I could see the question coming, just by the look on her face.
While grabbing a quick bite at the local pub, the conversation turned to the fact that I was a “recovering attorney.” In other words, I had left the practice of law.
“You went to school all those years for nothing?” she said, seemingly horrified.
Yep, there it was. My first impulse when I hear statements like that is to reply with something juvenile.
“Yeah, so?”
I didn’t say that. But it’s still amazing to hear people imply that you should stick with something you hate, based on what it took to get there and actually figure out that you hate it.
Quitting law and becoming an entrepreneur allowed me to purposefully design the life I wanted, based on what’s important to me. In particular, I designed the work aspect of my life based on what I didn’t want:
- I didn’t want to practice law
- I didn’t want to answer to a boss
- I didn’t want to be constrained by geography
- I didn’t want to dress up for work
- I didn’t want to have set hours
- I didn’t want to work with clients
Nowhere in that list is the fact that I am now fortunate to make more money than most attorneys. That’s because if money were that important to me, I’d probably still be practicing law, and hating life (like many attorneys).
In fact, looking back at that list of “didn’t wants,” I did work with clients for my first six years of self-employment, and was doing quite well financially. When I made the decision to switch to a product model, I didn’t care if I made less money, as long as I could make enough to support my family.
Designing the business I wanted — rather than timidly sticking with what was currently getting me paid — made me happier. And, probably not coincidentally, led to a quantum leap in income.
Apply Design Thinking to Your Life
The book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life begins with the story of Ellen. As a child, Ellen liked rocks.
So, in college she majored in geology. If she liked rocks, becoming a geologist must be what she was supposed to do.
Ellen soon found that liking rocks has nothing to do with wanting to be a geologist.
It’s not an uncommon thing. Only 27 percent of college graduates end up in a career related to their major. Too often, we have no idea what we want to do at that young age, and yet make decisions that are supposed to dictate the rest of our working lives.
No matter, because it’s never too late to design the life you want. And true happiness comes from designing a life that works specifically for you.
Design thinking has historically been used to create a new product or solve an engineering problem. In this sense, the process has helped numerous entrepreneurs and engineers develop successful new products and businesses.
These days, design thinking is being applied to all aspects of life. Your career, certainly — but also your health and personal aspirations. Design thinking can help you create a life that is meaningful, joyful, and fulfilling.
Think Like a Designer
Designing Your Life was written by professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, who head up a program at Stanford University that applies design thinking to designing a life after college. It’s become one of the most popular elective courses at Stanford.
The essence of the philosophy can be summed up like this:
When you think like a designer, when you are willing to ask the questions, when you realize that life is always about designing something that has never existed before, then your life can sparkle in a way that you could never have imagined.
Which begs the question, how does one think like a designer? Naturally, Designing Your Life sets forth five simple mindsets that fuel design thinking.
1. Be Curious: Curiosity makes everything new. It invites exploration. It makes everything play. Most of all, curiosity is going to help you “get good at being lucky.” It’s the reason some people see opportunities everywhere.
2. Try Stuff: When you have a bias to action, you are committed to building your way forward. There is no sitting on the bench just thinking about what you are going to do. There is only getting in the game.
3. Reframe Problems: Reframing is how designers get unstuck. Reframing also makes sure that we are working on the right problem. Life design involves key reframes that allow you to step back, examine your biases, and open up new solution spaces.
4. Know It’s a Process: We know that life gets messy. For every step forward, it can sometimes seem you are moving two steps back. Mistakes will be made, prototypes thrown away. An important part of the process is letting go— of your first idea and of a good-but-not-great solution.
5. Ask for Help: The last mind-set of design thinking is perhaps the most important, especially when it comes to designing your life: radical collaboration. What this means is simple — you are not alone. The best designers know that great design requires radical collaboration. It takes a team.
You’ll notice there’s nothing in there about “following your passion.” As we’ve talked about before, passion is usually found instead of followed. The authors of Design Your Life agree with the science on this one:
[R]esearch shows that, for most people, passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery— not before. To put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause.
It might be better said that designing and living the the life you want is your passion. I know it’s that way for me.
Start With Work
It’s only been a couple of years now since I realized that while I had designed my work life the way I wanted it, the other areas of my life were suffering from a lack of focus. So, I’m trying to apply design thinking toward things like my health and personal growth.
But if you’re not happy with how you spend your time working, start there. Burnett and Evans admit that their main focus with the book is on jobs and careers, stating, “You weren’t put on this earth to work eight hours a day at a job you hate until the time comes to die.”
Amen to that. And remember, even if you’re relatively happy with your career, that doesn’t mean you can’t make it better.
If your work life is the starting point for your better-designed life, great companion reading to Design Your Life is Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One by Jenny Blake. Jenny’s process is a form of design thinking, and goes into deep detail about how to know what you next big thing is.