Being seduced by the idea of lifestyle design is pretty simple. After all, who would fall in love with the freedom to live your life on your terms; doing what you want, when you want to, with whoever you want to, for the rest of your life. But once that initial excitement settles down and people start to consider the practical reality of total life transformation, a lot of people can be put off.
- “It sounds like a LOT of work…”
- “I don’t know where to start!”
- “Am I too old for this? Have I missed the boat?”
- “I don’t have time for all of this…”
If any of these thoughts have run through your head and you’re considering filing this in the ‘Sounds great, for someone else’ drawer, I have some good news for you:
- It’s not a lot of work
- You’re not too old for this
- And yes, you have plenty of time
This is because lifestyle design isn’t exactly what you think it is. Sure, there’s a part of it that involves generating passive income streams, travelling the world, doing exciting things, and meeting exciting people; but that’s just the big picture stuff.
The more important part of Lifestyle Design is the day-to-day, nitty gritty stuff. It’s:
- Planning an exciting weekend and going on an adventure
- Doing that thing you’ve been talking about for months
- Catching up with that old work colleague you had a great connection with but just fell out of contact with
- Finally getting around to changing your diet
- Enrolling in that course you’ve been waiting to start
- Starting that sport you let go when you started working full time
It’s doing these little things; the things that make life exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling, regardless of your location or income streams or current social group.
You see, all that big-picture stuff — travelling the world and making great money — none of them make any difference if you still aren’t able to make the day-to-day reality of your life exciting. What’s the point in moving to Tahiti if you still spend your afternoons flicking through the TV complaining about how there’s nothing on? What’s the point in creating passive income streams and freeing up more and more of your time if you’re too afraid to open up and connect with people?
The small details are what matters and the small details are what you can start working on right now.
So, to get you moving forward and making progress towards the life you want, here’s a little challenge for you:
LifeOS First-Step Challenge
Changing this idea of Lifestyle Design from ‘Crazy impossible’ to ‘Practical reality’ in your mind requires proof. You need to prove to yourself that you can make a difference to your life, and you are in control.
To help you get this proof, here’s a quick little challenge to get you moving in the right direction:
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to plan your entire weekend with things you’ve been telling yourself you’ll do for months, but just haven’t gotten around to. This can literally be anything that’s important to you.
It could be:
- Cooking a dish you’ve waiting to cook
- Travelling to a specific destination you’ve waiting to visit
- Organising to catch up with someone you haven’t seen in too long
- Trying a specific sport or activity
- Pickup that instrument you put down after school
- Starting a book that you bought months ago
- Enrolling in a class in something that grabs your attention
- Getting big chores or home improvements out of the way
- Attend a local meetup group
- Fixing/making/mending that’s been staring you in the face
It doesn’t matter what it is. The only criteria are that you’ve wanted to do it for a while (even a few days), and you’re going to feel satisfaction, excitement, fulfilment, connection, or anything in between by getting it done. That’s it. That’s all.
Now, if you’re one of those rare people who don’t have a list of things they want to do or want to try, then your task for this weekend is to go and try something new to see if it’s something you’d like to do.
- Is there a sport you’ve had your eye on for a while that looks interesting but never tried it?
- Like to read? Go to the library, ask for a recommendation, and just start reading
- Sit in the middle of nature and pay attention to all the beauty around you
- Research one-off classes in your local area and sign up for any you can find
- Attend a public presentation at your local university
- Go to the theatre/movies/music venue and buy a ticket to the first play on
- Pack an overnight back, head to the train station or airport, and get a ticket out on the next available trip out
If you don’t know what you want to do, get out and find out what you like. There are thousands of exciting adventures available to you in every moment; you just have to find them.
So there are no excuses here. Get out and start the process of designing and creating the life you want. Give yourself a little taste and use this as a launching pad to power forward.
What to do Once You’re Done
Once you’ve finished your weekend, the next step is to get involved with the community and share your story in the ‘Victory’ section of the forum. It’s where people share their achievements and inspire others to take the leap.
- What did you do?
- Where did you go?
- What was the best part about it?
- Would you recommend it for other people?
It’s just an easy way to meet the team, inspire others, and also potentially find others to have more adventures with.
If you make it this far, congrats. Give yourself a pat on the back, and then get stuck into planning your next adventure 🙂