This entry marks the 39th consecutive time I’ve released a new “Trying New Things” post on the first of the month.

In one sense, this is cause for celebration. Being this consistent for this long is an impressive feat.

But I also have a history of sticking with things long past their expiration date.

For example, I joined Toastmasters International with a specific goal in mind: to get past my fear of delivering presentations at work. I achieved that goal after a year. Yet I continued to participate in the organization for another decade.

One day, after I delivered a speech to my club, another member asked me, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

I realized I wasn’t. After several weeks of deliberation, I finally decided to quit.

This is a question I need to be able to ask myself. I’ve shown the same blind devotion to other struggles, from taking Spanish lessons with marginal improvement to maintaining toxic friendships. Each time I sever one of these commitments, I wonder why it took so long.

After over three years, I’ve finally asked myself whether I still enjoy writing for this blog.

For the most part, the answer is, “no.”

Regardless of how the posts turn out, recently, writing them has felt a lot like being back in school and cramming for an exam I’m not prepared to take. I may have an idea floating in my head for weeks, but as with this post, I usually do the bulk of the writing on the last day or two before the scheduled release. It creates a lot of unnecessary pressure and I often end up short-changing both the quality of my content and my sleep.

I know I’m better at follow-through when I have some structure in place: a deadline, a streak I’m trying to maintain, an accountability partner. But while these mechanisms are helpful for things I need to do, they shouldn’t be necessary for things I want to do.

A famous quote–I failed to find a definitive source–goes something like, “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were.”

The same can be said about writing. If I truly love it, I shouldn’t have to force it.

After this post, Trying New Things will be free from deadlines, from accountability, from any sense of obligation.

I look forward to seeing what I do with that freedom.

The weasel’s nose twitched. A late lunch awaited somewhere nearby. He scanned the area where the scent was coming from until he heard a light rustling. His eyes darted towards the movement. He could just make out the tips of a mouse’s ears.

The weasel crept closer, mindful of every footstep so as not to upset even a single twig. He halted at a group of rocks where he could peek through without being seen.

He waited, breathing slowly, the hairs of his coat bristling.

A few interminable minutes passed before the mouse lowered its head and burrowed its nose into the ground, probably trying to extract a seed or insect.

The weasel dug his rear paws into the rocks, his muscled haunches propelling him towards his prey. He sprinted ahead, bounding over or weaving around every obstacle in his path without losing momentum. By the time the mouse looked up, the weasel knew victory was imminent.

He was less than a yard away. His mouth was drenched with saliva. The mouse had begun to run, but its tiny legs were no match for the weasel’s superior size and speed.

Out of nowhere, a dark shadow began to pass over the weasel, and a light breeze tickled his fur. Using one last burst of strength, he leapt forward, his jaw widening to expose rows of dagger-like teeth. He reached out to tackle his victim and bit down. He tasted nothing. He crashed into the dirt and tumbled head over heels until he landed on his back. Dazed, he stared upwards, his jaw hanging open, as a small screech owl glided off, gripping the squirming mouse in its talons and disappearing into a hole in the trunk of a tree some distance away.

Easing himself onto his belly and staggering to his feet, the weasel thought, I’m through losing my meals to those obnoxious birds. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to learn how to fly!

#

Early the next morning, trying to ignore his growling stomach, the weasel crept towards the tree where the owl had disappeared. He selected another tree a few yards away, scurried up the trunk, and nestled his body into an indentation where two branches met. He pressed his face to a gap in a clump of leaves and stared at the hole. It looked empty.

The weasel waited. He felt the sun’s rays warming him until it was directly overhead, yet there was still no sign of the owl.

Two more hours passed. Nothing.

Weasels are known for their patience, but this was getting absurd.

Just as he was about to give up, he saw movement. A small, grey dome, barely discernible from the bark of the tree surrounding it, began to rise. The ascent seemed slower than even the sun’s, but finally, the weasel could see the two great, yellow eyes within a ball of grey feathers.

