Designing Your Life

by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

For the next two months we will be reading Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. According to the authors, “A well-designed life is a life that is generative – it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always a possibility of surprise”. Anybody, regardless of age or current occupation, can design a fulfilling life for themselves.

“Designing Your Life walks readers through the process of building a satisfying, meaningful life by approaching the challenge the way a designer would. Experimentation. Wayfinding. Prototyping. Constant iteration. You should read the book. Everyone else will.”
—Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive

I was immediately attracted to this book because it begins by dispelling the myth that you just need to find what you are passionate about, and then turn it into a profession. The authors argue that most people don’t know what they are passionate about until they try many different things. They write: “the research shows that, for most people, passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery – not before. To put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause.”

This book takes you on a journey to discover what kind of challenges you experience in your current occupation, and gives you the tools to brainstorm, experiment, improvise and, eventually, redesign it in a way that suits you best. This is a very practical guide with specific actionable steps that helps you create the life you love.