What is life-by-design?
Life-by-design is a new philosophical movement of questioning the status quo of living. It’s to identify what the status quo is and then proceed to make the active decisions to change, tweak and improve it for your own life’s needs.
What you end up with is a life you have consciously designed to meet all your needs and fulfil all your wants.
A life that will enrich your body, mind and soul.
A life that’s free from existential crisis.
A life that makes you happy.
how to design your life
Life-by-design is simply the term of consciously making an effort to create a life you want, but how you do this can be as varied as your imagination allows it.
The idea isn’t to follow someone else’s map, but to create your own.
But it’s hard creating something from scratch with little to no reference. And being the systematic type of person that I am, I created a model to organize the map.
The model is what I call 360 balance. It has 4 pillars that cover all aspects of life.
The 4 pillars:
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- Physical health
- Financial health
- Mental health
- Social health
By using the 4 pillars, you can begin to form your own vision on what you want in life and how you can achieve it. For me, I translate the 4 pillars with a focus on the amount of freedom & control I can achieve in life.
- The physical health to have the freedom to do what I want.
- The financial freedom to do what I want whenever I want.
- The mental freedom to never be afraid to go after what I want.
- And lastly the social freedom to make my own decisions on what I want.
My Story
I started my life by design journey back in 2011, a year after I was diagnosed with Bipolar type 2 disorder. I went from a decade of emotional turmoil to a year of numbing emptiness on medication. My life was not fulfilling or satisfying to say the least.
2011 was the year I decided to take life proactively. I didn’t know what life by design was, never even heard of the term but I instinctively knew I couldn’t just go-with-the-flow in life, Bipolar disorder wouldn’t allow me the luxury.
Though having bipolar is a luxury, because, without it, I wouldn’t have any initiative to design my life.
By 2015, my mental health no longer posed a limitation in life. I’m completely off medication and my mental health has never been stronger. It was also the same year I started making money online.
A year later, I was living a location independent life that allowed me to open my mind to the world by traveling extensively.
By 2017 I had reached financial freedom from online passive income streams. I’m debt free with no financial worries, with only financial aspirations I know I can reach.
As of 2019, I now help others create a happier and more meaningful life with their own four pillars. My four pillars in the 360 balance model have never been stronger, but I’m still actively working on my life by design, and I don’t plan to ever stop taking an active role in creating a life I want.
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