And the screech owl sat, staring into nothingness, and occasionally blinking his eyes.

The weasel ground his teeth and clenched his paws.

And then it happened. The owl hopped onto the edge of the hole and raised his wings. Pushing off with his talons, he soared into the air and landed on the branch of another tree, all within a matter of a second or two.

The weasel tried to study the technique, but all he could make out was a mass of feathers gesticulating through the air, and then it was over. He groaned.

#

The next day, the weasel returned to his lookout. This time, two heads emerged from the hollowed section of the tree, one grey and one red. The grey one emitted a low trilling sound. The red one responded with a trill of her own, higher in pitch.

The weasel’s eyes rolled back in his head as he waited for their yammering to finish. Eventually, the red one ducked out of sight and the grey one let out a fierce whinnying sound, then took off in search of their next meal. It flew a bit farther this time, and the weasel was able to observe the way it flapped its wings just enough to maintain its velocity.

Each day, the weasel came back, observing the owls, eavesdropping on their banter, and making mental notes. But the more he absorbed, the more he realized how much he had left to learn, and the more frustrated he became.

One afternoon, as the two flirtatious owls trilled incessantly at each other, another sound emerged, that of faint chirping. First one peep, then another, until it became a miniature cacophony.

Babies!

The weasel continued his watch with a renewed sense of hope. He ignored his hunger pangs as he watched the grey owl pass a small rodent over to the red one, who promptly tore it into pieces so she could feed her eager offspring.

Although he couldn’t see them from his vantage point, the weasel could imagine them growing stronger and more confident.

Weeks passed and he continued to wait, certain it was only a matter of time before the parents would deem their young ones ready for their first flying lesson.

After a full month, the mother began to show strange behavior. Instead of feeding her young, the weasel watched as she removed food from their nest and, bit by bit, tossed it aside. The weasel nearly wept as he watched the wasted morsels tumble to the forest floor.

This continued for a few days until finally, a breakthrough came. One of the babies emerged from the hole, fluttered its feathers, and hopped to a nearby branch. Its parents stood back, whispering encouragement. Minutes later, another baby followed. After several minutes, they had all mustered the courage for this brief voyage.

A few days later, they were flying to trees thirty feet away.

Within two weeks, they were able to join their father on longer expeditions.

No demonstrations from Mom and Dad. No illustrations etched into the bark of the tree. Just a few days of food deprivation was all it took and the youngsters figured out the rest on their own.

Meanwhile, the weasel’s fixation had driven him to near starvation. He could barely move, let alone fly.

Depressed and exhausted, he hoisted himself out of his hiding place, clawed his way down to the ground, crawled under a bush, and collapsed.

He awoke to the sound of a gentle thud. He arose to wobbly legs and stumbled to investigate. Lying on the ground nearby was a small, grey lump.

The weasel tiptoed closer. The lump rose and fell gently. The weasel continued his approach until he was standing over the lump. Two wide, yellow eyes stared back at him.

“Look what we have here!” the weasel proclaimed.

The owl lay there, one of his wings bent sharply behind him, and squirmed. “Please don’t eat me,” he pleaded.

The weasel grinned slightly, licking his lips, then scratched his head in thought. “I tell you what,” he began. “If you teach me how to fly, I’ll let you live.”

The owl gazed in silence for a moment, then blinked and gave a slight nod. “OK, show me what you’ve got.”

“Pardon me?”

“Before I can teach you how to fly I need to see what I have to work with.”

The weasel shrugged, took a few steps back, and drove his hind legs into the earth, hurling himself into the air. He landed a couple of feet away.

“Not bad,” said the owl, “but your shape is all wrong.”

“What’s wrong with my shape?” the weasel sneered.

“You need to learn to glide more. You can’t do that with your limbs flailing every which way. Tuck your legs under you. Straighten your tail.”

