, work and relationships. Perhaps you have added a fifth life area because of its importance to you.
Note: If you haven’t completed the previous phase yet, you can find the instructions by clicking this link: https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/determine-where-you-are-now
To design and build a rich, full and meaningful life, you need to know where you want to go, because if you don’t, you're like a ship drifting aimlessly at sea. That’s why you are now going to determine where you want to go.
You’re going to choose the life area you want to improve. You subsequently determine and validate the design goal you want to achieve to improve your chosen life area. And then you translate your design goal into your design question, which provides direction for the next phase of the life design process.
1️⃣ Choose the life area you want to improve
In the previous life design phase you completed the life area tables and rated your life areas with a score from 1 to 10. Please review this material thoroughly to help you answer the following questions:
🤔 What life area is most important to improve right now?
🤔 What benefits do you expect from improving this life area?
Some hints and tips that you may want to take into account
· You may want to tackle the life area with the lowest score first, or the life area that least aligns with your life purpose and personal values.
· There is no perfect balance between life areas, you will have different mixes at different times in your life. A single student aged 20 will have a different mix than a married employee aged 50.
· Strive for a balance between life areas that is healthy for you. Always take care of your body, mind and important relationships. Failure to do so can have significant negative consequences in the long run.
· All life areas are interconnected. Improving one area can have a positive effect on other life areas. For example, improving your physical health can make you feel better about yourself (emotional health), have more energy at work (work) and increase your attractiveness as a life partner (relationships).
· Start with just one life area at a time to avoid being overwhelmed by too much change. You can't tackle everything at once, so prioritise the life area that is really important to you right now. You can tackle other life areas later.
🖊️ After reviewing the life area tables and ratings, write down your answers to the questions above.
You can use the format: I want to improve the life area of <chosen life area> because I expect <the benefits that you expect>.
2️⃣ Determine your design goal
Your design goal is the goal you want to achieve to improve the chosen life area, with the ultimate aim of building a rich, full and meaningful life. It indicates which direction you want to go, what you want to work towards. It determines where you will focus your attention and directs your efforts until you achieve the goal (or decide to pursue another goal).
Some examples of design goals: I want to exercise enough and eat healthy every day. I want to experience less stress and more balance in my life. I want to improve my sex life. I want to choose a study that suits my strengths and interests. I want to find work that fits my personal values and pays enough money. After retirement I want to use my skills to help others.
It's important to choose the right design goal so you don't waste time working on the wrong goal. Sometimes people lose years working on the wrong goal. They may pursue a career that is expected by their parents, but that doesn't resonate with their true desires. Or they pursue a goal that conflicts with their personal values. Or they strive for years to get a high-paying job, only to find that the long hours and stress leave them feeling unfulfilled and burned out.
In a well-designed life, there is alignment between what you do and the kind of person you want to be. Therefore, your design goal should be in aligned with your life purpose and your personal values, which together form your personal compass that guides your actions, words and decisions. To define your purpose and values, see the ‘Related life design blog posts’ section.
Answer the following question to determine your design goal
🤔 What goal do I want to achieve in order to improve the chosen life area?
Some hints and tips that you may want to take into account
· Review the items in the life area table that you have completed for this life area. Is there an item that is important for you to address?
· What changes do you want to make in this life area? What problem do you want to solve? What unfulfilled need, desire or personal value do you want to satisfy?
· What would you recommend to a friend who is in the same situation as you?
· State what goal you want to achieve, rather than what you don't want to achieve. Telling a taxi driver that you don't want to go to the airport is not very informative.
· Always ask yourself why you want to achieve a certain goal. What benefits will achieving the goal bring you or others? How will this help you build a rich, full and meaningful life?
· Discuss your design goal with your life design team (optional) and with those around you who may be affected by it.
🖊️ Determine your design goal and write it down in the format: I want to <what you want to achieve>.
3️⃣ Validate your design goal
Validate whether your design goal is suitable as a basis for your life design by checking it against the below criteria.
If your design goal does not meet one or more criteria, adjust it (unless you consciously choose not to) and test the new design goal against the criteria. Repeat until you have a design goal that meets all of the criteria.
👉 Is the design goal aligned with your life purpose and personal values?
In a well-designed life, what you do is in line with what you find important (life purpose) and in line with the kind of person you want to be (personal values).
Does this design goal reflect your life purpose and personal values?
If your design goal doesn’t align with your life purpose or personal values, examine where the difference lies and adjust the design goal if necessary.
👉 Does the design goal describe a need?
Each of us has physical and emotional needs that must be met in order to live a rich, full and meaningful life. Needs such as security, connection, autonomy, contribution, or meaning. Our behaviour is always about satisfying our needs.
A need can be fulfilled at a certain moment by a specific solution. For example, our need for financial security may be fulfilled by our current job, and our need for love by our current life partner. The need is the end, the solution is the means to achieve this end.
