Many people drift through life without a clear direction.

You may be one of those people who feel aimless and discontent. Deep in your soul, you know you are meant for something greater than this.

Without intentional life design, you will live to others’ expectations. Without engineering through problems, you will be stopped by even minor obstacles. Without building the life you want, you will never make your dream a reality.

Rather than pursuing your true purpose, you will be fixed to societal norms and stuck in the rat race.

Here are the basics to design, engineer, and build the life you want.

Assessment

Before you plan where you want to go, you must know where you are at.

Assessing your life allows you to see where you are and track your progress. Evaluate where you are in the five areas of life (health, wealth, connection, work, and fun). Take stock of your skills, strengths, and weaknesses. Reassess your values and priorities.

Once you have a holistic understanding of your life today, you can take the necessary steps to create something closer to your goals.

Design

Design is a subjective art form.

A successful life design will resonate with you on an emotional level. It will fulfill both practical needs and aesthetic desires. Design involves human emotions and is more art than science.

The creative process of design begins with identifying a need. Then, you ideate and brainstorm ideas to address that need. Through iteration, ideas are refined into a coherent concept (A Life Blueprint).

But it doesn’t stop there. You take your design into the real world, using interactions and usability challenges to test and refine your idea. Design is about developing and refining many ideas until you narrow in on the one that resonates most.

You are never really done designing your life. You are always coming up with new ideas to improve and testing the merits of those ideas.

Engineer

Engineering is the application of mathematic and scientific principles to solve real-world problems.

All engineers do is solve problems. Engineering is more of a science than an art form.

It starts with identifying the problem and understanding it. Engineers research, collect data, and brainstorm. This process of understanding the problem makes solving it easier and increases the likelihood of coming up with the best solution.

Once you have a solid solution, you can rigorously test it to see if it works under different conditions or variables.

Look for functionality and efficiency in your life. Do not be afraid to iterate to develop the right approach, process, or system.

Build

Building starts with prototyping.

Before building a massive bridge, contractors will develop mock-ups and test sections. Using the information from these prototypes, they will work with engineers to make the structure more constructible.

Before pursuing the big dream, it is wise to build a mock-up or prototype to ensure you are creating what you want.

Construction takes planning and preparation. Before beginning construction, they clear the site and build a solid foundation. Often, you will see construction sites work for months or even years before they go vertical. That is because they are building a solid foundation. The deeper and wider your foundation, the higher you can build.

Spend more time on your fundamental skills, core beliefs, and faith in yourself. The stronger your core foundation, the more impressive of a life you can build.

Contractors work in overlapping phases and sequence work so all work is completed. The project managers constantly ensure construction is of the highest quality, on time, and under budget. Safety is essential on a project. The whole team evaluates risk and makes sure everyone is working safely.

You will have to be the project manager of your life’s construction. Making sure things are getting done timely without depleting valuable resources. You will have to assess risk to make sure you are not risking too much on a long shot.

Building is the most crucial step. You can engineer and design all you want, but it is still an idea.

You have to build your ideas into reality.

Circular Process

This process is cyclical.

You will assess, design, engineer, and build.

You will assess what you built, redesign, reengineer, and renovate or rebuild.

To create an extraordinary life you will constantly be reevaluating, tweaking design, engineering through problems, and building them into reality.

The process never stops.

The more you practice, the better you will get. The better you get, the better the outcomes.

The Basics to Design, Engineer, and Build Your Dream Life

Pursue your true purpose. Here are the basic steps to design, engineer, and build your dreams into reality.

The all-in-one writing platform.

Write, publish everywhere, see what works, and become a better writer - all in one place.