Have you considered designing your own life?
Applying product design principles to design your life: A structured approach to achieving your goals
I came to know of the term “Life Designer” from Karthi Subbaraman a year ago. We, as designers, set out to solve the human race’s problems to make their lives easier but how many times did we sit and consider solving our own problems using the same design principles?
There are five major steps in the design process- empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
Empathise: Talk to yourself, and acknowledge your feelings. Are you feeling angry, disappointed, or stressed? What is the continuous state of your mind?
Define the Problem: In designing your life, your need to define the problem or the goal you want to achieve. Start by asking yourself how you want your life to look like in the future. What are the things that are holding you back?
Research: Explore the “why”. Why do you want to achieve a particular goal? What will happen when you achieve that goal? What motivates you and what doesn’t?
Research the lifestyle you want to live, the skills you need to develop, the people you need to c0onnect with, and the resources available to you. Interact with fellow peers and find out how they are solving those problems.
Ideate: The next step is to brainstorm and come up with ideas on how to achieve your goal. Write down all the possible ways to get there, such as learning new skills, finding a mentor, networking, or building a support system.
Prototype: Create a prototype plan or a blueprint that outlines the steps you need to take to achieve the goal. This could include creating a daily routine, setting achievable milestones, and tracking progress.
Test and Refine: After creating a prototype plan, the next step is to test it in real life and monitor your progress. Life is unpredictable, so you might see yourself getting stuck with a few things. Identify those obstacles, and make necessary adjustments to your plan to ensure that you are on track to achieve your goal. If it fails, iterate on it, and look back at what works and what doesn’t.
Launch: Once you have tested and refined your plan, the final step is to launch it and commit to living your life the way you want to live.
All the self-help books can motivate you but it can only take form when you do something about it. Before setting out to change the world, let’s first aim to change our own world and design it the way we want to live.
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