Become a Life Designer
Become a life designer in 3 simple steps:
After I studied in an enterprise leadership program in Denmark, called the KaosPilot, I came to China and started working as an innovation consultant. I practiced design thinking and facilitated the innovation process for companies. Since graduating from a non-traditional school, I didn’t expect that I will have a traditional career. So I asked myself these questions: Which type of work do I want to do? What do I want to achieve in my life? What are the changes I want to make in society?
These are difficult questions. There are no simple answers. Fortunately, I have a good habit of searching for new books. I found a book called design your life and this book changed my life. I am fascinated by the idea that you don’t have to live other people’s life by following a social norm or modeling successful people. The most important thing is to design a life that fits you.
Since I started practicing design thinking, a human-centered approach to develop new products and services that solve real human problems, I realized there are many ways to solve a problem, but people can easily jump into a solution, and believe this is the way to do things without a second thought of what the real problem is.
Through many years of design thinking practice and use the method to design my own life. There are 3 simple steps I believe can help you to find out what problem you are facing in your life and how you can adjust your life according to your own needs.
1.Reflection:
The purpose of reflection is to make sense of your experience. I have been writing all kinds of reflection papers. Starting to write down whatever was in my mind, experiences happened during the day, ideas that inspired me, insights I come up with through interactions. Some people preferred a more structured framework of reflection and others prefer free-flowing thinking. Whatever you prefer, the most important thing is to do it regularly.
One tool I learned from designing your life book is called a good time journal. In this exercise, it allows you to reflect on your daily activities.
First, you can write down a few activities that happen during the most recent week. Second, rate these activities through the lens of engagement and energy. You are fully engaged when the task in hand fully matched your skill. You can be in this flow state that you forget about time. On the other hand, energy gives you a different clue. You may be fully engaged with the task, but when you finished it, you can either feel a lack of energy or full of energy. Introverted people can feel engaged when debating on an important issue, but when it finishes, their energy level could go negative, because these activities drain their energy.
2. Insights:
Insight is the capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person. This is based on some clues you find out in the reflective journal. After I analyzed what activities take my energy and how much I feel engaged, I learned that I can come up with a lot of insight into myself. Here are some insights I got after I have done a good time journal.
- I enjoy small group conversation and one on one dialogue more than big group discussion. I can engage more and preserves my energy.
- I like to facilitate workshops with people who have a similar interest and intention.
- I enjoy attending events that are creative and human-centered, development driven.
- I need to have time alone and reflect with a small group of people.
- I find myself lacking engagement when I don’t know the purpose of what I am asked to do.
- When I am in a leadership position, I often feel more engaged, because I am responsible and I can make my own decisions.
- Meaning and purpose are very important for me to be engaged, because “why” is a big drive for my action.
As you can see these things are not just actions I have taken, but some patterns emerge from these actions. These things don’t happen once, but it happens consistently. Through discovering these small insights, I can find my personal preference for my work and life. These insights are the guidelines for designing my activities during the day.
3.Adjust
According to the leading researcher on flow Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, if the challenge is too high, and our skills for the challenge are low, our brain would be too aroused that make us feel anxious. If the challenge is too low, we would feel bored. So to be in the flow state, we have to adjust the daily challenges to our skill level or to improve the skills to handle the challenge.
According to the leading researcher on energy management, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, there are 4 levels of energy. To live a balanced life, you need to be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned.
If I do too many activities drains my mental energy, I have to find ways to rest my brain, and engage in other activities of physical exercises, or talking to friends and family. So that I could balance out my energy use and let the overused energy recover.
Through these two models, I could make some conscious choices for the day. For example, after a long day of 3 meetings, I would stay at home alone and watch a basketball game in the evening. When I work alone to prepare a workshop, I presented it to a friend who can give me feedback, so that I can get the challenge I need to improve my thinking and performance.
Designing your life is about making the conscious choice to re-balance your energy and engagement level so that you will experience more flow and happiness.
Through these three steps, you will be able to start to bring some unconscious habits and routines into the light of consciousness. So when you feel bored or energy drained with your current study or job, you don’t have to blame the school or workplace. Instead, you will start to look back towards your daily activities and start adjusting to your preferences and needs.
In Travelling University we believe that in order to create an impact in the world we first need to design our life: “be the change you want to see in the world”.
Written by: Haotian Cheng (MTA-TU China)
