The life design mindset
Successfully navigating the messy, unpredictable life design process requires some simple mindsets.
Life design is about taking action to create a meaningful and fulfilling life. It's about creating something new and complex, about which little data is available: your future life. Therefore, it is a messy, unpredictable process, full of failed experiments and wrong choices. You design, build and learn by doing, and make progress through trial and error. Successfully navigating this process requires some simple mindsets.
What is a mindset?
A mindset is a set of beliefs, attitudes and assumptions that shape how you perceive and respond to the world around you. Mindsets have a profound influence on how you think, feel and behave in a given situation. They can significantly influence your achievement of goals and your satisfaction with life.
A well-known example is the growth mindset, the belief that your physical and mental abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Its counterpart is the fixed mindset, the belief that your physical and mental abilities are fixed traits that cannot be developed.
From intellectual to emotional insight
Every mindset exists on a continuum that goes from not having the mindset at all to having the mindset completely. Designing and building your life is not only about achieving your goals, but also about adopting the life design mindset.
The first step in adopting a mindset is to gain a deep understanding of what the mindset means and what benefits it can bring. Reading books, articles and watching videos related to the mindset gives you intellectual insight: you understand the mindset with your mind, but you do not yet feel and behave according to it.
What you want is to gain emotional insight: you understand the mindset with your mind, and you also feel and behave according to it (preferably automatically). Gaining emotional insight is a gradual development process that takes time, energy and attention. Be patient with yourself and stay committed to the process.
To move from intellectual to emotional insight, you must consciously and consistently put the desired mindset into action. Act intentionally in ways that reflect this mindset. This can take you out of your comfort zone, which can trigger unhelpful thoughts and feelings that hold you back. Work to reduce the negative impact of these thoughts and feelings (for details, see the links in the References section). When you apply the desired mindset, celebrate immediately by silently saying something to yourself and making a gesture that motivates you to continue applying the mindset.
To reinforce the mindset, you can use active imagination: play out situations in your imagination in which you act in line with the desired mindset, and in which you feel the way you would like.
If possible, surround yourself with people who have the mindset you want to develop, because their attitudes and behaviours will influence yours. Avoid toxic or negative influences.
You reinforce the desired mindset with every action and active imagination that matches it. Over time, the new behaviours and ways of thinking become unconscious, automatic habits. You have then gained emotional insight and the mindset has become part of who you are.
The life design mindset
By reading and understanding the descriptions below, you will gain intellectual insight into the life design mindset. By designing and building your life you will gain emotional insight.
The life design mindset consists of some simpler mindsets: Be curious, Be inclined to take action, Do what is important, Realise it’s a process, Collaborate, Reframe, Embrace your choices, and Embrace your failures.
🧠 Be curious
Life designers are curious and like to ask questions.
Curiosity is about consciously seeing things through the eyes of an interested researcher, a novice, or an alien. Curiosity makes everything new and interesting.
When you're curious, you don't think you already know all the answers. You ask clarifying questions, listen actively, observe attentively, seek out new information and ideas, explore different perspectives, question untested assumptions, explore new possibilities, find creative solutions to challenges, reflect on yourself, and adapt to new situations.
Try out the following techniques to develop your curiosity:
👉 Make it a habit to ask yourself ‘why, what, how, who, when, where and what if’ questions about the things you encounter, such as:
Why does this work the way it does? Why did this happen? Why did I do this? Why do I feel this way?
What did I learn? What is the function of this negative feeling? What is the alternative?
How does this work? How can I improve this? How do experts approach this problem?
What if we tried a different approach? What if we could solve this problem differently?
👉 Expose yourself to diverse ideas, experiences and environments. Travel, take a different route to work, meet people from different backgrounds, read books and articles on various topics, practice hobbies, take courses or actively participate in practical learning experiences. Step out of your comfort zone.
👉 Regularly question your own assumptions and beliefs. This self-reflection can lead to a deeper understanding of why you think the way you do.
🧠 Be inclined to take action
Life designers are inclined to take action and build their way forward.
Taking action is essential to making progress and achieving your goals. Action is the bridge between ideas and results. Without concrete steps, your ideas remain mere fantasies and you achieve nothing. An inclination towards action helps you overcome procrastination.
Designers build and learn by trying things out in practice and reflecting on the results. Action provides valuable feedback. Doing precedes thinking: without doing there is nothing to think about. Only by trying things out and reflecting on the results can you discover your strengths and weaknesses, what you like and don't like, what suits you and doesn’t suit you, what works and what doesn’t work, and what the world needs.
