Design your life — a framework to use for evaluating your personal growth and well-being
The following is based on my personal experience at the course “Design your life” at d.school.
The course uses design thinking to address the “wicked problem” of designing your life and career. This class offers a framework, tools, and most importantly a place and a community of peers and mentors where we’ll work on these issues through assigned readings, reflections, and in-class exercises.“ Mr. Burnett and Mr. Evans are both Stanford grads, and while they have accomplished résumés (Mr. Burnett helped to design the original “Star Wars” toys and worked at Apple before becoming executive director of Stanford’s design program; Mr. Evans also worked at Apple and co-founded Electronic Arts, the game company), each said his younger self would have been well served by the course. They began holding workshops for adults a few years ago, including for the employees of Google. The workshop and the book are an effort to take their approach beyond its cloistered campus setting.
In Life Design, we reframe a lot. One reframe is, that there is not one role or one specific plan. There are many designs of your life — as it is not a thing, it‘s an experience. Research shows that, for most people, passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery — not before.
You don‘t need to know your passion in order to design a life you love. Instead, once you know how to prototype your way forward, you can discover the things you are passionate about or not.
Design Thinking
Accept! You can’t solve a problem you’re not willing to have. The essence of Design Thinking is to use a human centric approach to solving problems.
- A bias for action
- Don’t try to decide your way forward, design it forward
- Reframe the problem
- Are you solving the right problem? (& Don‘t focus on so-called „gravity problems“ (Problems you can not solve anyway))
Everything is a prototype!
- Be Curious
- Try Stuff
- Reframe Problems
- Ask for Help
In the following a short run through to provide you with the main tools and already receive quick feedback for yourself:
Start where you are:
Excercise — The Life Design Assessment
In order to start where we are, we have to know where we are.
Work The stuff you „do“. You may or may not be getting paid for it (at least for a portion).
Play Play is all about joy (however it can certainly include organized activities or competition). If you observe children at play, you will see the type of play we are talking about.
Love We won‘t attempt to define love. It comes in a wide range of types. All are related to that sense of connection(s).
Health Being well in mind, body and spirit (In general: There is no objective perfect balance of these different areas of health, just a subjective sense of either „I have enough“ or „something is missing“.)
How to conduct a Life Design Assessment:
- As Is: Make some notes about how it‘s going in each of the four areas.
- As Is: Mark where you are (0 to Full) on each gauge.
- To Be: Ask yourself if there‘s a design problem you‘d like to tackle in any of these areas. Mark this area!
- Now ask yourself if your „problem“ is a gravity problem. (Remember: You won’t solve gravity problems!)
Excercise — Building a compass
The compass will help you to always find a rough direction. No matter what’s around you.
This is done in multiple dimensions, some examples:
Work View
- What is work for you?
- Why do you do it?
- What makes good/worthwhile work?
Live View
- What gives life meaning?
- What do fame, money and personal accomplishments have to do with it?
- How important are growth and fullfillment in your life?
Wayfinding:
Excercise — Good Time Journal
For wayfinding you need a compass and a direction (similar to explorers).
There is not one direction in life, you can‘t put your goal into your GPS and get turn-byturn direction. What you can do is pay attention to the clies in front of you, here:
- Engagement (Flow = Total Engagement)
- Energy The Daily log helps you to recognize what you like, and is a helpful tool for reflection.
Tipp: Do it constantly, at least for 3 weeks.
First quick excercise to receive first feedback:
- Complete a log of your daily activities in the last days e.g. Monday — Wednesday.
- Not down which activities are engaging and energizing, and which ones are not. Mark flows.
- Are there any surprises?
Interesting: Zoom in and try to get even more specific about what does or does not engage and energize. (Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects, Users)
Getting inspired (or unstuck):
Excercise — Mindmap
The following builds on the result of the last excercise’s results.
- Take a blank sheet of paper
- Engagement: Pick 1 activity (area) of your GTJ during which you were engaged the most and write it in the center (if Flow, take it!)
- Energy: Pick 1 entry of your GTJ where you identified highly energetic moments (or situations) and write it next to it 4. Mindmap them all out
Excercise — Odysee Plan
„There are multiple great lives (and plans) within me and I get to choose which one to build my way forward to next“.
One of the most powerful ways to design your life is to design your lives with the Odysee Plan: viable and substantially different possibilities of the of coming 5 years.
- Create 1 or 2 five-year plan(s); Examples:
- The thing you do — 5 years expanded ahead.
- A life were money or image were no object
- Your company as a unicorn - Give each alternative a descriptive six-word title and write down three questions that arise out of each version of you.
- Complete each gauge on the dashboard:
- Resources (do have the objective resources?)
- Likeability (are you hot or cold about it?)
- Confidence (do you feel confident?)
- Coherence (does the plan make sense within itself? Is it consistend with you?)
Prototyping
- Review your odysee plans and the questions you wrote down for each.
- Make a list of prototype conversations and experiences that might help to answer these questions.
- If you get stucked have a brainstorming session with a team or try mind mapping.
- Build your prototypes by activeley seeking out Life Design interviews and experiences.
Disclaimer: It should just be an inspiration.
Always pay attention: The questions and excercises might lead to even more questions. So if you need help, always reach out to someone who can help (e.g. a professional coach! (not me))
Links
Stanford Webinar — Design Your Life: Part I: Reframe Your Passion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bYIQDlWj34
Stanford Webinar — Design Your Life: Part II: Prototypes for Personal Success https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwAkE0Sdbg
Book Resources and Materials http://designingyour.life/resources-authorized/
Keynote Talk by Kathy Davies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71aY33N_VUo&feature=share