The weasel backed up a bit farther this time, gave himself a running start, leapt, tucked his limbs under him, and pointed his tail straight behind him. He covered nearly twice the distance of the first attempt before belly flopping onto the ground. “Oof,” he grunted.

“You’re getting there.”

With each successive attempt, the owl offered a new suggestion. “Wave your legs up and down.” “Swing your tail from side to side.” “Faster.” “Look up.” Each time, the weasel became a little more battered and bruised, and each time, the owl assured him he was making progress.

“I know what the problem is,” the owl said finally. “It’s not your technique, there just isn’t enough wind.”

“I see,” the weasel replied, rubbing a sore hip.

“Yes, when you’re new to flying, you need a nice gust of wind to help lift you up.”

They waited, making small talk to pass the time, until the afternoon breeze began to grow stronger.

“Now! Quick!” exclaimed the owl.

The weasel positioned himself so the wind was at his back, charged ahead, and jumped with as much force as he could gather. This time he landed headfirst, tumbled, and crashed into a rock.

“Why isn’t this working?” he moaned.

“It’s working! Can’t you see? All you need now is elevation!”

“Elevation?” the weasel inquired.

“Yes! You’re just not high enough off the ground. The higher you go, the more wind you’ll have beneath you to carry you.”

“Of course!” the weasel exclaimed.

The owl pointed his good wing. “Climb that tree.”

The weasel obliged, scurrying up the tree and perching on the lowest branch. “Here?” he asked.

“Too low.”

The weasel ascended to the next branch. “Here?”

“Higher!”

The weasel ‘s heart began to pound. He had never climbed this high before. With a mix of exhilaration and fear, he drove his claws into the bark and pulled himself up an inch at a time. “Now?” he hollered, peering down from a high branch that towered more or less directly above the owl.

“Now!” the owl shouted, so far away that he was barely audible.

The weasel braced himself. This was his moment. No longer would he be just another lowly ground predator. Today, he would be equal to the birds.

He fixed his gaze on the tip of the branch where he stood, rehearsing in his mind all of the tips the owl had given to him. He sprinted forward as fast as his legs could carry him. When he was about to reach the end of the branch, he jumped up, landing on the very tip, then used it as like a springboard to catapult himself into the sky.

For a moment, he felt himself gliding, the wind flowing beneath his fur-lined belly.

Then he began to sink, slightly at first, then faster until he was turning somersaults in the air. His body slammed into a branch, which sent him spinning in another direction until he hit the next branch, caroming back and forth until he at last landed spread eagle upon a large bush.

The owl began to cackle.

The weasel, immobilized but still conscious, growled. “What’s so funny?”

The owl erupted into a howling laughter, gasping for breath, until was able to compose himself enough to reply. “You fool! Weasels can’t fly!”

“And why, exactly,” the weasel winced, “would that be?”

“Because they don’t have wings!” The owl once again burst into hysterics.

The weasel lay there in silence for a moment, then threatened through gritted teeth, “We’ll see who’s laughing when I have you for dinner tonight.”

The owl calmed down and said, “I probably deserve that. But before you eat me, I want you to think about something.”

“No more tricks,” growled the weasel.

“No tricks,” the owl replied. “It’s just that you’ve been so obsessed with learning to fly that you didn’t even notice something extraordinary.”

“Oh really? Enlighten me, then.”

“When was the last time a weasel learned how to communicate with owls?”

Last month, I deconstructed my weight training habit to find out what factors have helped me stick with it for over a year.

This month, I wanted to apply what I learned in order to develop a new set of habits. Since I’m trying to be less scattered and focus on improving my mental health, I asked myself, if I can commit to a physical fitness routine for my body, why not create a mental fitness routine for my brain?

After a month of self-examination and research, I decided to emphasize two main areas: managing my ADHD and improving my happiness. Below are the habits I’ll work on to support these efforts:

Managing ADHD

Resource: Taking Charge of Adult ADHD, Second Edition by Russell Barkley, PhD

Practice mindfulness meditation: One of the major impairments Barkley discusses in relation to ADHD is with emotional self-regulation. We all have negative, emotional reactions to certain events. ADHD makes it harder for me to control how I deal with those reactions. Meditation, Barkley says, can help with this and other impacts of ADHD.

