7 Steps To Start Designing Your Dream Life

 In this post I'm sharing 7 steps to start designing your dream life and avoid the mistakes I made so you can do it now.

When I was in my twenties I wasted time with busy-work. It was a bad habit that I didn't realize I had because all of bosses and peers believed and promoted this system.

Fast forward to my thirties my mindset changed when I realized how wrapped up I was in “doing” activities in my professional and personal life that didn't lead to change. 

Once I admitted that I desired to thrive instead of getting by day to day, things started to change in my life.

Not by magic but by adopting the mindset that I could do the work to create a life I love.

So, focusing on these 3 things helped me get clear about what I wanted to do in the future: 

1. learn from my mistakes
2. make consistent progress every day
3. understand small steps are the process to living my dream life daily  

It all boils down to this. The most important lesson I learned was I wanted to live authentically by designing my own life.

Without a doubt, I made a lot of mistakes before I started to make my dreams a reality. And that's totally normal.

7 Steps To Designing Your Dream Life

With this easy to follow guide you can get started living as your best self.

Step #1 Compare goals versus actions

Reflect on your lifestyle and compare it to the desires in your heart. Not the ones in the head but your true heart’s desires.

When I did this step it was blatantly clear I needed to make big changes to match my big dreams.

Step #2 Acknowledge your weaknesses

Yes, acknowledging your weaknesses is required. But that awareness doesn't mean you're required to repeat the same mistakes forever. Focus on your strengths. Put all of your energy toward improving the things you're already good at. And do it with all you've got!

For example, my goals didn't align with my actions and my actions didn't align with my personal goals.

As hard as it was to admit it was an important step to making the change I wanted to see in my life. Rather than dwell on the negative I admitted something was wrong but moved forward to taking the first step in fixing it.

Step #3 Visualize the future you

Visualizing the future may sound woo-woo but hear me out. I thought about the person I wanted to become and visualized the work I needed to do in order to become that woman.

I even went so far as to visualize how I'd feel, my daily routine, and solve motivational problems. Basically, I envisioned being my best self in a practical situation.

Step #4 Write it down

You'll hear me say this a lot because it works...write it down! In the study led by Dr. Gail Matthews from the Dominican University in California the results indicated you're 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down.

First I wrote one thing down, the thing I wanted to change in my life, it made the possibility seem real and doable.

Second I added some steps I knew I needed to complete in order to get me closer to achieving the goal.

Bonus Tip: Rarely does anybody know all the steps required for attaining a target so just start with listing a few big milestones. 

Third, I figured out how much time I needed to dedicate toward achieving the goal which led me to the last step.

Forth, I added a "due date" which was the deadline for reaching my goal.

Sometimes this sequence is called reverse-engineering-a-goal. If you haven't tried this technique I highly suggest you test it out. Below is a roadmap for you to see how it works:

Step #5 Take small actions

Making a  list of steps necessary to complete any goal. But its also where you may feel frozen and never start at all.

Life I in step #4 you won't know every single step necessary to carry through to the end. However, you can do one, small action at a time. Choose one big step and break it down into daily or weekly tasks. 

Step #6 Keep the goal top of mind

• See it, review it, adjust it. Here's a few ways you can keep goals present:
• write it on a post it and put it on your bathroom mirror or fridge
• add the goal to your phone's notes section and make that your home screen or lock screen
• set a reminder on your phone to "remind" you every day of your goal

Step #7 Tap into your flow state

A flow state is the zone where your body, mind, focus (and I like to think happiness) are connected as one, working effortlessly toward a task. Getting into a flow state takes practice. These are the ways I get fully immersed into my work:

• listen to lofi beats on Spotify
• create playlists that get me in the mood to achieve my dreams
• use headphones to block noise 
• work in the same space each time which triggers my brain its time to work
• or...switch it up and work outside or in a different location

Recap of 7 Steps To Start Designing Your Dream Life

Changing to a growth mindset is the key to living you dream life. It's developing the awareness of what's not working in your life and deciding to do something about. Think of it as soul-searching about your desires then using the roadmap to reverse engineer your lifestyle goal. 

Xoxo,
Nicole  

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