How to Design Your Life and Love It

Is it possible to design your life and love it?

Maybe you’re wondering if it’s possible to design a life to begin with. And if so, where do you even start?

Well, take it from me — someone who’s spent the better part of her life in the design field — designing your life is possible! And I’ll show you how.

For more than 20 years, I was thoroughly immersed in the building and design field. I loved designing buildings and urban spaces, reading blueprints and reviewing floor plans and inspecting building sites.

While that was something I thoroughly enjoyed doing, I’ve since transitioned to management consulting, training and coaching, and you might think the world of design is all behind me. But guess what? Now I get to help people design their lives.

Yes, you heard right. You can design your life.

Design Your Life: Top TIPS from a Real Life Designer

Today, I’m sharing a few lessons from the design world that you can borrow to design the life of your dreams.

But first, when I talk about ‘design’ what do I mean?

To design something is to “decide how it will be made, including how it will work and what it will look like” (McMillan Dictionary). The Oxford Dictionary says it is “to plan how something will work, look or be used”.

So, whether you’re designing a house or a life, there are some decisions that need to be made as a first step, and that’s exactly where we will start.

Start with a Vision

If you wanted to build a dream house, where would you start? You’d visit an architect, right? In that very first meeting the architect would ask about your vision. How many bedrooms do you have in mind? Do you want a ranch style or contemporary? An eat-in kitchen? A pool? What’s your vision for your dream home?

So, let me ask you, when it comes to your life, what’s your vision? Where do you see yourself a year from now? Five years? Ten years? What do you want to accomplish? What quality of life do you want to have?

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” — Proverbs 29:18

If you haven’t thought about these questions recently, now would be a good time to do so. Pause for a moment and take some time to jot down the answers to those questions.

Make a Plan

With a clear vision, the architect can start preparing the plans for your dream house. Plans are very important because they will be used to bring your vision to life.

But imagine trying to build a house without a plan. A wall here, a wall there and who knows what you’ll end up with. Sure, you might have a building, but I’ll bet it won’t look anything like the dream house you had in mind.

Same with life. When we keep moving forward without a plan, we end up somewhere we never intended. A misstep here, a misstep there and we’re so off-course we don’t know where to turn.

A loosely held plan (because who could ever really plan every single step?), is often better than no plan at all.

So, for the vision you described above, what steps do you need to take to achieve it? Do you need to go back to school? Do you need to cut down on your spending? Do you need to change jobs?

What’s your plan? What’s your next step?

Get to building

Speaking of next steps, now that your plans have been drawn up, it’s time to start building. Seeing your vision come to life as your dream house takes shape is exciting and rewarding all at the same time.

That’s how it is in life as well. It’s fun to dream and plan, but the real reward is in putting those dreams and plans into action and watching your dream life come true.

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”  — Pablo Picasso

Rinse and repeat

When you keep these three points in mind: vision, plan and take action, you’ll be well on your way to having the life you dreamed of.

I don’t expect there’ll ever be a point where you’ll say you’ve finally arrived, so I encourage you to keep going through these three steps as you grow and your priorities change.

And of course, we all know there’s no cookie-cutter approach to life. What works for one person, may not work for another. I’ve taken the liberty of adopting some processes from the design world and applied them to life in general, but I’m mindful that life doesn’t always work that way.

My hope is that these tips would have inspired you enough to try something you might not have thought of before, and that your inspired action will help you design a life you love.

Essentially, I hope this gives you the jumpstart to design your life and love it!

Still have questions? Let’s chat in the comments below.

What tips do you have for designing a life? Which step would you say is the most important?