08 May How To Design Your Life And Be Happy
I recently read the book Play: How It Shapes The Brain, Opens The Imagination, And Invigorates The Soul by Stuart Brown. It motivated me to try a little exercise which I have now decided to share in this post. We often contemplate what our ideal life would look like (probably even more so now after everything that’s happened with COVID). I mean, if you had the power to design your life, wouldn’t you?
The First Time We Chose To Design Our Lives
In early 2014, when we made the conscious decision to channel all our energy into planning ‘How Far From Home’, deciding to give up our corporate jobs in advertising, and selling (almost) everything we owned, we made a choice. We chose to make sacrifices and say “no” to a number of things that were not serving us and our happiness at the time – for example, the rat race and our over-consumption of material possessions (also very much influenced by another amazing book – Stuffocation by James Wallman). In doing so, we chose to say “yes” to full-time travel, a one-way ticket taking us far from home, and the desire to create something together whilst getting creatively inspired.
It was probably the best decision we’ve ever made in our lives (other than getting married).
We knew that by having courage to say “no” to certain things, we were opening up our world to a whole new adventure, and a chance to do something not many people are able to: design your life how you want to live it.
I don’t need to tell you that our full-time travel life was out of this world – the things we saw and did during our journey completely blew our minds, and we managed to achieve so much more than we could’ve ever dreamed of.
I also don’t need to tell you that the pandemic, and a world post-COVID looks very different to the world we had back in 2014 when we made the choice to design our life the first time.
But what I feel I need to tell you, is that you can design your life and redesign your life as many times as you feel you need to. It’s not a one-time-only event that only the lucky few get tickets for. Every single day gives you a new opportunity to build up the courage to take the plunge (whatever that plunge looks like), and you can continue to take the plunge (maybe a different plunge every few years) to suit whatever life stage or soul desire you have at that point in your life.
And so today’s post is a kind reminder that you are in control of your life. Yes, there are certain things out of your control, but it’s not worth your time focusing on those. Spend your time and energy on the things you can control, on the things you can change, and slowly, over time, you will inch closer and closer to designing your life to look and feel just the way you want it to. Loosely quoting another favourite author of mine, Mark Manson: “regardless of what happens to you, you can always choose how you spend your time, what (you) pay attention to, where you direct your energy, and who you choose to associate with.”
Now, if you have no idea where to start with designing your life, then I’m glad you’re reading this post.
Visualising What Your Ideal Life Looks Like
Stuart Brown had this to say in Play: How It Shapes The Brain, Opens The Imagination, And Invigorates The Soul:
“A great exercise that I often used for both kids and adults was to ask them to visualize their lives five or ten years in the future, focusing not on whether they want to be a lawyer or be rich, but instead on what they might be doing that would make them really happy and excited. This itself is a kind of imaginative play. It allows people to step out of their everyday life and see the bigger picture. It also allows them to see clearly how they really want their lives to be, to focus on those elements that arise out of the true, core self rather than on what the world wants them to be. Once people have this sort of vision, they are empowered to move toward making it a reality.”
When we (in our own little way) did this exercise back in 2014, we created what we called our Wanderlist (the OG blog readers might remember it). It was a list of all the things we wanted to do and see during our what-we-thought-was-going-to-be-a sabbatical. It has a few touristy things like “Take a photo of Yosemite at sunrise” and “Go dancing in Berlin” (which we managed to do, yay) but also a few other bigger goals, like publishing a book and starting a business (both of which we’ve also managed to achieve – yay again!) We’ve managed to tick off 90 of the 140 items so far, and while we wait for travel to open up again, and we save up to take some exciting, long-overdue trips to South America and parts of Asia, looking at the list more recently we realised that the remaining items on our Wanderlist (the 50 we still need to complete) are all travel-related. They’re sites we want to visit and places we want to photograph.
But there is more to life than just travel.
Ticking items off your traveling bucket list is just one part of living a fulfilling life, and so my recent obsession with Stuart Brown’s book has motivated me to create a game (which I encourage you to play – especially since you’ve come this far in the post) because as we’re going to try prove in a few other blog posts this month: life is SO much better when you play.