To take action you just need to have an idea of where you want to go. You don't have to wait until you have a perfect plan. As you take action, you’ll discover how to achieve your goal and whether it is really where you want to go. You can always make adjustments along the way if necessary. Only by taking action will all kinds of unexpected opportunities arise.
What you do changes who you are. Taking actions that align with your personal values can help you become the kind of person you want to be.
Try out the following techniques to develop your propensity for action:
👉 Don't sit there thinking for a long time, find something small you can do and then just do it. Ask yourself, ‘What small task can I do right now to move in my desired direction?’ and then do it. Learn from what you have done and take the next small step in the right direction.
👉 Establish a daily routine that includes time for action. Consistency can help you build the habit of taking action.
👉 Develop discipline and self-control. Sometimes you may need to push yourself to take actions that are important to you, even when you don't feel like it.
🧠 Do what is important
Life designers do what is important to them.
To experience a sense of meaning and fulfilment in your life, you must pursue activities and goals that align with your life purpose (what you value doing with your time), in a way that aligns with your personal values (how you want to behave).
Acting in accordance with your life purpose gives you something to live for, acts as a motivator to overcome obstacles and setbacks, and acts as a compass to guide you in the desired direction. Acting in accordance with your personal values reinforces the kind of person you want to be.
Under the influence of difficult feelings such as stress or anxiety, we often fall into automatic, unhelpful patterns. We then do things that are not important to us (e.g. excessive use of social media or streaming services), or that are not in line with our personal values (e.g. overeating, drinking too much alcohol, smoking, arguing, or fighting).
Even if you experience difficult feelings, a negative self-image or limiting thoughts, you can still do what you find important in a way that matters to you (psychological flexibility). Ask yourself: Am I behaving according to what is important to me or according to how I feel at the moment?
Try out the following techniques to develop the habit of doing what's important:
👉 Figure out your personal values and learn how to live more by them:
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/how-to-figure-out-your-personal-values
👉 Figure out your life purpose and learn how to live more in line with it:
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/how-to-figure-out-what-to-do-with-your-life
👉 Align you decisions and actions with your life purpose and personal values, even if you experience difficult feelings, a negative self-image or limiting thoughts. Don’t let your thoughts and feelings stop you from behaving in a way that matters to you.
🧠 Realise it’s a process
Life designers focus on the life design process rather than the desired outcomes.
Life design is a process with as desired outcome a fulfilling and meaningful life. It is a messy, unpredictable journey of trial and error, full of mistakes and wrong turns. Note that life itself is also a chaotic, unforeseeable process, with unexpected twists and turns.
The realisation that life design is a process and that the process itself is valuable is important for several reasons.
When you view life design as a process, you are more open to growth and learning because you understand that both positive and negative experiences contribute to your personal development. Instead of fixating on the outcome, you focus on the journey and the lessons it offers.
By embracing life design as a process, you pay more attention to the present moment and enjoy the journey, finding joy and richness in everyday experiences. View the present moment not as a means to an end in the future, but as an end in itself. You don't really have to go anywhere, because you are already there. The journey is the destination.
Focusing on results can leave you feeling unfulfilled if those results don't deliver the satisfaction you expect. Recognising the life design process as valuable in itself can lead to a deeper sense of meaning and fulfilment in your daily experiences.
Accepting that designing your life is a process will make you more resilient and adaptable to challenges. You're better equipped to navigate setbacks and change course if necessary.
Try out the following techniques to become more aware that life design is a process:
👉 Take some time regularly to reflect on your life design journey so far. Recognise the twists and turns that have shaped your path, and acknowledge the role of serendipity and unpredictability in the process.
👉 In addition to setting outcome-oriented goals that focus on specific results, also set process-oriented goals that emphasise personal growth, skill development, or enjoying the journey.
🧠 Collaborate
Life designers work together with others.
Collaboration is a fundamental aspect of life design. You design and build your life in the outside world, through interaction with the world and with others. You create the ideas and solutions for your life design together with everyone involved in your life design process, like the people you interview or try things out with. By working with individuals with different perspectives, skills and experiences, you generate new, innovative ideas and solutions that you might not have thought of yourself.
Keep your family, partner, close relatives and best friends informed of your life design efforts. You probably need their support to design and build your life, especially from the people closest to you.
If possible, create your own life design team of three to five people, including yourself. Invite people who are willing to put in the time and provide constructive feedback. Work individually with your team members or hold team meetings. The team members are the co-creators of your life design. Present your design goal to them, ask for feedback on it, and brainstorm with them to generate and prioritise ideas for solutions. Collaboration can strengthen the bond with those you work with, and can be inspiring and stimulating.
Try out the following techniques to make collaboration a habit:
👉 Incorporate collaborative behaviours into your daily routines. This might mean asking for advice from colleagues, sharing resources, or inviting others to contribute to your projects.
