#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

Do what you love—with people you love. Make a huge difference. Get compensated accordingly. And still have time for other passions. The EOS Life will help you to discover, clarify, and customize the life you want to live: one where you do what you love every day, with the people you love doing it with—while at the same time making a huge difference and impact, getting compensated very well for doing it, and still having plenty of time to pursue other passions, hobbies, and interests that energize you. From Gino Wickman, creator of the Traction Library, TheEOS Life will give you practical, real-world, time-tested tools and insights to maximize your productivity, vitality, happiness, and work-life balance. This book is a must-read for all entrepreneurs and their leadership team members interested in living their ideal life.

Creating a happy life is not a destination, but a process. It starts with the desire to intentionally create a life of purpose - a life in which we choose to make a difference in the world. You would never start out to build a house without consulting an architect to create a blueprint plan. Why is it, then, that most people start out without a definite plan for their life? The information in this book will provide a blueprint for you to use to honestly reflect on where you are today and to chart a course for where you want to be. You deserve to live your ideal life. "The principles in this book are tried and true! This is a very easy read, and when this information is applied to one's life, greatness will surely follow!" - Logan Stout, Founder and CEO, IDLife "As a CEO, I know firsthand the value of having the right person in the right place doing something they love-that ONE THING they were meant to do. Becky Lynn Smith's book, Designing Your Ideal Life will help you do just that. Grab a copy, pay close attention, and you'll absolutely love what happens next!" - Steve Satterwhite, CEO of Entelligence and author of Above The Line: How The Golden Rule Rules the Bottom Line "Becky Lynn Smith nails it! If you feel that gnawing feeling that you could do something really special, go for it. But, you'll need a guidebook and encouragement. Thankfully, Designing Your Ideal Life is both." - Alex Charfen, CEO of The Charfen Institute Author and Speaker Becky Lynn Smith found her calling, and she wants to help you find yours. After working as an IT executive and leader for several world-class organizations including Exxon, Amoco, and AIM, she discovered what success really meant for her. Designing Your Ideal Life shares what she has learned about how to arrive at the place you were always meant to be and have the life you were meant to live. For more information, please visit DesigningYourIdealLife.com to pick up a copy of the companion workbook.

When her career runs aground during the recession, baby boomer Ginny Lawther decides to reboot her life with a leap of faith and systematically sets out to make a long-cherished dream come true.

At last, a book that shows you how to build - design - a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage. A well-designed life means a life well-lived. Many of us are still looking for an answer to that perennial question, 'What do I want to be when I grow up? Stanford innovators Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who and where we are, our careers and our age. Designing Your Life puts forward the idea that the same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products and spaces can be used to build towards a better life and career by a design of your own making. - '[Designing Your Life] teaches you how to change whats not working by turning ideas on their head Viv Groskop, author of How To Own The Room - 'An empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford Universitythis book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics Publishers Weekly / Produktinformation.

The passion for life lists has spawned an industry that includes thoughtful experts such as Caroline Miller, a life coach and motivational book author, and Dr. Michael Frisch, a positive psychology coach and clinical psychologist at Baylor University. Working together, they have fashioned the most useful, science-based, and up-to-date book on the topic of goal setting and accomplishment. Creating Your Best Life supplies dozens of interactive exercises and quizzes readers can use to identify their most cherished needs, ambitions, and wishes. The exercises are fun, making the process of self-discovery enjoyable and productive. The authors’ unique "life list coaching” program organizes life lists into 16 key areas that are universally known to make people happy--to help you actually achieve your aspirations. No other life list book offers research-validated information on why certain steps matter in goal accomplishment, or even how goals are connected with any type of life satisfaction. Readers will feel both educated and inspired to start writing goal-setting lists in order to live their lives more consciously, productively, and happily.

