Recently, I've become extremely interested in the subject of lifestyle design. It basically means taking conscious decisions about your life instead of letting the society influence it and forcing you into paths you do not want to take. It gives you more awareness and control over the things you do and lets you choose the ones that you value more in favour of those less necessary or perhaps totally inessential.
It always strikes me how many people are unhappy with the things they do, but are unable to get out of the situation, even if it requires only one simple action. They complain about their jobs, lack of time, being overweight, having no friends, feeling tired, but they never actually ask themselves what they can do to improve it and so never even take the first step. Sometimes it's very difficult to look at your life from the outside and judge it objectively as if it was someone else, not us, and we were trying to give that someone a piece of advice. That's why it's extremely helpful to see how other people overcome their weeknesses and alter their lifestyles according to their own design.
No one can tell you what you should or shouldn't do, but they can help you find the right questions to ask yourself and give you some tips on how to follow the right priorities. If you hate your job, maybe you should quit? If you still need money for your everyday life, then you could earn it in a different way or cut the expenses drastically? Do you really need a car, a big house or a TV set? Do you feel like you should take care of your health more? Why not get out right now and go for a jog? You can never find the right motivation? Ask someone to run with you, make a training plan and give yourself some rewards. You can't find the time for a hobby or something you love to do? Perhaps you spend too much of it doing other things that are not so important at the moment - watching TV, checking facebook, watching youtube videos or going out with your friends a few times a week. I know this is an oversimplification, but are you sure your choices are really your own and not something that simply has to be done or something that most people do?
Here's a video by Scott Dinsmore from Live Your Legend giving a speech at a TED conference. I found it really inspiring and I hope you will too.
If you want to read some more about lifestyle design, you should also check out the following:
The Blog of Tim Ferris - the author of "The 4-hour Workweek" bestseller, entrepreneur, speaker of 5 languages, Chinese kickboxing champion and a horseback archer giving out advice on how to be successful in life
The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau - a medical volunteer in Africa, traveller (more than 150 countries) and entrepreneur being self employed for his whole life writing about "unconventional people doing remarkable things"
zenhabits.net - a guide to being happy be owning less and living in accordance with the Zen philosophy
The Minimalist - once more about getting rid of unncessary things in life, because "stuff ties us down"
The Smart Passive Income Blog - where Pat Flynn tells his story from a full time architect to an extremely successful online entrepreneur earnign about $50,000 a month on affiliate programs, ebooks, iPhone applications and websites; just listen to his podcasts and you will fall in love with them and the author himself
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