You are the architect of your future. There is no way around it. What you think is what you will do. What you do is who you will become. The question then becomes – What do you want from life?
For me, I want a life of adventure. I love to be in nature and explore. I like to bike, hike, run, swim, and discover new things in old places. That means I prepare myself for opportunities that come. So, I eat good, nutritious food that will fuel the life I want. And, I keep my body ready for what I might want to do by working out.
Designing my life is not complicated. In fact, I keep it as simple as possible by building rhythms into the day. For example, my morning rhythm, the first 2-3 hours after I wake up, I do mobility work, shower, eat breakfast, take a walk with Lanae and drink tea.
Most of this is done before I open any work on my phone or laptop. My morning rhythm gets my day going and points me in a direction instead of wondering how my day will unfold; there is purpose. Rhythms give us purpose.
There’s no wondering what we need to do or where we need to go. A morning rhythm can be 15 minutes or it can be several hours. The thing I would say is to be consistent… and patient. Rhythms take time to develop. They require intentionality. Like I mentioned earlier, what you do is who you will become. Who do you want to become?
You can build a rhythm too. It doesn’t have to be a morning rhythm. It could be for the evening (I have one of those too), or work flow, emails, creative work, or busy work. Rhythms provide us a sense of control over life, which is helpful in a world that seems chaotic too often.
How do you build a rhythm? Think through what you want to accomplish. Do you want to build a morning rhythm? Start by writing out a proposed rhythm, nothing too complex. Then give it a try. Change it if you need to, play with it. Don’t get too dogmatic. The rhythms we build should be a gift, not a chore.
What part of your life will you design first?