Buy time before responding: There are times when I say something impulsively, then wish I had said it differently or not at all. Certain techniques will give me time to collect my thoughts, such as first restating what I heard.

Feel the outcome of a task before starting: Often, when I’m faced with a daunting task, I will do just about anything to avoid it. In the future, I’ll ask myself, “What will it feel like when this is done?” and try to embrace that feeling to help propel me forward.

Break larger activities down: Another way to deal with challenging tasks, especially ones that are time consuming, is to break them down into smaller parts. Then I’ll have a better sense of how long it will take to reach my objective and I can enjoy my progress with each completed step.

Boosting Happiness

Resource: Habits of a Happy Brain by Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD

In her book, Breuning discusses what she calls the “four happy chemicals,” along with several suggested habits to help boost each. Below I’ll share the author’s definition of each chemical and the habit I’ll cultivate to help to boost it.

Dopamine: "the joy of finding what you seek"

Celebrate a small victory: Although parts of my job are challenging, I view many of the day-to-day activities as mundane. Celebrating positive outcomes, even small ones like achieving the objectives of a meeting, can help me boost dopamine.

Endorphin: "the oblivion that masks pain"

Stretch: I dislike stretching, particularly in problem areas where I need it the most. Yet the book claims that if I stick with it every day and don’t overdo it, the resulting endorphin rush will help me enjoy and even look forward to the act.

Oxytocin: "the comfort of social alliances"

Honor commitments: Trust is a key component of forming strong social bonds. If I say I’m going to do something, I want to push myself to follow through, even if that means working overtime or staying up late. I expect this conviction will also teach me not to overcommit.

Serotonin: "the security of social importance"

Notice my influence: I often wonder what I could be doing with my life to make more of an impact on other people, which makes me feel that what I do now isn’t enough. Stopping to observe the positive results of something I’ve done, however small, will help me feel I’m making a difference.

How I’ll make these habits stick

I reviewed the questionnaire I created last month to help me define the location, timing, and other factors to help me maintain these habits. Below is a summary of my plan:

Habit	Timing	Location	Reminder
Meditation (10 minutes)	Every morning (wake up 15 minutes earlier than usual)	Bed	Alarm
Buy time before responding	During virtual meetings	Office	Post-it note on monitor
Feel the outcome	When starting a new task	Office	Post-it note on monitor
Break it down	Day planning (end of workday) and as needed	Office	Post-it note on monitor
Celebrate small victory	When completing a task	Office	Post-it note on monitor
Stretch	Immediately after work on non-workout days, as desired during breaks	Living room	Calendar event
Honor commitments	Day planning (end of workday) and as needed	Office	Post-it note on monitor
Notice my influence	During meetings, when reviewing email	Office	Post-it note on monitor

At a glance, I wonder if I’m trying to do too much at once. However, for most of these activities, the time commitment ranges from a few seconds to two minutes; and the others (meditation and stretching) are habits I’ve wanted to develop anyway. If something isn’t working out, I can always adjust as I go.

I feel good about the strides I’ve made in taking care of my body. It’s time to make the same investment in my brain.

One of the trends I’ve noticed in my blog posts is that I tend to “dabble” in self-improvement. Many of my experiments last no longer than a month before I move on to the next one.

I’m perpetually looking for new ways to manage my work, my time, and my things. I got lost in the woods in Yosemite, so I spent a month trying to become more mindful of my surroundings. I got sick of talking about writing a novel without taking action, so I cranked out 50,000 words last November.

I still struggle every day with getting things done, budgeting my time, and conquering clutter. My internal compass is still defective. I’ve barely touched my novel since November.

