Most people treat “life” as something that happens to them. When things go wrong, it’s someone else’s fault. When they don’t get promoted, it is because of the environment. When a project goes haywire, when their team falls short, when the end product doesn’t quite come to fruition
Those who live by Design
They wake up with intention, they are clear on their goals, they know what needs to get done, and when something goes wrong they are the first to admit where they went wrong. They know that success is a process, and are willing to go through that process knowing it will ladder up to something bigger.
The best way to practice this is to create habits in your life you refuse to give up for anyone else
Guard your time. Turn these moments into opportunities to practice discipline.
- Design your life, and create habits that will ensure that you do not give up control of your time to anyone else.
Living a life by Design
It is so easy to fall into the bad habits that lead to a life lived by Default
- People say, “I need to eat healthier,” while they palm-to-face another handful of potato chips
- “I should really wake up earlier,” meanwhile they hit the snooze ten times
- people say, “I’m unhappy with my job,” meanwhile make no sustained and intentional strides toward a change in lifestyle – they just expect it to change on its own
If you want to Design your life, you have to be willing to let go of people and environments that no longer serve a Default way of thinking
At first, everyone will tell you that you’re wrong.
- Everyone will point and share their opinion. Everyone will insist that you are the “crazy one.”
- But, eventually, they will all come back around.
Write down your “Chief Aim”
It firmly instills in your subconscious what you’re working on and helps attract into your life what you need to make that vision a reality.
Practice Discipline
If you want to Design your life, you have to master the golden trait of discipline
- The number one challenge in life design comes down to saying “no”
- Stay true to yourself and your mission, and the only way to do that is to have an extremely strong sense of self awareness and discipline
Surround Yourself With People You Want To Be Like
Choose your friends carefully
- Make sure that the people who fill your life and your time are people who live with principles aligned with your own
- Ideally, these people are ahead of you, stretching you and continuing to grow in the direction you’d like to go
People who live by Design practice setting goals and achieving them
They know when the goal has been achieved
- Constant practice allows them to set bigger and bigger goals and see them through to completion
- No matter how big or small, they set goals and create a measure for success