Some pursue happiness — Others create it! — Anonymous The chief purpose of Create Your Ideal Life is to empower you to proactively (intentionally and consciously) and continually create your ideal life in a joyful and balanced fashion by following the holistic (emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts) Life Creation Process described in it. Following the Life Creation Process will help you to gain the level of self-understanding required to optimize the quality of your life and achieve personal growth. As you read this book, you will be introduced to the key concepts of applied psychology of personal adjustment and growth. The term applied indicates that the material provided is practical and that you can readily use the concepts provided to create and control your self and your life. The words psychology of personal adjustment indicate that one focus of the book is upon “... the individual’s response to the physical, psychological, and social demands of the self, other people, and the environment” (Napoli, Kilbridge & Tebbs, 1996, p. 4). The words psychology of personal growth indicate that another focus is upon “... the process by which the individual changes his or her thoughts, feelings, or behaviors regarding the self, others, or the environment” (Napoli and others, 1996, p. 4). Additionally, you will learn effective strategies for exploring life choices and making decisions, managing life changes, changing self-defeating beliefs and habits, coping effectively with stress, and developing effective interpersonal relationships. You will also discover the important role that essential beliefs and core values play in the decision-making process and the problems that can arise out of value conflicts. I have provided true stories from my own life and from the lives of my family members, friends, and students to clarify and underscore key points. The stories are all true. However, some of the names were changed to protect each person’s privacy, except in cases where permission was granted to use the person’s real name. Throughout this book, I have used a cinematic (pertaining to the movie industry) analogy to explain the spiritual, psychological, physical, and social issues involved in personal adjustment and growth across the life span. I have used the cinematic analogy to both simplify and dramatize the key concepts in the holistic Life Creation Process in order to make them easier for you to understand, learn to use, and remember. In addition to the mnemonic (memory-enhancing) value of the cinematic analogy, I believe it makes the complex concepts involved in the holistic Life Creation Process easy to discuss with and teach other people. Most people are already familiar with the meaning of most of the movie industry terms used such as star, actor, screen image, script, cast, producer, director, and sequel, and they understand how all the key aspects of a movie can either contribute to its success or ruin the entire project. Therefore, using the cinematic terms makes it easier for people to comprehend how all the key aspects of their Ideal Future Life must be harmonious in order to achieve the desired results. As you complete the Life Creation Process Exercises, you will be directed to analyze the key aspects of your Present Life and create a script for your Ideal Future Life using techniques that are similar to those employed by successful movie stars, directors, producers, set designers, and script writers (e.g., DiTillio.;, 1995). You will also be guided to identify the Transitional Life goals that you will need to achieve in order to segue from living your Present Life to living your Ideal Future Life. The Ideal Future Life that you design at this present time is definitely not all there is or will ever be possible in your life. As you grow and change, you will update your vision of your ideal life. Learning the tools and techniques used in the Life Creation Process Exercises will empower you to continually recreate your Ideal Future Life through planned sequels in order to keep your life well balanced and overflowing with happiness and spiritual joy. The resources used for this book reflect my multidisciplinary approach to the Life Creation Process as well as my positive psychological orientation. I have included concepts from the traditional scholarly social-psychological literature, the popular self-help and self-improvement literature, and the media (plays, movies, tv, newspapers and magazines). The material includes both multidisciplinary academic resources and popular self-improvement resources that I have used, and found to be beneficial, during my own explorations in personal adjustment, growth, and Ideal Future Life creation. Most of the new material in this revised version of Create Your Ideal Life is from information that I have incorporated into my lectures, in-class exercises, and course assignments over the past 15 years.

An interactive journal that serves as a joyful, inspirational guide to building the life you've always dreamed of, using the principles and creative process of an award-winning product designer. Life, just like a design problem, is full of constraints -- time, money, age, location, and circumstances. You can’t have everything, so you have to be creative to make what you want and what you need co-exist. Design the Life You Love is a joyful, inspirational guide to building the life you’ve always wanted, using the principles and creative process of an award-winning product designer. Through four steps that reveal hidden skills and wisdom, anyone can design a life they love!

Compilation of articles originally published at the website Thought Catalog.

In the spring of 2010, Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked HBS professor Clay Christensen to address them—but not on how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-HBS careers. The students wanted to know how to apply his wisdom to their personal lives. He shared with them a set of guidelines that have helped him find meaning in his own life, which led to this now-classic article. Although Christensen’s thinking is rooted in his deep religious faith, these are strategies anyone can use. Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. The Harvard Business Review Classics series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world.