Some people say there’s no such thing as failure, that as long as you learn from it, you’re a step closer to success. But all failure can teach you is what not to do the next time. And there’s only so much trial and error I can tolerate before I run out of patience.

What I need to pay more attention to is what I can learn from my successes.

Why is it that some habits and commitments stick when so many others haven’t?

In this post, I intend to find out.

Over the past ten months, I’ve been very consistent in showing up and working out at the gym three times per week. I consider this a huge breakthrough. I’ve tried building up a gym habit off and on for decades, but this is the most dedicated I’ve been. I want to understand why.

Below, I’ll deconstruct this habit and identify some of the conditions I believe have helped push me to keep going. Then, hopefully, I can recreate those conditions in future endeavors and have a better chance at success.

A good mentor

I’m currently working with a personal trainer, but I’ve had several others in the past. With some, I showed up, they gave me some cookie-cutter workout plan, and they watched me while I performed the exercises. Beyond that, they’d do little more than push me to perform a few more repetitions than I’d normally do by myself.

I quit working with trainers like that after a few sessions.

The trainer I have now is one of the few I’ve really enjoyed. He’s good at his job and cares about his clients. He’s generous with his time, knowledgeable, and patient. Best of all, he listens to me and tailors his advice to my specific needs. If I have trouble targeting a certain muscle area, or if joint pain interferes with my range of motion, he’ll do research and make adjustments until we find a better way.

Accountability

Even when my trainer has been subpar, the act of setting an appointment with them was usually enough to motivate me to show up. If I ever had second thoughts, the fact that I was paying them for their time usually stopped me from cancelling.

A designated location

One of my favorite trainers had his own gym, but I could only use it for our appointments. Since I didn’t have a gym membership, between training sessions, I resorted to working out at home. I had plenty of equipment, including a set of dumbbells, a pullup bar, and exercise bands. But I lacked the discipline and focus to be consistent when I wasn’t with my trainer.

I chalk this up, at least in part, to not having a designated space for working out. My home wasn’t just a gym. It was also where I slept, ate, worked, watched TV, played games, and a slew of other activities. There were too many distractions and temptations.

But with a gym membership, I gain access to a building that only has one purpose: getting in shape. All I have to do is walk there and the closer I get, the more driven I am to keep going.

A sustainable schedule

If I had to get up extra early every morning to work out, I’d choose to sleep in.

If I had to wait until after 5:00 p.m. to go to the gym, I’d have to deal with everyone else who gets off work at that time and would spend half my time waiting for equipment to be available.

Instead, I have a job that starts early and I’m typically done by around 2 p.m. I want to get out the door as quickly as I can so I can beat the crowd.

A reasonable time commitment

Every trainer I had gave me a program to work on between our training sessions. Unfortunately, most of these trainers seemed to subscribe to the philosophy that everyone wants to see massive results in a short amount of time. They’d give me lengthy workout plans that I had to follow 4-6 times per week. Sometimes I’d spend hours trying to get through one session. Or worse yet, I’d rush it and injure myself. Either way, I’d get discouraged and eventually stop showing up.

Now I work out three times per week and am usually done within about an hour. This is frequent enough where I don’t lose momentum, but not so frequent that I feel I’m spending all of my time at the gym.

Better each day

One of the biggest differences between my approach to working out this time and past efforts is patience. I’ve always been what’s referred to as a “hard gainer.” I feel like I do all of the right things to build muscle (short of taking performance-enhancing drugs) and yet almost everyone around me at the gym looks bigger than me.

I’d set goals like “I want to be built like Michael Phelps” or “I want to gain 20 pounds of muscle.” Then I’d obsessively check my progress in the mirror and get frustrated that I wasn’t seeing more dramatic changes.

Now I just try to trust the process and improve each day. I might go for an extra repetition or two. I might add a little more weight. Or I might just concentrate harder on my form.

After ten months, I’m nowhere near a Michael Phelps physique. But I look better, I feel better, and I know I’m doing something good for myself. That’s enough for me.

A template for life?