👉 Regularly reflect on your collaborative experiences. Identify what worked well and what could be improved. Adjust your approach accordingly.
🧠 Reframe
Life designers reframe situations and problems to get unstuck.
A frame is a way of looking at the things we encounter. It is a sort of cognitive lens that affects how we perceive and interpret experiences and situations. The frame determines the meaning and value of our experience, which parts of a situation are important or irrelevant to us, and what captures our attention and what is ignored. Reframing is looking at things in a different way by choosing a different frame.
There is always more than one way to look at the things we encounter. But framing cannot be avoided. We cannot look at something from all directions, we always have a point of view. Because we are generally unaware of our frames, we tend to confuse our interpretations with reality.
For example, two well-known frames are the optimistic frame and the pessimistic frame. Optimists tend to see the glass as half full and pessimists tend to see the glass as half empty. Same reality, different ways of looking at it. Some examples of frames and possible reframes:
Within a frame we sometimes get stuck in building our desired life, or we discover that we are working on a wrong challenge. To free ourselves from this frame, we must step outside the frame and look from alternative points of view (reframing). Making room for new insights and possibilities is essential to get unstuck and define the right challenge.
Life designers stay true to their life purpose and personal values, but are flexible in their positions by replacing frames that do not serve them. In this way they can adapt to reality in a creative and flexible way.
Try out the following techniques to make reframing a habit:
👉 Regularly challenge your interpretation of difficult situations by asking yourself questions like: How do I interpret this situation? How can I interpret this situation in more helpful ways? What else could this mean?
👉 Replace negative self-talk with constructive statements. For example, instead of saying, ‘I can't do this,’ say, ‘I can learn from this experience and improve myself.’
🧠 Embrace your choices
Life designers embrace their choices and responsibility for them.
When making decisions about a life path, it is not only about what you choose, but also about the way you choose and how you deal with your choice afterwards.
Before making a choice, don't torment yourself mentally by thinking that you have to choose the right or best life path. You can’t know in advance whether a life path is the right one, because you can’t predict how a path will develop. And you can't possibly know what the best life path is because you don't know all the options and even if you do, you can’t try them all out. Life design is about building life paths that are good enough.
Also, don't torture yourself mentally after making a choice. If you keep asking yourself whether you chose the best life path, and you keep regretting the paths you didn't take, you will be less happy with the chosen life path and waste precious mental energy. Choosing means losing, because without loss it is not really a choice. Acknowledge what you gave up and embrace your choice unconditionally.
Realise that every outcome is the result of many decisions and actions, not just the first ‘big’ decision.
You can always adjust your course along the way. As you progress on your life path, you will discover what works for you and what doesn't.
Make the choice you think is best, based on what you know and how you feel about it. Make sure the choice is consistent with your personal values (how you want to behave) and your life purpose (what you think is important to do with your time). And then take responsibility for your choice by making the best of it.
Try out the following techniques to make embracing your choices a habit:
👉 Use self-talk that supports you in embracing your choices. Instead of saying, ‘I have to do this,’ say, ‘I choose this because it aligns with my life purpose and personal values.’
👉 Develop your mindfulness to mentally stay in the present instead of worrying about past or future decisions. Mindfulness helps you accept the present moment and your choices in it.
🧠 Embrace your failures
Life designers embrace their failures and learn from them.
As you build your life, you do your best to achieve the results you want. But inevitably, sometimes the results are worse than you expected or hoped. This could be due to circumstances beyond your control, or due to a mistake you have made.
Labelling worse-than-expected outcomes as failures can trigger unhelpful negative feelings about yourself. By reframing these outcomes as learning experiences, you free yourself from these negative feelings. Alleged failures can give you valuable insights about yourself and the world that alleged successes often do not. Thinking in terms of learning experiences helps you not to give up when life's path becomes difficult, not to be afraid to take the necessary risks, and to be more willing to step out of your comfort zone.
If you have made a blunder, acknowledge it and continue building your life. If the mistake is due to a weakness of character, try to avoid situations where this weakness comes to the fore. If the mistake was preventable, determine the cause and investigate how to avoid the mistake next time.
Success lies in doing your best, focusing on the process, not being overly attached to a particular outcome, and learning from your mistakes.
Try out the following techniques to make embracing your failures a habit:
👉 Don't let the fear of failure paralyse you. Take action and pursue your goals despite the risk of failure. Each alleged failure is an opportunity to improve and grow.
👉 Be kind to yourself if things don’t work out. Treat yourself with the same level of compassion and understanding that you would offer to a friend facing a similar situation.
References
Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
My blog posts about life design are available at this link:
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/category/Life+Design