Advice,  Personal Development

Lifestyle Design: Building the Life You Dream of

Conclusion

We’ve now reached the end of a rather comprehensive post, which tried to detail the way I’ve organized my life with the intent that others may use this knowledge to build theirs. If you’ve been courageous enough to read so far, congratulations!

I hope the many examples listed will help to make certain theoretical notions more concrete, because it’s certainly not easy to observe one’s life, one’s way of thinking and of acting with a neutral perspective in order to draw conclusions, rules and methods – even though in the everyday life everything works seamlessly together without even thinking about it!

We’ve discussed how building the life we dream of means improving the world, through our contribution to the Plan and the rise of wiser people with a positive impact on their surroundings, and that it boils down to working on reaching objectives born from our deepest desires. To do so we can use the framework of a puzzle to create, that relies on balancing the time invested in each of our activities with their impact on our objectives. This helps us free ourselves from other frames of reference that are more limited and limiting – here we identify our objectives and we constantly check that we’re working on fulfilling them.

We’ve also discussed the fact that not knowing our goals or the activities needed to reach them isn’t a deal-breaker. On the contrary, it’s actually a sign we’re aiming at what we truly want and not just what’s accessible, which implies learning and growing. The model becomes harder to use, yes, and we progress blindly, but it doesn’t prevent us from reaching our goals, which we may discover along the way or even after actually reaching them, thanks to activities that we’ll discover as we go.

For some, using the ideas introduced here will lead to a full-time job, a sport/association/cultural activity on the side and a family. Others will go 100% into launching a start-up and spend whatever little time they have left drinking with friends. Others yet will choose a life closer to mine, based on several simultaneous activities that are both different and complementary to each other. And that’s all great, as long as everyone remembers why they are where they are and what they’re aiming at – life choices change as time passes, and what once was relevant will become obsolete a few years later.

Today I can’t say what my career is or split what I do between a private and a professional life. However I can list my objectives and my activities, indicate which ones generate an income and explain what I get from each of them and why they’re here. Therefore I encourage you to think this way as well: what do you want to spend your time on? What do you need? How much time should you allocate to each?

Lastly, just as I said at the end of my TEDx Talk, I’d like to remind you that time is your most precious resource but it’s limited. So you may as well spend it building the life you dream of! Yet there’s another side to this coin; our time is indeed limited, but most importantly we have no idea just how much. Do we have 60 years left to live? 5? 6 months? 2 days? A few hours? And so I’ll quote here Ayrokkan, a dragon from the Chronicles of Galadria, whose words were inspired by the Inner Warrior:

“Nothing guarantees you will live the second to come.”

So although I do indeed encourage each and everyone to build the life they dream of, let us not forget to go on this quest lightheartedly and with calm, and to enjoy the journey rather than only focusing on the destination. For nothing guarantees we will live long enough to reach it!

Now it’s your turn dear reader: have you ever considered consciously building your life or have you been mostly on autopilot, following existing models without questioning their relevance in your particular case? Do you find the model introduced here appealing? Why (or why not)? Are you using another model you’d like to share?

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