A Practical Guide To Finding Happiness and Living A Deliberate Life.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “Why do I do the things I do?”

You see, most people are living life more or less on autopilot.

Carried along by the currents of circumstance, dancing slowly towards a destination unknown.

And, I know this feeling.

I’ve been there too.

In fact, just a few years ago I was in a similar place.

I was a human “doing” but not a human “being”.

And to be honest, my life sucked.

I was depressed, overweight, broke and addicted to drugs and alcohol.

It was only when I got sober that I really started to ask myself questions like…

What do I want out of life?

What does a good life look like?

What choices can I make to create a “better” life?
(Now, of course, better is subjective… but you get the idea)

These questions set me on a path of discovery, a quest to live a deliberate life, a life on purpose.

To live a life by design, not by default.

Which is why I want to talk to you today about Lifestyle design.

So, what is lifestyle design?

Lifestyle design is a philosophy, and a practical approach to life based around a critical core concept:

That it is entirely possible for you to consciously design, build, and enjoy a life based on your passions, interests, values, and goals.

Rather than just conforming to societal norms, limiting beliefs, or well-trodden paths…

You can, and should, live life on your own terms.

A sovereign individual, limited only by your imagination and good morals. 

Lifestyle design is about being the architect of your life, and developing a blueprint that details exactly what you want your life to look like…

And then building it.

And the beauty of this is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

Your blueprint is fully customisable to you and your values, desires, and aspirations

Sounds pretty good right?

But, if it were easy, then everyone would be doing it.

So, I want to give you some practical steps to help you on your path.

Are you ready?

How To Design Your Life

Like with any good plan, it is important to start with the end in mind.

Now, to simplify this approach, I want to break this apart into two clear ideas:

• What do you want?

• How will you do it?

And the reason for this is pretty simple.

The first question is about understanding what “good” looks like, and the second question is about turning it from a vacuous dream into a practical reality.

If you start with the second question though, you’ll get stuck and at best only make incremental changes to your life (if any at all).

So…

What do you want?

The best way to think about this is by starting by asking yourself:

“If I didn’t have any of the current constraints in my life, what kind of life would make me happy?”

Now, this isn’t some dream fantasy land where you’re suddenly the richest person on earth, it’s about imagining, just for a moment, that you don’t have the constraints that you have right now.

That you have enough.

That you have choice.

And it’s also worth noting that this is not a “25-year plan”.

It’s a “what if I could click my fingers and have this be true” type scenario.

What does good look like, today.

Now, in order to do this, I want you to break the thinking of your ideal life into six different areas:

1. Health & Wellness

2. Family & Relationships

3. Business & Career

4. Finance & Wealth

5. Learning & Development

6. Lifestyle & Location

Next, for each of those areas, I want you to start asking yourself some questions…

• How important is this area to you, and why?

• What does “good” look like to you in this area, and why?

• What personal goals or aspirations do you have in this area, and why?

• How often do you want to spend dedicated time in this area, and why?

• How will you feel when you are experiencing this area optimally in your life, and why?

And I want you to write down the answers.

Get them out of your head and onto a page.

And I want you to be as specific as possible.

Without specificity, you will have no clarity.

For example:

“I exercise more” vs “I go to the gym and do resistance training for 1hr a day, 6 days a week”

Which one is clearer, more measurable, and thus, more attainable?

These answers will form the basis of your blueprint.

I would encourage you to flex and stretch your mind, deeply connect with your internal spirit and start to poke and prod into these areas and ask yourself:

• What do I want?

• Why do I want it?

• How would I feel if this were true?

The more questions you ask, and the deeper you go, the better your life will be.

And I can’t emphasise enough the importance of writing this down.

Personally, I prefer to use something like google docs for this type of thing because it allows me to easily add to or delete from the lists.

Plus it can be collaborative if I want to share it with Gabi, and also it’s stored in the cloud, so I don’t need to worry about losing it.

It isn’t meant to be a work of art, it’s meant to be a work of thinking.

An opportunity for you to stake a claim on your happiness.

And the end result is that you should have, in effect, a catalogue of all the things that are important to you in order to live a fulfilling life.

Or at least what you think it looks like right now.

Because until you start living some of these things, you can’t actually know if they are true, and if they really will make you happy.

And this is where the real magic happens, turning your dreams into reality.

But before we go into the “how”, a quick warning.

Your brain is programmed to keep you stuck.

When you start writing down all the things you want in life, your brain gets filled with dopamine, the feel-good hormone.

You’ll be high on the ideas you have.

But…

In order to get from where you are now, to where you want to be…

Requires change.

And all change is friction.

And all friction is stress.

And your amygdala, the freaked-out little part of your brain that triggers the fight or flight response, will see this stress, change, and friction as a threat.

