Tips & Quips—TIP: Ideal Life Exercise

If you’ve ever felt somewhat dissatisfied with your life and wanted change, but weren’t sure where to start, here’s an exercise you can do:

1. Grab a piece of paper and write down your ideal day.

2. Take your ideal day and now make it repeat for a week.

3. Now, copy your week 4 times to make a month.

What do you see? It’s probably not exactly how you want to spend an entire month, is it? It would look pretty imbalanced for us to spend our lives only doing what we consider “ideal.” Plus, most of what we think is ideal is often because it’s rare. If it became commonplace (aka: daily), it would probably no longer be something we desired.

When people say they can’t wait until they retire, what they’re actually saying is: They want to be the master of their time (days, weeks, months). The reality is, everyone thinks they will spend retirement living like they do on vacation, but that’s rarely true. We realize this when we start out designing the ideal use of our time and quickly figure out that it’s not sustainable or enjoyable. The same holds true for those of use who aren’t retired.

How do we fix it?

First, we have to identify the actual components in our life. The problem is we get so busy just getting through our days that we rarely stop to think about what it is that makes our life worthwhile. So, here’s how you change that:

1. Look at your ideal day and break it down into components.

2. Take the list of components and make categories from them, such as: relationships, hobbies, food, connection/community, movement, etc.

3. Take these categories and add more items to each category.

4. Now, figure out how you can add more items from these various categories into your life on a regular basis (at least every week).

By bringing more balance to your life from the perspective of categories, you will have much more satisfaction and joy!