I recently finished reading Bill Burnett and Dave Evans' book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. It's been awhile since I last shared a book, but this was a good one. As someone who went through design school, this book made total sense. I love the idea of approaching the way you life your life with the same lens and tools used in design thinking. The authors believe that:
“A well-designed life is a life that is generative – it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of a surprise.”
Each chapter of the book ends with actionable steps and exercises you can complete to make real changes in your life. They truly embrace finding problems and deciding upon actionable solutions, not ones that are impossible due to the realities of life. One thing you can always change is your thinking.
“Life designers don’t fight reality. They become tremendously empowered by designing their way forward no matter what. In life design, there are no wrong choices; there are no regrets. There are just prototypes, some that succeed and some that fail.”
I won't go into too many details about the exercises, but at one point you are tasked with defining your life view and your work view. The most interesting part of this exercise is seeing where the two overlap. Ultimately, I found that this book opened me up to a completely new way of thinking in regards to goals and long-term dreams in life. By considering different realities, I was able to see that mindset and perception really are the concepts that define how we view our lives. If you are in a period of transition (like I am this year), or pondering your career path, or even happy with your current state of affairs I still recommend this book for the insights it gives into using design thinking and theory to embrace the joy and enjoy the process of life. Happy reading!
