Believe it or not, asking yourself, “What should I do with my life?” is already half the answer. It gets you thinking about your own life, which puts you ahead of those who never question their habitual way of living.
According to Jon Butcher, the founder of Lifebook and trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest, everything you desire is attainable if you’re willing to work for it. And it starts with asking yourself what you truly want in every aspect of your life.
This mental exercise can become your most courageous step towards figuring out exactly what you want and start working for it.
Identify your premise
Jon explains that your core beliefs control your thoughts, decisions, behaviors, and, as a result, your destiny. He calls it “premise”—the foundational beliefs you hold about every aspect of your life, and you can consciously choose empowering beliefs that support your vision.
In Lifebook, there are 12 life categories:
- Health and Fitness
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Character
- Spiritual
- Love relationship
- Parenting
- Social
- Career
- Financial
- Quality of Life
- Life Vision
As you can see, your life is much more than two or three areas most people focus on. To live an extraordinary life, you need to invest in all dimensions.
So, how do you discover your premise? These questions will help you identify your core beliefs:
1. What deeply held beliefs shape my life?
2. Are these beliefs empowering?
3. Do they move me at a deep level, or are they holding me back?
When you have your premise, you can move on to the next stage—envisioning your future.
Visualize your ideal future
When you visualize your ideal future five years from now, you create your life vision. It’s the ideal state you want to achieve in all aspects of your life. Why is it crucial to cover all 11 categories?
Jon elaborates that 11 categories aren’t separate—they only give the organizational structure to your overall vision. He says, “The Lifebook process is all about you as a complex being, and these categories are blended into one. So you can’t skip or neglect any category because they are all equally important and reflect different aspects of you.”
For example, if you wonder, “What should I do with my career life?” you need to identify what you want in your intellectual life and character. So the key to envisioning your ideal future is to make it as complete as possible.
For that, you need to visualize each area of your life the way you want it to be by answering these questions:
4. How do I want this area of my life to feel?
5. What do I want it to look like?
6. What do I want to be doing consistently?
7. If my life were exactly how I wanted it to be in each category, what would it consist of?
Making your vision complete
Once you clearly understand what you want in all 11 categories, you can put everything together.
To visualize your ideal future, ask yourself:
8. What will my life look like five years from now if all my goals and dreams in each category become a reality?
9. What will my dream house, my ideal day, my level of health and fitness, my ideal love relationships and social life, my dream family, my dream career, and my high-quality lifestyle look like?
10. How do I push myself intellectually?
11. What emotions am I experiencing consistently?
12. What specific character traits have I cultivated?
13. What does my spiritual life look like, and what do I do to integrate spirituality into my daily life?
Find your purpose
Your purpose is your compelling reasons behind what you want, and it determines if you get what you want or not. If your purpose is strong enough, you will do whatever it takes to actualize your vision.
You’re the expert of your own experience, and nothing matters more than your ability to see the world through your eyes.
— Jon Butcher, trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest
Think of it as your motivation to achieve what you want. So you need to decide how much you really want something. And if you experience a lack of motivation, chances are your purpose isn’t authentic.
In developing your purpose, ask yourself:
14. Why is it important to me?
15. What motivates me to achieve my vision?
16. What energizes me?
17. What empowers me to take action?
18. What will I gain if I achieve it, and what will I lose if I don’t?
Take micro-steps
Your life goals without a strategy are mere fantasies. It means that it’s impossible to bring your vision into reality without taking action. This is why the cultivation of self-discipline and self-control is a must. In fact, self-control outshines talent and IQ when it comes to achieving success.
Jon calls it “a recipe for your vision,” where positive habits, attitudes, and action steps are its ingredients. No matter how small your action steps are, they will help you move towards your goals.
According to Darren Hardy, the accomplishment of any goal is the progressive accumulation of small steps taken consistently over time. So your consistent, small, smart choices will reap huge rewards. On top of that, it will keep you from being overwhelmed.
If you ask yourself, “What should I do with my life at 40?” begin with honestly looking at where you’re now in relationship to your vision, and from there, ask yourself:
19. What kind of positive habits, attitudes, and action steps can I implement?
20. What’s the recipe for the vision I want to create in each category?
21. What support do I need on this journey?
Creating your life vision isn’t easy, but it’s available to everyone committed to themselves.
— Jon Butcher, trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest
Designing your extraordinary life with Mindvalley
Jon believes that being mediocre and living a miserable existence is the default setting of human life, and it’s the easiest way to live. On the other hand, discovering what you want, why you want it, and how you can achieve it is one of the most virtuous and courageous things you can do.
If you are ready to design your extraordinary life, take a free, 90-minute Lifebook Online Masterclass with Jon and Missy Butcher. They will guide you through the fundamental process of understanding your vision and purpose across all dimensions of life and developing the strategy to bring them into reality.
Welcome in.
