Design Your Life In 6 Simple Steps

Like most of us, I kickstarted 2023 with a plan of how I wanted my year to go and as the saying goes, ‘We make plans and God laughs’. We’re now crossing into the second half of the year, and so far, some plans have gone far beyond what I had imagined, with others barely scratching the surface.

In addition, I recently traveled back-to-back with a short break in-between. Travel has often destabilized my routines, but I eventually manage to get back on track, however this back-to-back travel left me struggling to structure my days as they once were. This is one of the main reasons I decided to conduct a Mid-Year Life Audit. I needed to remind myself of the ‘why’ of my routines before getting to the ‘what’.

So What Is A Life Audit? 

A Life Audit is an exercise that helps you:

1. Identify what matters most to you.

2. Reflect on where you are in your life.

3. Define where/who you want to be in a determined amount of time.

4. Identify the steps that will take you from who you are to who you want to be.

A Life Audit empowers us to be intentional about our lives. It provides an opportunity for us to design our own lives around what WE want and not what people around us want. It’s all about YOU.

If you would like to conduct a Life Audit, here are 6 simple steps to guide you:

1. Identify the categories in your life that are most important to you.

Ask yourself: What areas in my life do I care most about?

In answering this question, stay true to yourself and create the categories as they suit you. See the example below from the book, Designing Your Life.

Here are the categories I created for myself:

Your categories could be defined in any way. I have a friend who has more than 4 categories and that works for her. Take some time and find what works for you.

2. Note down what success means to you in each of the categories identified.

This step will help you get a visual of what you need to do, to achieve the life you want.

For example, in the physical well-being category, success to me means being healthy and physically fit. But what does that look like on a day-to-day basis? To achieve my goal of being healthy and physically fit, I will need to:

• Consistently workout a minimum of 3 days a week.

• Hike once a month.

• Eat healthy by eating home cooked food majority of the time as opposed to ordering in or eating out.

Under each category, define what success looks like for you and break that down into actionable steps. Dig deeper to unlock what success looks like on a day to day basis.

3. Rate yourself (out of 10) on how you’re doing in each category. 

This gives you an idea of how you’re doing now against your ‘dream’ life.

In the image below, you’ll see I gave myself a 6/10 in the physical well-being category. In the actionable steps you identified in point 2, rate yourself on each point then do an average. This will give you an idea of how you are performing in that category.

So how are you doing against your categories? Reflect and give yourself a score.

4. Write down actionable steps in each category that will move you from your current rating to a 10/10 rating or close.

Ask yourself: What do you need to do to get to 10/10 in your respective categories?

This is where you get specific and create SMART goals. For example, my minimum is to work out 3 days a week, here are the questions I need to answer to make this step more actionable:

• What days do I want to work-out?

• At what time?

• Where? In the house or at the gym? If gym, which gym?

• What workouts do I want to do on the respective days?

• For how long? 30 min? An hr?

• Am I working with a personal trainer? etc

Be specific to prevent any room for error. Remove any form of decision making for future you. At the end of this exercise, the goal should be specific as this:

I will workout every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7AM - 8AM at [name of gym] and on each day I will do X, Y & Z workouts respectively.

5. Embed the plan in your day-to-day life and begin to take strides in the right direction.

Completing step 4 will make it easier for you to embed the plan into your life. Create a routine that will take you closer to your goals on a day-to-day basis. Taking these small actionable steps on a day-to-day will eventually compound into big changes over time.

6. Review the Life Audit frequently to keep yourself motivated.

This could be through a visual representation such as a vision board or whatever format suits you. The objective here is to make your Life Audit top of mind by making it visible to you always. You can also decide how frequently you want to review it eg monthly, quarterly, every 6 months etc. to ensure you stay motivated and on-track.

These 6 simple steps will guide you on how to conduct a Life Audit either by yourself or with friends. If you would like to join me for a virtual Mid-Year Life Audit Workshop session on 8th July 10:00 AM EAT, send me an email with the word ‘WORKSHOP’ and I’ll include you in the session. For those who already responded, no need to send another email, I’ve already included you in the session.

Until next time, I wish you a lovely week!

#ChooseToThrive

PS: Here are extra resources I found helpful when conducting my own Life Audit.

• https://anamcrae.ca/how-to-do-a-life-audit/

• https://www.lauraferrerphd.com/insights/5-steps-to-create-your-life-audit

• https://aimlief.com/simple-life-audit/

• Book: Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans