How a Designer’s Approach Helped Me Turn My Life Around
You get to design your own life
Scientists estimate the probability of your being born at about one in 400 trillion. Yes, you read that right. One in 400 trillion.
That’s a 4 followed by 14 zeros. A tremendously big number, if you ask me. Yet here we are, you and I both get this one in 400 trillion chance to wake up every morning, open our eyes, and live life.
I like to think we’re lucky, for that fact alone, and I like to think there’s a reason you and I were that one out of 400 trillion. I like to think there’s a reason, for you being born you, and me being born me. What I don’t like, instead, is the idea that that reason is “written in the stars”, or that “our destiny is already written”, or any other cliché bs about how there is a path that we must follow. Because yes, we are all here for a reason, but no, that reason is not prefabricated upon our arrival — our reason, as well as our destiny, are for us to decide, for us to write.
Our one in 400 trillion ticket to life comes with a big, white, empty canvas, and we get to choose what we want to make of it.
There’s just one problem: while life gives us the tools to make of our life a living piece of art, there are no instructions and no manual to follow. The liberty of deciding what our reason might be, comes with the burden of actually having to figure it out for ourselves. For some, it comes naturally, for others, not so much — I spent most of my late teens figuring out which colours to use, which brush was the best, heck, I didn’t even know what I wanted to paint.
A few years, three different majors, and some luck later, I was finally able to turn my life around and get started on my canvas, with a clear vision. I must admit, I owe big part of this mental shift to a 25-minute video: a TedTalk held by Bill Burnett at Stanford University in 2017.
Like me back then, I know some of you reading are in need of guidance to figure out what the hell you’d like to do with your life, so here, I’d like to outline Burnett’s main points, my personal take on them, and how they helped me figure things out.
Who is Bill Burnett?
First of all, some credentials.
Bill Burnett is Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford, has 50+ years of experience in his field, has founded or co-founded five different companies, and has worked on the design of Apple PowerBooks and the original Hasbro Star Wars action figures. But first and foremost, as he likes to point out, he is a designer: he spent his childhood drawing cars and airplanes under his grandmother’s sewing machine, and grew up to found Stanford’s “d.School”.
What does any of this have to do with you or your life? Well, in Burnett’s own words, “design thinking is something we’ve been working on for over 50 years. It’s an innovation methodology that works on products and on services, but I think the most interesting design problem, is your life!”
This is how the “Life Design Lab” came to be, where Burnett and his colleagues teach a class that aims to help students figure out what they want to be when they grow up, and these are the main takeaways from the 25-minute TedTalk I mentioned above:
Dysfunctional Beliefs
First of all, let’s briefly explain why (according to Burnett), most people have a hard time figuring out what they really want to do with their lives.
As a designer, Burnett is very familiar with the feeling of getting stuck. Designers work on things they’ve never worked on before, and they do this every day. This is a process of constantly getting stuck and unstuck. What professors at Stansford’s “d. School” have noticed, is that, just like designers, people tend to get stuck in life, and this is largely due to what psychologists like to call “dysfunctional beliefs”. The problem is that, unlike designers, the average person lacks the tools to get unstuck, which is exactly what they aim to teach at the “Life Design Lab”.
The premise here, is that these beliefs hold us back, which is why getting rid of them is an essential step to being able to design the life we want — so what are these dysfunctional beliefs?
1. You should have a passion
“Tell me your passion and I’ll tell you what you need to do.”
Well yes, but actually no.
It’s all nice and good if you were able to figure out at an early age what that passion of yours was, but if that were the case you probably wouldn’t even be reading this right now. The harsh truth is that most of us don’t know what our passion is: according to research done at the “d. School”, less than 20% of people have any one, singular, identifiable passion in their lives.
So, does this mean that 8 out 10 people won’t be able to live a fulfilling life? Absolutely not.
I, for one, was part of that 80%. I had no idea what my passion was. I knew I liked doing many things, I liked writing, photography, video-making, business, fitness, but a passion? Not really. Fortunately, Burnett’s methodology does not rely on passions.
2. You should know where you’re going
“Surely, you’ve figured this out by now.”
Not really, no.
The older I got, the louder this little voice in my head became. Time and time again I would tell myself, “man, you’re getting old, you’re now 19/20/21, you should at least know where you’re going with your life.” Needless to say, I didn’t. This is why, something Burnett said during his TedTalk really hit home with me:
“In my class we don’t believe in ‘should’, we just think ‘alright, you are wherever you are, let’s start from where you are’. You’re not late for anything”
You got a passion? Great. You know where you’re going? Terrific. You have no idea what you’re doing? That’s absolutely fine, too.
3. You shouldn’t settle for something that’s less than the best
Are you being the best possible version of yourself?
Probably not, to be honest.
Last year, Stanford University was ranked #2 worldwide, second to only big and mighty MIT. Needless to say, Stanford students are constantly pressured to be their best selves.
Burnett is used to students coming into his “Life Design Lab” feeling stuck, because they can’t possibly figure out what they want to do, let alone how to be the absolute best at it. This is why, at the lab, they try to reframe the issue: “the unattainable best, is the enemy of all the available betters”.
