[PODCAST 329]: What It Looks Like When We Actually DESIGN Our Lives - Learn | Do

At the top of our LearnDoBecome website, you’ll see the phrase, “Architect a life of excellence.” Now, if you had spoken with me early in my adulthood–especially when I became a mother–and told me that I could “architect my life” instead of living in overwhelm, I would have had a few words for you.

I was doing my absolute best. Barely sleeping. Trying to love our children and keep the house clean and build a strong marriage and work on the computer at night before collapsing into bed. Do you really think I needed life architecture?

Well, yes. I actually did.

I understand if the concept of life design feels too theoretical right now, especially if you’re in an intense phase of life, but please hear me out. “Architecting a life of excellence” isn’t just a catch phrase here at LearnDoBecome. We believe it’s a life-changing concept that can help each one of us to breathe and create a life where we wake up excited and go to bed content.

Of course there are days that feel really difficult. We’re human, like you are, and there are some seasons of life that are particularly heavy. But the things I’m sharing today are the exact things that help me out of those low moments. I’m hoping that these specific examples will give you a lift.

I recently read a book called Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. (You may have heard one of his many online interviews.) The book is all about his experience running the top restaurant in the world, and although my life and goals are very different from his, the concepts in the book were incredibly insightful.

When 2008 hit and the economy was struggling, fine dining became an expense most people cut out of their budgets, but he didn’t want to lay off his employees—and he wanted his restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, to survive.

First, they played “defense” by cutting any costs that wouldn’t hurt the customer experience. The chefs started wearing reusable cloth caps instead of the tall disposable paper ones, they didn’t replace a specific tablecloth near the serving area during each shift, etc.

But then they went on offense (and he said that was the fun part). They asked themselves what they could create in order to stay in business, given the economic conditions. Lunches had typically been $35 or more, so they came up with a $29 two-course option that people loved! Desserts often took too long to wait for and eat during the busy lunch hour, so they made a dessert cart with instantly-ready options people could purchase to go.

I love that they didn’t just sit and hold their breaths–or give in to the mounting pressure. They got creative, and they took action. They wisely played defense, but they put their best energy into playing offense.

That is a lesson for life.

The process is simpler than it sounds. It’s the kind of thing we talk about all the time here:

Identify what we actually want (pain points to solve, experiences we want to create)
Creatively explore options (for “offense”)
Take action (sometimes it takes longer than we’d like, but we’re not just going for the result–the process IS the architecting)

My hope is that as I share a few examples today, you can think of some ways that life architecture can alleviate any pressure you may be feeling.

Creating Practical Solutions for our Physical Spaces

These could include big things like reorganizing the house–including closets and furniture.

Or they may include simple things–like the bungee cord Eric recently attached to the top of our trash bin in the garage, so we can easily open it from the staircase, or the tension rod he moved to the other side of the laundry area so clothes wouldn’t keep falling down every time I opened the washing machine.

We even added a narrow laundry hamper that fit behind the bathroom door because that’s where our kids threw their clothes every night when they took showers. And I moved a section of our upstairs couch downstairs by our fireplace because, even though it doesn’t look beautiful, it’s become one of my favorite spaces to work.

Julie Morgenstern’s “Organizing from the Inside Out” is a great book to help with this!

Removing everyday friction and making slight improvements in our physical spaces might not seem that important, but they create a foundation for the things that truly are.

Protecting Our Time and Mental Space

We live in an interruption-rich environment, but there are things we can do to allow more time for more calm or more connective relationships or more focused work.

One simple example is putting our phones on “Sleep mode” or “Do not disturb” more often–and then not looking at them for even 30-60 minutes.

I often find that when I work at home, I have a harder time focusing because the dog needs to be let out or someone drops by or Eric and I get chatting (which I do love, but we need boundaries sometimes!). If I have deep work to do, getting out of the house is often my best bet, so I’ve been scheduling a few hours here and there at our local public library, and it’s been amazing.

When our children were little, I established two “quiet times” each day when the children would play with toys or nap while I did my work, read a book, or took a nap, as well. (I’ll link to it at the bottom of this post. It gave us all some much-needed down time.)

Prioritizing Relationships

When I live life “on default,” people seem to get pushed to the side. It takes effort to make time for the ones we love.

Weekly date nights have been a gift for our marriage for the past 28 years, for example. And I’ve found if we can schedule at least one time out in nature each week, it gives us both an energy boost!

Sunday dinners/cooking nights with our young adults give us at least one time a week when we know we’ll be together. Our youngest sleeps over on Sundays and stays up late with Eric talking about investing, finances, and entrepreneurship. I go to bed by 10:30, but it’s sweet to see them just chatting away!

Every few years, my sister coordinates a few hotel rooms in Palm Springs for all the girls in the family to gather for a weekend. We love the chance to talk, sit by the pool, go out to eat, and just have time together. One Saturday morning, we all walked to a nearby hotel that our late father’s architectural firm designed. Standing inside the beautiful atrium, knowing our dad had been a part of that, is a sweet memory.

Eric and I also review our “couples date night list” during our weekly planning session, and we reach out to friends in the area to see if they can join us for a meal or an activity.

Again, these things aren’t always easy, but they’re worth it. In Martin Seligman’s book, Flourish, he said that if he could explain positive psychology in two (other) words, he would say, “other people.”

Adjusting Professional Responsibilities

Eric and I recently recorded a podcast about our story and the origin of LearnDoBecome. This was definitely an example of life architecture because we really wanted to work together from home. Our first business attempt didn’t work out at all, and it was a bit of a painful process to get here, but we kept architecting because it really mattered to us.

Even recently, the “architecting” hasn’t stopped. We’ve made the decision to structure our work so it’s mostly asynchronous.In the early days of LearnDoBecome, we sometimes went live on video 6 days a week–even on our anniversary or if we were traveling or when I had a slight concussion. (That’s a story for another day…) Financially, we felt we needed to “push it” at the beginning, and that was the only way we knew to do it. But because we serve a global community and want each Becomer to have flexibility, we’ve now created a structure that works better for everyone. Our webinar is on-demand, our STEP Coaching serves a percentage of the people live and then provides recordings to those who can’t make it, and we’ve created a powerful text and email coaching process. ARISE gathers monthly and is super engaging with people on the call, but then we provide time stamps and the chat log so people can easily catch it later.

We’ve made some very difficult professional adjustments over the years–some of which were incredibly stressful to me and resulted in health problems, but if we hadn’t made those adjustments, we wouldn’t be in our current spot, where we are truly doing work we love in a way that genuinely works for us and our team.

Closing Thoughts

I know that “playing offense” in our lives isn’t easy. It requires energy, creativity, and bravery–and sometimes things don’t work out on the first try. But if we don’t architect our own lives, others will architect them for us. (We’ve all been there, right?)

In order for change to actually happen, however, we need to be hungry for it. We need to decide that the old way of doing things—just going with the flow or staying in unhealthy situations in order to keep the peace—isn’t worth it.

I know you are likely carrying some heavy demands right now. We are, too. And while we can’t always publicly talk about the challenges we’re facing, I firmly believe that this concept of life architecture isn’t just for the peaceful, easy times. It’s especially important when we’re in the middle of the hardest struggles.

I encourage you to try this process with a few of your biggest pain points. You’ll see that your efforts DO bring results, and you’ll be excited about “what you can architect next”!

Sending lots of love and always cheering you on,

April

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