Design Your Life to Create a Life You Love
Create a life you love, with intention
Mid-life and beyond means we’re probably all pretty aware of what works for us and what doesn’t. One thing that doesn’t, at least for me? New Year’s resolutions. Creating a life I love isn’t about quick fixes, random tangents, or impromptu decisions.
Creating a life I love is about taking a breath, stepping back, and assessing what’s already in place, and what areas could use some help. This is no five-minute task.
Design your life with actionable steps
Beyond quick fixes, the other thing that is sure to derail your plans is keeping it all in the clouds. What do I mean? Well, “Get Healthy” is probably one of the most common New Year’s resolutions, or any time of the year, for that matter. But ‘get healthy’ is too big a concept to know what to do with.
For instance, how much of your day do you already devote to ‘getting healthy?’ Do you record everything you eat, the amount and type of physical activity you do, and so on? In the case of New Year’s, what does ‘get healthy’ mean for me today? Tomorrow? Next Thursday?
Every day has 24 hours
Consequently, most of my New Year’s resolutions fizzle, sometime in February. Statistically? I’m far from alone. Studies show that by mid-February, most of our good intentions have gotten up and gone. So, what to do? If we can’t even stick with our New Year’s resolutions, how are we supposed to (re)design our life?
How often have we said, “I don’t have time to cook healthy meals.” Or, “I don’t have time to work out.” Or, I don’t have time to (fill in the blank!)” Here is my answer. Every day has 24 hours. We all have the same 24 hours each and every day.
Now, I know you’re thinking, ‘well I still have kids at home and I take care of my parents, our pets, work full time, etc.’ And yes, all of us hit periods of time where just holding on, hoping nothing falls through the cracks is absolutely all we can do. But these stages tend to pass, or change, or disappear altogether.
The trick is being quick to realize things have changed; you probably could squeeze in some exercise now. And acting on it. We’ll show you how, below. But also know, getting started is just the beginning.
Like most successful people and things in life, action and results need to be planned, recorded, measured, analyzed and modified. Nothing will ever be perfect but getting it to ‘workable’ could be considered a win. The first step is to start with your ‘now.’
Your ‘now’ is the only way to get to your ‘next’
Designing your life is no different from any other action plan. Still, it can sounds kind of overwhelming, we know. My advice? Again, start with the basics, your life, as it is now.
The expression, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” is attributed to the writer, Annie Dillard. If this is true (and I’d venture it is!), then any change we’d like to see in our life needs to begin with what we’re currently doing and not doing, what we’d like to see, and ultimately, how we choose to spend the 24 hours each day contains.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
— Annie dillard
Where to begin
Starting at the very beginning is always a sound idea. In this case, it’s not a bad idea to spend one to two weeks writing down the hours in your day whether it begins at 5 a.m. or 8 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m. or 2 a.m. What exactly did you do between the hours of noon to 1 p.m.? What did you do in the first half hour after waking up. It may easily take two weeks of entries before you recognize a pattern, but I can assure you one will emerge!
Try downloading this editable and downloadable calendar to help you keep track of your time for a couple of weeks. You may be surprised at how much time you spend doing things you thought you’d marginalized. Or, maybe you begin to see that beginning your day with reflection and planning, even meditating, makes you feel your best. Maybe exercise in the a.m., gets you going. Whatever works for you is what works; it doesn’t matter what the experts tell you if it’s not working for you.
What’s the next step in creating a life you love
So, once you have your days and hours mapped out from the past two weeks you’ll have a pretty good idea where all your time goes. Too much TV? Too much screen time on nothing in particular? Too little learning and maybe too little friend time?
Start visualizing what you would like your ideal life to look like. Does this mean not going into a job? And does not going into a job mean starting your own business or joining the gig economy? Does it mean starting part-time work? Does it mean walking and strength training 3+ days a week? Does it mean shifting from meal kits and eating out to cooking in? The possibilities are endless, and individual, and they all begin with small steps.
Design your day to mirror your desired life
The really interesting thing is that once you know what you’d like your life to look more like and you can see where your time is going you can begin reallocating. Maybe all that screen time hasn’t amounted to anything, but if you were to direct even half that time to focused learning or exploring a new idea, passion or pursuit, it could all add up to a life change.
What if, instead of spending hours on Facebook and Instagram, you were to learn more about AI, or do better with meal planning, starting with breakfast. Or maybe you’re more into deep learning like finally understanding what the Stoics were on to way back when. Or maybe it’s how to become a dog breeder or convert your in-ground garden into a Container Garden. There’s really no end to what there is to study, learn, explore, and do.
Pay yourself first whenever possible
Another expression that comes to mind is, “Pay yourself first.” Of course, this usually alludes to financial preparation, meaning max out your IRA, 401k allocation, or your savings plan before you spend on anything discretionary. But the same notion could also apply to time.
Once you figure out where the minutes in your day go, you can begin to cut and paste activities that will bring you closer to your ideal life. Pay yourself first; don’t eliminate mindless scrolling and replace it with mindless TV. Paste in habits or activities that are going to lead you to where you ultimately want to be.
I can’t pass up this expression: ‘It’s when you stop learning that you begin dying.’ Can you actually point to the last time you truly learned something new? It’s like stretching an extremely tight muscle. Painful at first, but eminently satisfying in the long run.
Of course, there are a million ways to begin to reconcile your life, and many times we truly don’t believe we have the flexibility to make life-altering changes. If you’re caring for multiple generations, a chronically-ill spouse, or you’re working full-time and commuting on top of it, this may be holistically true.
But it’s the rare person who can’t begin small and make a real change. Maybe the only day you honestly have any flexibility is Sunday. So reimagine your Sunday. Maybe by just getting up an hour or two earlier you could fit in that dusty yoga practice, meditation, journaling, or a long, relaxed walk.
Maybe you take the time to set-up chia pudding for tomorrow’s breakfast, because you’re tired of listening to everyone you know rave about chia seeds. It’s this one small change that can ignite a life revision.
Reinventing your life is not only possible, it’s the single best thing you do for you
Reinventing your life doesn’t mean packing your bags and leaving for Tahiti (unless that’s your goal). Reinventing your life and following through on it means identifying the often slivers of time we could devote to something that over time could build to something really meaningful.
Don’t let getting started stop you
The hardest part of anything is getting started. Start with the ‘now.’ Download the free printable, record your time, then head over to our Bucket List blog to learn how to create one you’ll actually use. Going back to the Tahiti reference: Maybe going to Tahiti is your ultimate goal. If so, then that’s a time, money, and logistical puzzle that needs to be mapped with actionable steps.
The only way to do that is to identify what’s stopping forward motion in achieving a Tahiti trip.
Maybe you want to start a business, online, or storefront. Yes, your days are already full, but until you identify the holes and the time you spend doing things that don’t build to your goals, your dream won’t happen.
The very best of luck and encouragement! And be sure to let me know in the Comments Section if there’s anything else I can create that would help grease this process for you! Now, get out there and create a life you love!
