What Is Lifestyle Design (And What It’s Not)

Lifestyle design means designing your life the way you want it to be. It’s when you create yourself and your environment and turn your vision into reality. Lifestyle design is about freedom, reclaiming your time and doing things you like. It’s about spending each day in the best way possible, feeling the way you want to, and making it all meaningful by helping others with what you do and leaving a dent in the universe. What Lifestyle Design is Not It has nothing to do with conventional thinking. It’s the opposite of mediocrity. It’s different from what average people are doing with their life. Here’s what being part of the system means: * continuing your education as long as possible * getting a degree * starting a job in the field * working from 9 to 5 * dreading Mondays and looking forward to the next weekend, until ultimately the next vacation comes * dedicating the most energetic and promising years of your life to being stuck in an office * waking up because you have to get to work * being lazy in your free time * blaming others and life itself for what you’re not doing with your life * expecting everything to be in a certain way and getting disappointed when it doesn’t go as planned * working your whole life so that you can have money when you retire * and then retiring but not having the energy and desire to do anything with the time you’re finally given. Lifestyle design is not the system. Some lifestyle designers may seem like they are living quite an ordinary life because they have a home in the suburbs, spend all their time with their family and don’t seem to be doing anything risky or adventurous, but there’s more behind this. They have still said ‘no’ to every single thing they didn’t like about their life once, and consciously worked to change each aspect so that they can live on their own terms. The result may not be what you’re looking for, but it doesn’t need to be. We all have different definitions of happiness and success, and the whole point of lifestyle design is to define it for yourself, then work your ass off to get it. Lifestyle design isn’t about waiting till you retire to travel the world, it’s about finding a way to do it now. Be it by working jobs abroad, becoming a freelancer and doing your work remotely while traveling, or building an online business and moving to the other corner of the world. Read also: How to Save $100K by Age 25, Quit Your Job and Travel The World Where It All Begins Lifestyle design is absolutely possible, but it begins with drawing a picture of your ideal life. Include your dream job, the people you want in it, the person you want to become and the ways in which you want to spend your time and money.