Sometimes we mistake the means (the solution) for the end (the underlying need). We think we need our current job and life partner, when what we really need is financial security and love. As a result, we may worry about the possible loss of our job or partner, and even cling to them.
But needs can be fulfilled in many ways. We don’t need the specific solution, but the fulfilment of the underlying need. We don't need our job, we need financial security, which we can achieve in many other ways. We don't need our life partner, we need love, which we can find in many other ways if the relationship with our life partner doesn’t work out.
A common mistake when choosing a design goal is to jump to a solution and make that solution the design goal instead of taking the underlying need. The design goal is then about a means (solution) instead of the associated end (underlying need). By using a solution instead of its underlying need, we narrow the scope within which we look for options. This increases the chance of getting stuck. By taking the underlying need as the design goal, we increase the number of possible solutions. Some of these solutions may be better than the one we jumped to.
For example, someone has chosen as a design goal that she wants to retire at the age of fifty. When asked why she wants this, she says that her retirement will allow her to spend more time on nature conservation in her area. She adds that she feels a deep connection with nature. Retiring at age fifty is her chosen solution for her need to contribute to nature conservation in her area. Choosing this underlying need as her design goal will open up many other possibilities for her to contribute to this cause.
Ask yourself
🤔 Why do I want to achieve this design goal? Is there an underlying need beneath this design goal? If so, what is this need?
If there is an underlying need, you may want to make that need your design goal. This gives you more options to meet your need, making it more likely that it can be met.
👉 Is the design goal practically actionable?
Life design is about taking effective action to design and build a rich, full and meaningful life. Your design goal must be practically achievable, because you want to avoid getting stuck on something where you actually have no chance of success. You don't want to waste time working on problems that in reality have no solution. We can distinguish two types of unsolvable problems: gravity problems and anchor problems.
Gravity problems are problems that practically speaking no one can solve. For example, it is practically impossible to make a living writing poems. If you cannot take action on something then it is not a problem but a circumstance, a fact. There is no point in resisting circumstances that you cannot change, because you will always lose the fight against reality. So see and accept reality as it is and let go of a design goal if achieving it is unattainable.
Assess whether your design goal is a gravity problem, and if so, choose a different design goal unless you consciously choose not to. It’s your life, so it’s your choice. But realise that the chance of achieving such a practically unattainable goal is extremely small and the chance of getting stuck is very high.
An anchor problem is a problem that is practically solvable in principle, but which has kept you stuck in one place for a long time and has blocked your progress thus far. You're stuck because you're holding on to a solution that doesn't allow you to achieve what you want. You’re stuck because you chose as your design goal a solution that doesn't work for you, that keeps you anchored in one place. Releasing a blocking solution has a liberating effect, it lets you break free from the anchor.
Let's take as an example someone who feels unhappy in a job that does not match his personal values. He has been trying to align his work with his values for more than a year, but without success. All the while he stuck to his design goal: ‘I want to align my current job with my personal values.’ So far this hasn’t worked for him. His underlying need is to have a job that aligns with his personal values. The design goal ‘I want to have a job that fits my personal values’ would open up many other ways to achieve his real need.
If your design goal has been blocking you for a while, you can change it by making the need behind the blocking solution your design goal. If you consciously decide to keep the blocking solution as your design goal, realise that if you keep trying the same thing, you will probably keep getting the same result.
🖊️ If your design goal has changed as a result of this validation, strike out or delete the old design goal and write your new design goal in the format: I want to <what you want to achieve>.
4️⃣ Formulate your design question
You now have a validated design goal in the format: I want to <what you want to achieve>.
This leads to your design question that has the format: How can I <what you want to achieve>?
Your design question will guide the next phase of the life design process, in which you will generate many options to achieve your design goal.
For example, the design goal ‘I want to exercise enough and eat healthy every day,’ leads to the design question ‘How can I exercise enough and eat healthy every day.’ And the design goal ‘I want to find work that fits my personal values and pays enough money,’ leads to the design question ‘How can I find work that fits my personal values and pays enough money.’
🖊️ Write down your design question in the format: How can I <what you want to achieve>?
5️⃣ Keep your results
Keep the final design goal and design question you wrote down, as this information will be needed for the next phases of the life design process and for future reference.
🎉👏🎈
By choosing the life area to be improved and determining the design goal you want to achieve, you are now ready to generate many solution options based on your design question: https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/determine-a-path-to-where-you-want-to-go
References
Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Related life design blog posts
How to figure out your personal values, A3 Life Design, by Adrie Kuil,
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/how-to-figure-out-your-personal-values
How to figure out what to do with your life, A3 Life Design, by Adrie Kuil,
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/how-to-figure-out-what-to-do-with-your-life
Determine where you are now, A3 Life Design, by Adrie Kuil,
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/determine-where-you-are-now
Determine a path to where you want to go, A3 Life Design, by Adrie Kuil,
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/determine-a-path-to-where-you-want-to-go