And then, you’ll be overwhelmed with all these reasons that you can’t do the things you have clearly articulated that you desire.

Your amygdala is programmed to see things as being roughly 3-5x more threatening than they actually are.

Which was a great developmental move when we were being hunted by apex predators in the wilderness.

But now? It is holding you back.

And so, it is important to recognise, that every excuse you come up with is a fear response.

Every reason you dream up for delaying your joy, is a limiting belief.

And I know this, because I have gone through this exercise with dozens of people and helped them to work through their responses.

So, let’s walk through some steps to help you take control, and execute effectively.

Creating an action plan.

The first thing you need to recognise, is that if you try to change everything about your life all at once, you will likely overload yourself and fail.

And the problem with that, is you’ll use that as evidence to suggest that you “can’t” get what you really want in life.

Not true.

It’s about having a process.

A process I like to call “prototyping”.

Prototyping is just another way of saying “experimenting”.

So, for the purposes of this example, let’s say that in your ideal life, you:

• Live in a beachfront house

• Go to the gym every day for an hour

• Spend 2 hours reading every day

• Cook dinner every day with your partner

And let’s just say that right now, you do none of these things.

Is it a wise idea to wake up one day, and start trying to do all of those things all at once?

No.

What you can do though, is to systematically test your assumptions about each one.

Because, whilst it is entirely possible to accidentally end up happy, the most systematic way to fast-track yourself to happiness is by:

• conducting experiments on your life

• reflecting on how those experiments made you feel

• making informed decisions about whether to apply those learnings at scale.

So, I’d suggest starting with easily reversible decisions that don’t require a lot of friction.

For example, you may set yourself a 30-day challenge to read for 2 hours every day.

(If you want a system to help you to manage time more effectively, you can check out this video I made)

Start with this, apply yourself, and then test measure and learn whether or not this works for you.

Maybe you find that 1 hour every two days is the ideal amount.

Or, more, or less, or not at all.

From there, you can start to develop new hypotheses about what types of activities align with your vision.

You can do the same thing with the idea of living in a beachfront house.

Try renting one on Airbnb for a weekend, week, or month, and start to live the experience.

And then view that experience through the lens of “If this was my regular life experience, how would I feel?”

What you’re ultimately trying to get to, is what does a

• Perfect Day

• Perfect Week

• Perfect Month

• Perfect Year

Look like to you?

And the only way you can do that is by applying the scientific method:

1. Ask good questions
   (Eg; What will make me happy?)
   

2. Develop a hypothesis
   (Eg; Reading books will make me happy)
   

3. Conduct an experiment
   (Eg; Read 2 hrs a day for 30 days)
   

4. Measure and analyse the results
   (Eg; Did I do it? How do I feel? What worked or did not work?)
   

5. Take appropriate action
   (Eg; Do more, do less, try again, change approach)

By applying the scientific method over and over again, you can effectively build prototype versions your best life…

And take them for a spin before overcommitting to something you may find later actually doesn’t make sense.

But…

The only way this really works is if you take the time to really reflect on, well, all of it.

And, in case you haven’t noticed by now, I’m big on structure, because structure will set you free.

So, here’s what I would suggest, as a starting point, to develop a cadence of meaningful reflection:

Daily: 10 mins to 30 mins daily reflection.

This serves as an opportunity to keep your mind clear and keep you on track.

Weekly: 1hr.

This allows you to take stock over the entire week, and make adjustments to the coming week as required.

Quarterly: 1 - 2 days.

This serves as a significant checkpoint, where you take the time to re-ask yourself the questions in all 6 areas, see if anything has changed, and adjust accordingly.

In each of these reflections, just continue to ask questions like:

• How do you feel?

• Are you happy?

• How have you been spending your time?

• What lessons have you taken away from this?

• What can you do to make the next leg of your journey better?

If you do this, you will unlock new and unprecedented levels of personal growth, happiness, and fulfilment.

But…

The process will be long.
The process will be hard.

And you’re probably going to freak out on multiple occasions.

And that is ok.

That is normal.

Embrace the discomfort, because everything you want in life is outside of your comfort zone at first.

And remember: The goal is not to arrive at some final destination, but to continue growing, and becoming a better and more enriched version of yourself.

It is a journey of continuous personal evolution.

A journey where you get to consciously design, build, and enjoy a life based on your passions, interests, values, and goals.

Rather than just conforming to societal norms, limiting beliefs, or well-trodden paths…

You get to live life on your own terms.

A sovereign individual, limited only by your imagination and good morals.

Which sounds to me like a life worth living.

Pssst… Before you go…

If you enjoyed this content, you should check out my Youtube channel here.

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