This “game*” can be “played*” alone, with your other half, with your family, or with your friends. The idea is to get you to understand what is most important to you (no one else – you alone), and then to visualise and design your life to prioritise those values. Doing it with loved ones just means you have someone to talk to about your findings, but the actual exercise you will do alone, because it’s your life.
*I’m using inverted commas when I say “play” and “game” because it’s going to be a much more enjoyable and light-hearted experience if you treat it like a game and not a serious “goal-reaching exercise” (which so many other people will talk you into doing when you ask how to design your life). As Stuart Brown puts it, “I think that nobody should keep an iron-fisted grip on any particular vision. As with any play activity, people need to be open to improvisation and serendipity. Remember that the point of this exercise is not to create a five- or ten-year plan for personal development. The point is to clarify who you are and what sort of future speaks to you emotionally. The most rewarding activities and interests come to light when we open ourselves up to them. Goals are good, but overly rigid pursuit of those goals can inhibit growth and understanding. After discovering what appeals to us emotionally, the strongest emotions, or those that resonate most, lead to the creation of a realistic path forward.”
Play Our ‘Design Your Life’ Game
I’ve created a little print-out that you can download here and turn your life-designing into a game. You’ll need to cut the cards so they’re all separate, and then once you’re ready, have a seat in a quiet place (preferably surrounded by nature) with your spouse, family, friends or just regular ol’ “you, yourself and I”.
The idea is to choose relevant ‘things you value’ and rate them from most important to you, to least important. If any of them are irrelevant, you can leave them out of your stack, and if you feel there’s something that’s missing, and you want to add a couple additional values, then I’ve included some blanks that you can just write in yourself.
Once you have your relevant cards, you’ll need to place them in order of importance to you. Take note: this is going to be VERY difficult. Of course, some of them will overlap and some might be of equal importance – that’s ok. No one will judge you – you’re either doing this alone or with people who love you. The point is to listen to your gut, and just start stacking. Place the important things at the top and the least important at the bottom. A reminder: this is meant to be an exercise that focuses on the present and near-future (think maximum five years from now). If there’s values that are important but you only want to unpack them in a decade’s time (like owning a house or starting a family), place them near the end of the pack. The goal of this game is to become something you do often – something you continue to go back to, to see if things have changed.
I’ll give you an example when Stevo and I played the game. We each took time to do our own stack, and then we came together to see where the overlaps were, and how we can make our lives work ensuring both my and his dreams and values are being prioritised (marriage 101 right here!) What stood out and came up high in both our stacks was our need to have a happy marriage, a healthy work / life balance, our desires to create, live an adventurous life, and to work for ourselves. It was certainly a very different stack to one we would’ve had when we were planning to leave home originally in 2014, but change is half the fun of growing up, right? Oh, and can you handle another Stuart Brown quote?
“When we play, dilemmas and challenges will naturally filter through the unconscious mind and work themselves out.”
What To Do Next
Once you’ve created your stack and can clearly see what values are most important to you when thinking about the present and near future, it’s time to start doing some spring cleaning with the items that didn’t make it to the top of the list. There’s only so many hours in each day, and you only have so much energy to expend. In order to live your best life and prioritise the values that are most important to you, you need to have the courage to make some sacrifices and let go that which isn’t serving you, and that which doesn’t make it into your big picture.
It’s going to be difficult, but the rewards will be well worth it.
I would recommend choosing your top five to ten items and parking the rest for the next time you play this game. Maybe you’ll turn this into a monthly form of contemplation for yourself, to see if you’re still on track and if your priorities are changing. How often you play, and how many items you prioritise, is up to you – you’re designing your life after all. Then really put an effort into succeeding at these chosen five to ten items. Do your homework if you need to, watch less Netflix if it means you’ll gain an hour or two a day, get up an hour or two earlier if you have a hectic schedule. There are always ways to design your life – you just have to have courage and make an effort.
Let us know in the comments if you enjoyed this post and what your top priorities are? We’d love to know!
C
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