What is Designing Your Life and how can it help you find clarity and the right career?
I remember how excited I was when I read the first time about Designing Your Life! The moment I got my hands on Bill Burnett´s and Dave Evan´s books, I couldn't stop reading. As always, with a multi-color pen in my hand to underline the passages that resonate most with me. And only a few chapters in, I realized that I had highlighted half of the book already. This was the moment when I knew that I wanted to acquire the Designing Your Life tools so I could use them with my clients too! So I signed up for the Designing Your Life Coaching certification and have not stopped being excited about the power of this framework since! But let´s start with the basics first and talk about what Designing Your Life actually is and what it can do for you if you are seeking clarity and direction in your career and life. What is Designing Your Life (DYL)?
Simplified speaking, Designing Your Life (or DYL) is a set of tools and a certain mindset centered around the question: “How can I find a satisfying career for me and start creating a life that feels fulfilling?”. This question already includes one of the core principles of Designing Your Life because it´s not about finding the one right career for you but a career that feels right in this given moment and enjoys these moments of creation.
DYL is based on Design Thinking, a methodology that originated in the start-up world. Instead of trying to find the one perfect solution to your problem (hello, overthinkers!), Design Thinking focuses on many potential solutions to then work with the one idea that sounds most promising, actionable, and relevant. And this works perfectly for your life too. Because life is too complex to be designed and planned in theory but needs to be lived and explored! So instead of brainstorming and hanging out in your head all the time, with DYL you'll draft a rough plan and move into action quickly to gain the insights you need to plan your further steps.Does Designing Your Life really work? Is it not just another theory?
DYL was developed by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans at Stanford University in California. Both are driving forces when it comes to Design Thinking and were driven by the idea that it must be possible to develop a framework that helps people to design a fulfilling career path, make good career choices, and create a life that feels good. After years of research, they wrote: “Designing Your Life” and “Designing Your New Work Life”, the two centerpieces of Designing Your Life Coaching. All tools are based on science from various fields such as positive psychology, motivational theory, and organizational psychology, and tested successfully with thousands of DYL coachees around the world! What are the core principles of Designing Your Life and how can they help you?
At the heart of DYL lies the idea that everything is a process and that you´ll find the best solutions through iteration. So imagine your problem-solving process as a cycle where you start with an idea and take it from there, refining your solution with every step until you reached a point that feels good - or keep on refining, because yes, life is a process. What are the phases of Design Thinking and DYL?
Acceptance
Strictly speaking, this is not a Design Thinking element but was added to the DYL framework because it all starts with the acknowledgment of the status quo. Only if you honor what is can you then take purposeful steps to change your career and life. Stopping to fight the status quo and accepting what is, will release the energy you need to set things going.Empathize
In this phase, it´s all about self-exploration. What do you like about your life and career? What´s not going well and needs to be tweaked? Truly understanding your needs and who you are is a crucial step to implementing the changes you need to feel fulfilled, happy, and balanced in your life and career. And, this phase is the first step to discovering what´s holding you back and what might get in your way of living the life you are dreaming of. Define
Now you´ll get more specific and define what you want your life and career to look like. This is when you start drafting a rough vision for your (work) life and you start getting more specific about your dreams. But attention: at this stage of the Design Thinking process, it´s not about specific goals or action points, but about setting a rough direction for your career and life so you know where you are heading and make sure that all that is important to you have space in your life. Ideation
Oh, how much fun is the ideation portion of the Design Thinking process! This is the phase when you´ll come up with a lot of ideas for your (work) life - wild ones, very pragmatic ones, ideas that you can implement right away, and also all these crazy, exciting ideas that might be hidden deep in your heart and soul! This is the time to explore, discover, think, and open up to all the possibilities - so you then can identify what idea(s) is worth pursuing! This is normally the phase that my clients enjoy most because suddenly, everything seems to be possible - which feels so liberating after years in a career that felt nothing but draining!Prototyping
After you´ve come up with all these ideas of how your career and life potentially could look like it´s now time to put these ideas to the test and find out what could work for you and what was just an idea. In the prototyping phase, you´ll define small experiments and start turning your idea into reality. This is when you move from thinking and theory to actually doing, moving, creating! Because you only know if a plan, idea, and dream works for you if you try it out, experience it, live it! And voilà, here you are creating a purposeful, aligned, happy life!Testing (and iterating)
… and then it´s about testing. Seeing, feeling, living, your ideas, and gathering information if what you had in mind is actually working for you or not. In this phase you will experience your new life, you will test a new career - and then adapt things, tweak what needs to be tweaked and pursue further what feels good!Is there a certain Designing Your Life Mindset too?
