Lifestyle Design Is Dead

 

I was first introduced to the term “Lifestyle Design” about 2.5 years ago in a book by Tim Ferriss called the 4 Hour Work Week. Ferriss is regarded as the creator of what we’ve come to know as modern Lifestyle Design and he’s managed to build an entire industry (and his own empire) surrounding it. There are thousands of blogs, books, articles, and mentions of Lifestyle Design online every single day.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a definition of Lifestyle Design, right out of the 4HWW:

“The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD).”

The initial definition described the goal of LD well, but I believe that Lifestyle Design has evolved and grown beyond its initial definition.

Lifestyle Design isn’t about creating a luxury lifestyle, it’s about making a conscious effort to implement changes that’ll allow you to live life a certain way.

LD has less to do with striving for time and mobility and more to do with defining what makes us happy as individuals. There shouldn’t even be a definitive “currency” (Ferris identifies these as time & mobility) tied to lifestyle design because those currencies differ from person to person. You might value security, while I might value adventure. Therefore, the lifestyle I am trying to design isn’t based on the same currencies as yours.

I propose a new definition which is anchored in strategy, not tactics.

Lifestyle Design is the conscious process of creating a lifestyle that suits you through a series of lifestyle experiments and optimizations.

Let’s hear your thoughts.

photo by argusfoto