How to Design Your Perfect Lifestyle

This page will walk you through a step-by-step process to design your perfect lifestyle.

A few thoughts before we begin:

Reflect the Best of Who You Are: As you seek to design your perfect lifestyle, focus on the things you truly care about deep down. You know what I mean. Avoid happiness traps and mirages - those things that you fool yourself into believing would bring happiness. For some people these may be possessions; for others they may be adventures or delusions of personal grandeur. Be honest with yourself. As you design your perfect lifestyle, let it reflect the best of who you are.

Look Holistically: As you design your perfect lifestyle, think about the various different domains of your life: health, friends and family, romance, purpose, work, money, personal growth, fun and recreation, physical environment, adventure, learning, travel, etc. You don't need to identify something in every domain, but do try to keep a holistic picture of what you want.

One Year from Now: We are not attempting to design your perfect lifestyle for when you retire many years from now. Rather, let's design it for one year from now. That doesn't mean you should compromise and think small. Rather, it means that you are consciously making a great plan for your life in the short term, instead of deferring your dreams.

With that said, let's get to the steps. Good luck!
Adam

The Steps to Design Your Perfect Lifestyle

Step One: Identify Your Values
Your lifestyle should be an authentic expression of you. So, before doing any planning, we're going to identify the core parts of you - your values and priorities - you want your life to reflect.

Choose from this list of values below or add your own. Select the 10 most important values to you. Then rank them.

(Note: Do not skip this step! Connecting with your values before planning helps you design a fulfilling life aligned with your highest priorities.)

Step Two: Identify How or What You Want to "Be"
As you design your perfect lifestyle, ask yourself what you want to be. Again, choose an authentic expression of you. What do you want to be? A great friend? A loving partner? Healthy and fit? A great cook? An amazing surfer?

Step Three: Identify What You Want to "Do"
What activities will bring meaning, fulfillment, and adventure to your life? These should be fun activities. Learn a new language? Sky-dive? Ice skate? Kayak? Volunteer? Coach others? Whatever it is, identify what you'd like to do with your time. Include adventures you'd like to have, as well as things you'd like to do on a day to day basis. If you get stuck, identify things to do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Step Four: Identify What You Want to "Have"
What do you want to have as you design your perfect lifestyle? Not to beat the dead horse, but possessions rarely bring happiness. That said, identify some things you'd like to have. A new car, a peaceful home, a garden. Pick some unique and authentic expressions of you. (That said, don't feel guilty here; if you want it, just put it down.)

Step 5: Understand the Cost
Using each element of your Be, Do, Have list for the next year, do the math. How much would it cost? For example, how much would a movie once a week, cooking lessons, tai-chi lessons, spending one month at the beach, and renting an Infiniti actually cost? Run the numbers and arrive at a per month and per day rate. (See Tim Ferris's great page and worksheet on ideal lifestyle costing.)

Step 6: Get Creative
How can you keep the things you want to do, but reduce the costs? For example, what if you didn't stay at a hotel at a beach, but instead rented an apartment nearby? What if you traveled in the offseason? Get creative and think through interesting ways to achieve the essence of your perfect lifestyle, without all the additional cost.

Step 7: Take Action
We're going to make a plan in Step 8. Before planning, however, take some action to get the ball rolling. Call someone. Register for a course. Do something, whatever it is or however small, to get the ball rolling. The idea here is to overcome inertia and generate momentum.

Step 8: Make a Plan
Look back through your answers in Step 1-7. What do you notice? What jumps out at you? Of the items you identified, pick your top 3-4 elements in your perfect lifestyle. Map out action steps and milestones for the next 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 1 year. Check out the other articles in the goal setting tips, and use the articles on lifestyle design for more ideas and resources.

I hope you've found this article on how to design your perfect lifestyle helpful.

A final tip: in the search to design your perfect lifestyle, clarity is key. Many people get stuck because they're not clear about what they want. They have ambiguous notions of "happiness" rattling around in their heads, but they can't put their finger on exactly what they want.

So, don't rush through the steps in determining what you want. Get clarity and set your intention. Then plan and take bold action. Reality rewards the bold!

Good luck!

Adam

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