Lifestyle Design sounds a bit new-agy, a bit influencery (as in only talked about in the ‘instagramable influencer space) and perhaps a little fake. What the heck is lifestyle design anyway!? The way I have approached Lifestyle Design is simple: it is being intentional about what you want your life to look like, getting clear on what you want to spend your time on, and being specific about the goals you have and steps you need to take to get you there.
I’ve been executing on this concept for years and while I haven’t always called it Lifestyle Design, it is how I approach my life and has really powerful outcomes. It can be overwhelming though if you’ve never done this, if you’re not sure where to start or how to appraoch it. Or if you’re not even sure WHAT you want.
I wanted to put together a tactical post explaining how I approach this because I beleive in not starting from scratch and taking an example from someone who is doing it. And then making it your own. So, I hope this helps you get on the path to creating your own life design that allows you to live the life you want, spending your time on things you enjoy!
Reflection
Before you can jump into what you want in the future, I beleive you need to reflect on your current state – and ask yourself some questions. These questions will help identify what you want to spend your efforts on, what habits you have that allow you to feel and be at your best, and what you don’t want. I ask these questions for my business, as I am an entreprenuer, as well as my personal life.
What is working for you?
Where do you find you are struggling?
What activities bring you joy?
What drains you?
What are your biggest accomplishments of the past year?
What habits are working well? What habits would you like to cultivate?
Where are your biggest ROI activities?
What are your biggest expenses?
Planning
Once you deep dive into where you have been, what is working and what isn’t, the next step is to create a plan to get you where you want to be. The fist things I like to do here is think about a mantra for the year to come – what I want to guide me, the energy I want to put out into the world so that it can be reflected back. This statement can and should be repeated during meditation, during times of uncertainty, during good times, and it should state what you want.
I’ve choosen a word for the year as well and similar to the mantra, can be a focus for what you want from your year. I like to pick a verb here – in the past I’ve used ‘Forward Motion’ ‘Build’ ‘Align’ for some examples. I look at the word (or phrase) to guide me, excite me and remind me of my focus.
Once I have my direction down, I set aside time to dive into the action steps I will need to put into place, the accountability and habits I need to continue or create in order to be succesful, and the quarterly breakdowns and specifics that will drive success. My number one recommendation would be to get as specific as possible – stating you want to get healthy is great, but getting specific about wanting to build leg strength to go into ski season strong and ski a whole day of deep powder without getting winded, is specific. Adding that you will do 2X week HIT classes that focus on leg strength completes the goal, as you know have an action plan to get you there.
A big part of this exercise involves thinking about what you want your days and weeks to look like, what you want your time to be spent on. Where you want to explore and travel. This is the fun stuff! Including your dreams and joys in your plan, being intentional about these things, is a must. Get clear on what you want in your life, write it down, and make an action plan to ensure these things happen. If you want to go on a 2 week vacation to Europe, what are the things you need to make that happen? Do you need to save X amount of money? Do you have to save PTO up for work? When do you need to start researching, booking flights and lodging? Think through these things!
Your Life should be intentional – the way you spend your time, the things you put your effort into. This is Lifestyle Design. I hope the above framework helped – and I have created a template that you can print out and use to walk through this exercise – both for your personal and your business! If you’d like a copy of this, let me know!