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A well-designed life is a life that is generative—it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise.
Designers love questions, but what they really love is reframing questions.
In design thinking we always say, “Don’t start with the problem, start with the people, start with empathy.”
A reframe is when we take new information about the problem, restate our point of view, and start thinking and prototyping again.
Designers don’t think their way forward. Designers build their way forward. What does that mean? It means you are not just going to be dreaming up a lot of fun fantasies that have no relationship to the real world—or the real you. You are going to build things (we call them prototypes), try stuff, and have a lot of fun in the process.
curiosity, bias to action, reframing, awareness, and radical collaboration.
A well-designed life is a life that makes sense. It’s a life in which who you are, what you believe, and what you do all line up together.
These are all gravity problems—meaning they are not real problems. Why? Because in life design, if it’s not actionable, it’s not a problem. Let’s repeat that. If it’s not actionable, it’s not a problem. It’s a situation, a circumstance, a fact of life. It may be a drag (so to speak), but, like gravity, it’s not a problem that can be solved.
Wayfinding is the ancient art of figuring out where you are going when you don’t actually know your destination. For wayfinding, you need a compass and you need a direction. Not a map—a direction.
Here’s another key element when you’re wayfinding in life: follow the joy; follow what engages and excites you, what brings you alive. Most people are taught that work is always hard and that we have to suffer through it. Well, there are parts of any job or any career that are hard and annoying—but if most of what you do at work is not bringing you alive, then it’s killing you.
This isn’t a gravity problem—it’s not impossible. It’s just that Dave’s stuck because he’s anchored himself to a solution that can’t work.
Failure is the raw material of success, and the failure reframe is a process of converting that raw material into real growth. It’s a simple three-step exercise: 1. Log your failures. 2. Categorize your failures. 3. Identify growth insights.
We make a clear distinction between counsel and advice. “Counsel” is when someone is trying to help you figure out what you think. “Advice” is when someone is telling you what he or she thinks. Fortunately, there’s a very easy way to tell when you’re getting advice rather than counsel.
Here’s a way to test what we mean. Think of the different groups you’ve participated in over the years. You can probably think of groups in which the people were talking about ideas about their lives, and groups in which the people were actually talking about their lives. It’s the difference between commentators and participants. It’s a community of participants that you’re looking for.
Balance is a myth, and it causes a lot of grief and heartache for most of us.
I’d rather have more fun and more friends. Money, promotions, and more responsibility do not motivate me. The point of having a good life is to be happy, not to work.”
(1) be curious (curiosity), (2) try stuff (bias to action), (3) reframe problems (reframing), (4) know it’s a process (awareness), and (5) ask for help (radical collaboration).