While each of the conditions I’ve described has helped me keep up my workout habit, no single component is enough. I can have a great mentor but still fail if I try to work out at home. I can join a gym but stop showing up if my workout routine is too overwhelming or I hurt myself. It’s the combination of these and other elements that keeps me going.

Based on my recent workout success, I’ve come up with the following questionnaire to follow the next time I want to make a new commitment:

Where can I find a good mentor to help me and hold me accountable? Do I want to pay someone? Can I join a class or support group? Will a book or online service suffice?

What space can I designate for this pursuit? Is it realistic to go somewhere outside my home? If not, can I carve a space within my home that’s solely for this purpose?

What time of day can I commit to that won’t clash with other commitments?

How often do I need to work on this habit to maintain it? How much time can I commit to feel like I’m making progress without burning out?

What small change can I make each day to fuel my progress?

What big commitments have you been able to stick to in your life? How can you build from that success to tackle other challenges in your life?

Although I find potential solutions to the challenges I pose in my blog, I often find it hard to commit to those solutions long term, so the problems persist. This is partly because a lot of these problems are symptoms of a deeper, unresolved issue: my mental health.

It’s difficult to write about this topic and even more uncomfortable to do so in a public forum. But for those who share some of my struggles, or know someone who does; I want to show that it’s OK to talk about this, and it’s OK to seek help. I also want to hold myself accountable to get the help I need.

I’ve been able to identify three mental health disorders that have made my life more difficult: ADHD, anxiety, and mild depression. I’ve worked to manage these disorders with professional guidance, but it’s been a long and complex process.

Tackling my symptoms has often felt like trying to play whack-a-mole while blindfolded.

First, different people respond differently to different treatments. A certain medication might solve one problem only to exacerbate another: I may find I’m getting a lot more done during the day but I can’t sleep at night.

Second, many of the symptoms I grapple with–lack of focus, disorganization, clutter, overwhelm, poor sleep, fatigue, hypersensitivity, and so on–can stem more than one of these disorders. Am I distracted because of ADHD, depression, anxiety, or all of the above? If I only treat one disorder, or if I don’t find the right treatments, I might never know.

Fortunately, after years of failed experiments, recent therapy and medications have helped me control two major problems. My overall mood has been much better, and my social anxiety has become much less debilitating. Being properly treated for anxiety and depression gave me the capacity to adjust my thoughts and behavior to the point where I could function well without meds.

However, even after a renewed commitment to exercise, healthy eating, and reduced alcohol intake; most of the other symptoms persist, including poor focus and low energy.

While my therapist helped me over at least two major hurdles, she openly admits she’s not an expert in ADHD. Even once I tested for and was officially diagnosed with the disorder, her ability to help was mostly limited to prescribing different medications and asking me how I felt. But despite the lack of past success, there are other methods and drugs out there. And with my depression and anxiety apparently under control, ADHD seems to be where I need to focus now if I want to function better.

After three years of seeing this same therapist, she recently left her practice. It was only through this forced change that I finally realized it was time to try something different. I’m now looking into other providers and trying to further educate myself by reading about ADHD.

It may seem ironic that my blog is all about trying new things, yet one of my biggest problems is that I’m easily distracted. But trying new things isn’t just about dabbling in as many different experiences as possible. It’s about giving yourself the opportunity to discover those experiences that bring you joy and a sense of fulfillment so you can spend more time doing those things.

However, it’s hard to find joy and fulfillment if you don’t know what works best with how your brain functions. And it’s hard to commit to making positive changes while wrestling with distraction, fatigue, and other issues. I hope that the more I learn about my ADHD, the better I’ll understand what comes naturally to me and what I may not be able to accomplish without help. And by knowing what I’m wired to do well and having the tools to manage the rest, I’ll be in a better position to create and commit to a well-designed life.

