Life Design – How To Stop Drifting

Designing your life doesn’t need to be complex. Here’s a simple exercise to gain insight into how you want to live your life, so that you can start making some gentle ‘course-corrections’ where needed, or identify new goals to set.

Perfect for when you:

• Feel like you’re just drifting along,
• Want to feel more fulfilled,
• Need a new goal,
• Want to upgrade an area of your life,
• Have experienced a major life change.

What Is Life Design

Designing your life is simply getting clear on how you want to live your life.

It’s your lifestyle – how you want to be living every day, what you want to be doing with your time, who you want to spend it with, how you present yourself.

It’s being intentional with your time and living life on purpose.

If you want to stop drifting through your days, and instead take the controls of your own life, then this exercise in self-awareness is powerful.

The ‘data’ that it provides us is invaluable for shaping how we should move forward, and the changes we may need to make in order to create a more fulfilling life.

How To Design Your Own Life

The aim here is to delve into what we consider ideal, for our own life.

It’s unique and deeply personal, and the best results can only be uncovered when we are honest with ourselves.

The simplest way is to approach it from various life areas, and to start asking ourselves some thought-provoking questions.

1. choose your key Life Areas

Consider multiple areas of your life in order to achieve a well-rounded and fulfilling existence.

For example, life areas can be categorized such as:

• Health & Wellness
• Relationship
• Family & Friends
• Finance & Wealth
• Business/Career
• Contribution
• Spirituality
• Recreation/Fun
• Continual Learning

Or whatever life areas most resonate with you.

2. Ask yourself Questions

Asking ourselves questions is a powerful tool for self-discovery.

It enables us to delve deeper into the thoughts and beliefs that we cling to, our feelings, and our motivations.

In each life area you’ve chosen to assess, take some time to think about what your ‘ideal’ state would be, and ask yourself:

• What truly matters to me in this area of my life?
• How do I want to feel?
• How do I want to live?
• What do I want to do? To have? To enjoy?
• What do I want to share & give?
• What does my ideal day look like?
• What brings me joy and fulfillment in this area of my life?

Be open and honest with yourself, and write anything that comes to mind for each of your life areas.

Life Design & Taking Action

After contemplating the above questions for each life area, you will have gained clarity of what your ideal state is for each life area.

The next step is to consider the red flags that you’ve found, the glaringly obvious changes that need to be made, and the next goals that you need, or want, to work on next.

It’s an interesting and insightful exercise to gain clarity and direction to stop any mindless drifting, but it’s also important to stop and be grateful for all the parts of your life that are going well already. 🙏🏽

If you want to do this exercise yourself, you can find the free worksheets here: