What is Lifestyle Design? Well, it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s the art and practice of designing your own lifestyle. Hopefully exactly as you want it to be.
The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD). – Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour work Week
Most men work their entire life in a job they hate, to support their family and earn enough money to retire. And then they have a few years where they’re playing golf or lawn bowls before they die of boredom. For most women it’s working, then raising children until they leave home, and then playing lawn bowls until they die of boredom.
Just the thought of any of that makes me feel like I’d rather throw myself off a tall building right now than go through that kind of hell.
Which is apparently exactly what most Scanners feel when they think of such things.
I think that people who prefer following their heart, and changing their mind all the time, and can be happy doing that, are the types of people who choose to design the lifestyle of their choice.
Instead of accepting the life that others want them to live, they’ll choose the life that’s most meaningful to them – even if they don’t get all that much money from it.
If they can design a lifestyle for themselves that pays their living expenses while allowing them to live a life that is rewarding and fulfilling and feels like heaven on earth, then they’re ‘living the dream’.
Everyone desires to live the life of their dreams, but not everyone does what they can to achieve the life of their dreams. Not everyone designs their life to get the results they want.
Lifestyle Design is about creating a plan of how you want to live, and then making choices about your life and your work that fits into that plan.
The end result will hopefully be a more rewarding and fulfilling life, based on your design.
I think that I’ve been doing an element of Lifestyle Design for many years now, but not really succeeding at it. It’s obvious to me I’m doing it wrong, but at least my experiences are helping me learn how to improve upon what I’m doing.
What I need to work on for myself is the design of a lifestyle that gives me what I need, and gives my wife what she needs, and my future family what they need.
I have to take into consideration my responsibilities related to the choices that I’ve made, and the people that I’ve brought into my life, that I’ve made myself responsible for as a partner and future father. (No, Fanfan is not pregnant, but we’re working on it.)
Any lifestyle designs I work on needs to be for a lot more than just me and my own selfish needs. My choices, my responsibilities, my design.
A worthy project, I think. Designing a life that helps all of us find reward and fullfillment.
Have you been designing your own lifestyle? Have you been living a life of your dreams? Or are you still trying to work it out for yourself? Share your story or your thoughts below.
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