If I got sick all the time, I wouldn’t want a doctor to simply treat the symptoms; I’d want them to get to the root cause. Similarly, moving to a new town or changing jobs might improve my quality of life for a while, but until I get to the bottom of what’s missing, I’ll keep reverting to the status quo.

This past month, I’ve tried to “zoom out” and look at my life more holistically.

To guide me through this self-examination, I’m working through a book called Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Bill and Dave teach design principles at Stanford University, and have since developed a popular class and book that apply these principles to how we work and live. They stress the idea that we won’t figure out how to attain the life we want by simply thinking about it; we need to build that life by mapping out different, potential futures and trying them out.

Those potential futures will be the subject of a later post. First, I needed to understand where I am now and establish some guiding principles to help me figure out where I want to go. Below I’ll share what I’ve discovered so far.

Chapter One: Start Where You Are

A car’s dashboard provides various indicators about the current state of the vehicle, such as fuel level and engine temperature. At the end of chapter one of Designing Your Life, I was prompted to create my own dashboard to see how “full” my life is in four key areas:

• Health: Although I feel like I’m doing pretty well with diet and exercise, I don’t feel replenished after I sleep and I’m often tired. As for my mental health, my mood has improved lately but I have trouble focusing. Overall, I view my health tank as 60% full.
• Work: I know there’s a lot of room for improvement in the work I do. I also find that working from home has made it harder to develop strong social connections with my colleagues, something I sorely miss. I offset some of this through my writing group and projects I’ve taken on voluntarily. I consider my work tank to be half full.
• Play: I have numerous outlets I consider “play” rather than “work”; among them traveling, trying different food and drinks, going to concerts, reading, meeting with my book club, wandering around estate sales and antique stores, and playing my new digital piano. I’d like to plan more getaways and also become more aware of upcoming, local events. Overall, I rate my play tank at 3/4 full.
• Love: My love life has improved dramatically this year. I also have a loving and supportive family and friends. I’d like to see and/or keep in touch with certain people more often, but I know at least some of that is within my control. I’ve marked my love tank 3/4 full.

Overall, with the exception of my work, my life seems closer to full than empty; but there’s room for growth in all areas.

Chapter Two: Building a Compass

Now that I have a personal dashboard to show me how I’m doing today, the next step in my life design project is to give myself a sense of direction towards a better tomorrow. At this stage, I’m not trying to define what my ideal life should look like or how I’m going to get there. First, Bill and Dave want me to tackle some bigger questions, such as:

Why am I here?

What is the purpose of life?

Why do I work?

What makes work meaningful?

Given that these are the sort of questions humans have been grappling with for millennia, I didn’t expect to come up with the perfect answers. However, with a little introspection, I found some common themes across my view of life and my view of work:

• Helping others: I believe that we can’t take anything with us when we die, so it’s pointless to live a completely self-serving existence. Instead, what matters most is the impact we have on other people’s lives and the legacy we leave behind. This could range from leading a revolution that changes the way people live to smiling at a stranger to brighten their day.
• Personal growth: I think it’s important to challenge ourselves so we can grow, not just for our own fulfillment but so that we have more to offer. The more we learn, the more wisdom we can share. The stronger we become, the more we’re able to pick others up when they fall.
• Connection: When we feel alone, we lose our sense of purpose and become trapped in the world inside our heads. In order to look outside of ourselves and feel like we’re part of something bigger, it’s important to create and foster connections with other people.

I don’t profess to uphold these ideals every moment of my life, but I believe they’re worth striving toward. And if I can understand what gives my life and work meaning, I can evaluate how well the way I spend my time supports those ideals and make adjustments to become more aligned. In other words, my view of my life and my work provides me a compass to point me towards a more well-designed life.

Chapter Three: Wayfinding

This chapter will be the subject of a future post, possibly the next one. In essence, it will give me an opportunity to dig deeper by journaling on specific activities I engage in each day and how they make me feel. Those details should give me more insight into what is and isn’t working in my life so I can make adjustments to fill up the tanks on my dashboard and navigate my way to a better life.