How to Create a Life You Love
Creating a better life is actually quite straightforward:
Decide what you want your life to be like. This means creating a clear and detailed Vision of your ideal future life. (If you want help coming up with your Vision of your ideal life, just send me an email at paul@behappiful.com and I’ll give you a coupon to take our Design Your Ideal Life course for free.)
Take the right actions every day to move you toward that life.
Those “right actions” include both one-time steps toward accomplishing major initiatives, and consistent daily habits.
Major initiatives are the big projects or accomplishments necessary to reach that Vision. Examples:
Changing your employer or career
Starting a business
Moving to your dream location
Getting out of debt
Writing a book
Getting a degree or certification
Major initiatives typically take weeks, months, or sometimes years to complete. They are important because they change the trajectory of your life.
But your daily habits are at least as important, because it’s what you do every day that drives your results in every part of your life.
Your energy, mindset, health, relationships, and productivity are all determined by what you repeatedly do each day.
If, every day, you exercise, eat well, sleep enough, spend quality time with people you care about, and spend focused time on your most important work activities, I promise your life will dramatically improve. You’ll have more energy; a more confident, positive, and optimistic mindset; you’ll be happier; and you’ll be more productive. It’s your daily habits that help you reach your goals and make your life enjoyable along the way.
Creating your ideal life requires both planning and daily execution. And it requires both major initiatives and consistent daily habits. And, in fact, it is those daily habits that will largely determine whether you accomplish those major initiatives.
Planning is necessary to identify your goals and major initiatives, and to determine the most important actions you can take each day to get you there. That’s why we teach creating a Vision for your ideal future life, and a Planning and Goal-setting system, including a cascading process of 5-year goals, 1-year goals, Quarterly Planning, Weekly Planning, and Daily Planning.
But planning alone isn’t enough.
You can have a clear vision, big goals, and a detailed plan, but if your actual daily behavior never changes, your future won’t change. Because it’s your daily actions that determine your results and your life.
The challenge is that most people don’t identify or consistently remember and practice the behaviors that will improve their life.
That’s why we created the free Ideal Day App – to help you take all those daily actions.
The App guides you to create your own personal Ideal Day Protocol, and it turns it into your Ideal Day Checklist, consisting of the actions you want to take each day.
That might include:
exercise
stretching
reading
meditation
gratitude
focused work blocks
family time
journaling
learning
shutdown routines
key daily activities tied to your goals
Then each day, you simply follow the checklist (either on your phone, laptop, or a printed checklist) and watch your life improve.
That may sound almost too simple. But I assure you that establishing your Ideal Day Protocol and using the Ideal Day App to follow the checklist every day makes all the difference in the world.
A healthier body is built through daily exercise and nutrition choices. Better relationships are built through daily conversations and time together. A calmer mind is built through daily habits and boundaries. Major accomplishments are achieved through consistently taking the most important actions, day after day.
Living a life you love will not just happen. It’s built intentionally, one day at a time.
So to summarize how to create a life you love:
Step 1: Decide on your Vision of your ideal life.
Step 2: Translate your Vision into specific goals.
Step 3: Determine the major initiatives needed to achieve these goals.
Step 4: Decide on the daily actions you will take to support your health and energy, your mindset, your relationships, and your professional life.
Step 5: Execute on Steps 3 and 4 – the Ideal Day App is the key to execution.