DYL is all about action and implementation, but this would not work if you didn't have the right mindset for it. This is why in DYL we believe that to create a fulfilling career and life you´ll have to:Be curious!
Curiosity is the driver of what we do (start with a beginner´s mind and let your curiosity be the source of ideas and the fuel your actions!Try stuff
Only if you change things will your life and career change. Therefore DYL is all about bias-to-action!Reframe problems
In DYL we want to focus on the right problems - problems we can work on - and make sure to accept unchangeable circumstances in a resourceful way.Know it´s a process
In DYL we don´t try to find the perfect solution but ideas that are worth pursuing, well knowing that with every step we take we will become better!Ask for help
You are not alone in this, and this is why DYL encourages you to seek “radical collaboration” and connect with people who will support you along the way!Tell your story!
Talking to others will open doors and create opportunities you didn't know existed -and great storytelling is a skill you can learn!Read more about the Designing Your Life Mindset soon in another article.How does DYL work? What tools will help you find clarity about your career?
Designing your Life will encourage you to get very clear on what is working for you in your career and life already - and what you wish to change so you then can take aligned and focused action to implement these changes and create a different, better (work) life for you. Among the DYL tools that I use with my clients are:Life view & work view
One of my favorite DYL tools because the life & work view will give you an instant direction for your career and life! “I finally put into words what I vaguely felt for a long time already and I feel so much more clarity now!” is a common reaction when I do this exercise with my clients!Good work journal
An exercise that will help you gain deep insights into what makes you thrive at work. Based on motivational research, you will learn to observe if your work provides you with the pillars that humans need to feel good and motivated at work.The Odyssee plans
My client´s favorite tool (and mine too!), because this fun exercise will help you to draft three very specific scenarios of how your life could look like. A great opportunity to tap into your imagination, and your dreams, and draft some very realistic scenarios too! The Odyssey plans are the basis for any prototyping later on in the DYL framework.Can DYL help you find career clarity? In what areas of your life can Designing Your life help?
Originally, the Designing Your Life methodology was developed to support college and university students in making good career choices - in other words, equipping them with the skills for life and vocational wayfinding.So yes, DYL absolutely can help you to find more career clarity and learn tools to navigate the big questions in life with more certainty and ease.Typical areas that DYL can help you with arefinding clarity in regards to your next career stepsfinding your direction in lifedefining what your path in life could look likediscovering new possibilities when you feel stuck in your current careerpreparing yourself for a job or a career change, or starting your own businesslearning more about yourself, your deepest needs, your dreams - and how to turn them into reality
As Designing Your Life works from two angles - investing time in laying a strong foundation and moving into action quickly - you will not only gain deeper insights into who you truly are and what you want from life but will experience change and start creating your new life quickly.How to start with Designing Your Life? What can you do to use DYL for your career and life?
The best starting point is reading the two DYL books:Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful LifeDesigning Your New Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness--and a New Freedom--at Work
Get familiar with the methodology and do the exercises - both will provide you with a lot of new insights and more clarity already.And if you want to take it one step further, also incorporate mindset work into your career and life planning, overcome doubt, the inner critic, and overthinking, then reach out to me so we can see if my Designing Your (Work) Life 1:1 Coaching series is the right thing for you.You got this.
And so much more!Yours, Laura Hey, I am Laura a certified Designing Your Life Coach, Recruitment professional, Podcaster, and multi-passionate career changer and business owner, I will help you to gain clarity about what you want in life and your career, equip you with the tools you need to create a fulfilling (work) life, and help you to move through challenges along the way. Because this is not only about a job but about what life you want to live!