Now don’t get me wrong, aiming for the best is great and all, but don’t let that pressure stop you from getting better to begin with.
Apply “Design Thinking” to your life
Ok, now that we got the why out of the way, let’s focus on the how.
1. Connect the dots
Forget passion, money, success. What most people really want, is to live a meaningful life.
But how do you give meaning to your life?
As Burnett explains, it turns out that there’s who you are, what you believe in, and what you do. The key to finding meaning in your life is connecting these three concepts.
Remember, no need to be the best or to figure out your passion: we are all someone, we all do something, and we all have beliefs.
As they make you do at the “Life Design Lab”, try writing down a short paragraph, explaining what your view of work is (what you do), and what your view of life is (what you believe in), now find a connection between the two. This way, you can coherently connect your work view with your life view, and therefore start experiencing your life as meaningful.
2. Gravity problems
This one is pretty straightforward.
“The first step in solving a problem is to recognise that it does exist.”
— Zig Ziglar
I’m pretty sure you’ve heard this a million times: you can’t solve a problem that you’re not willing to have.
The same is true the other way around, though.
Burnett makes a very important distinction between gravity problems and regular problems: a gravity problem is something that, no matter what, can’t be solved; regular problems, instead, are something that, if reframed correctly, we can always work with, in other words, a circumstance that we can change.
When trying to get unstuck, being able to differentiate between one and the other is essential, because it allows you to work and utilise your energy on things that you can actually change and control.
Two examples to clarify:
If you don’t like your work, that’s a circumstance: you can always quit; the force of gravity, on the other hand, is something you can’t do anything about: a gravity problem (hence the “gravity”).
3. One life, many possibilities
Burnett and his colleagues carry out a very interesting thought experiment at the “Life Design Lab”, and you can try it for yourself:
Whether you believe in the multiverse theory or not, pretend that you do for this experiment. Now pretend you can pick and choose three out of the infinite “you’s”, and ideate three different lives.
- In one, you keep on living the same life you have now, but make it better. You get that promotion, that raise, your relationships are all going great, you do all the stuff on your bucket list, etc.
- Now pretend that in this second life, you can’t keep on doing what you were doing in life number one. Think of any side hustle you might have, or a talent of yours, we all have something we’re decently good at. What would you be doing in this life?
- This third life is the most fun one: what would you do if you didn’t have to worry about money, if you didn’t care what people thought?
This might not be life changing, but it allows you to dig up things you like doing, things you’re good at, things you used to love but lost sight of in the busyness of life. These are all things you can implement in your present universe life, and make it that much better.
4. Prototype
Don’t forget, what we are doing here is applying Design Thinking in order to design our lives.
Burnett and his colleagues’ design model works around two main factors: ideating, which is exactly what you did on point number 3; and prototyping, which is what follows.
Burnett explains that most people who try and completely revolutionise their lives from one day to the other, end up failing. This is where prototyping comes in. Once you have the ideas, you need to slowly and steadily test the waters. Think like a designer: try one thing, see how it goes, doesn’t work? Stop, think, reframe, and retry.
You ideated what you think you want your life to look like, but, in Burnett’s words, “you should sneak up on the future, because you don’t know if that is exactly what you want”, until of course, you try it.
And hey, I get it, even just trying can be scary, this is why there’s something called prototyping through conversations or experiences: to test something you don’t necessarily have to actually try it, per se, you can dabble into it by simply talking to someone that has lived, or lives, the life that you think you’d want. You might find something that resonates with you in that someone’s story, or not, either way, it’ll tremendously help you with the prototyping process.
Do this until your design is complete and successful. Prototype until you reach the end product you’re looking for.
5. Choose well
The last point Burnett outlines during his talk, is what I’d like to call “The Process of Choosing Well and Making Yourself Happy”:
- Gather and create options: With time, designers get extremely good at this, and you can, too. You have two ways to go here, and you should follow both of them. First you can deliberately and actively look for available options; second, you should always be aware of your surroundings in order to catch more serendipitous possibilities (while you may or may not believe in luck, according to research, people who think of themselves as lucky are often better at this).
- Narrow down your options: Most people have what is called FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and this leads to gathering way more options and possibilities than we can handle. According to research, when this happens we face what psychologists call Decision Overload. In order to counteract FOMO, narrow down all your options to not more than 5.
- Choose, let go, and move on: Once you’ve narrowed down your options, combine your rational judgement and your gut feeling in order to choose one out of the bunch. Once you’ve done that, let go and move on. Consider your decisions irreversible in order to avoid FOMO and just stick to whatever you choose.
This has been a long one, so I won’t steal your time any further.
Just one last thing: if you took the time to read the whole thing, then you’re probably in the same exact spot I was a few years ago, so I really hope that this long post wasn’t a waste of your time and that it can help you get unstuck, at least a little tiny bit, the way it helped me.
And remember, it might feel like you’re running out of time, but you’re not, you’re not late to anything.
