The three things you need for an extraordinary, multifaceted life
My triangular model for your next steps.
I’ve been thinking about what it takes to design a brilliant life.
Not specific things, such as travel or lovely clothes or whatever you find beautiful… what I mean is, what’s the work you have to do?
And I have come up with a simple model to experiment with. I’d love to know what you think!
I’ve simplified these steps, of course, as each could be (and likely will be) an entire post of its own. Let me know if there’s any you’d like me to cover first!
Step 1: Seek Some Clarity
Oh man, the years I have spent waiting for that metaphorical apple to drop on my head and for the skies to open and for everything to suddenly be clear. Aha! This is exactly what I should be doing!
Spoiler alert: this still hasn’t happened.
So I am now getting comfortable with the idea that a beautiful life is an exploratory process. Clarity takes time and high-level thinking before you can get specific. It’s the outline you colour in later. The big pieces of furniture you design a room around. The general vibe of a tune before you write the lyrics.
And as always, your idea of what an extraordinary, multifaceted life looks like will likely change. Just focus on right now.
To start seeking clarity, I’d suggest doing three things:
discover your archetype – knowing the right framework for your extraordinary, multifaceted life is a game-changer, trust me. You can take my free quiz to understand yours:
create your Life Dashboard – this is a clear idea of what is important to you (right now) and becomes your criteria for decision making. Critical.
plan your Perfect Day – I wrote a whole post about this (below), but the premise is to raise the standard of your regular days to start living into the extraordinary life you’re designing.
Step 2: Find Your Focus
Once you have some clarity on a general direction, it’s time to focus your attention. This is often the hardest part for multipotentialites, who feel that focusing is cutting out options – we want all the lives, all the options!
Except we don’t really – too many options is totally overwhelming. If you spend more time thinking about what could be rather than actually doing the things you profess to love… you have too many options.
The fantastic news is that if you have 10 different potential paths that you love equally, you can’t go wrong! You are going to have an extraordinary life whichever one you focus on.
So, to break this down into steps; to find your focus, I suggest:
indulging your Master List – spend time really listing out and thinking about all the things you want to do, be, experience, have… create a whopping great list that lights you up.
define your Next Right Thing – according to your archetype, work out what the next thing is for you. The thing you want to put your attention on right now. I am developing a workshop to show you exactly how to do this – drop me a comment if you want to be on the waitlist with a special price when this drops!
avoid shiny objects – learning to love and let go of shiny objects is a skill all multipotentialites need to learn. (Should I write a post about this?)
Step 3: Take Some Action
If you have some clarity, and you have a focus, the last part is simple: you absolutely need to take some action (this is mostly a note to self).
This is a sneak peek into the range of courses I am wanting to develop, but here’s the three action-taking steps on my mind currently:
create your Life GPS – documenting your clarity and focus to keep you aligned as you take action and explore (all action-taking is worthwhile, but aligned action-taking is adding fuel to the fire).
master the Art of Efficiency – creating systems that make your extraordinary life inevitable, real and simple (even if you’re not a “systems person”).
Build The Right Business – if relevant, building a business that allows you to live your extraordinary life, whether it’s freelancing or product or something else entirely.
TL;DR version
If I were to sum this up, I’d say:
if you’re not sure where to start, get some clarity
if you have clarity, choose your focus
if you have your focus, take some action
This Week’s Life Curriculum
Bring in your extraordinary life, inch by inch, day by day.
DO | Pack a picnic and find a local lake or river to spend the day by – take your swimmers, a new-to-you novel (I’m reading this), kids, dogs, friends…
My go-to picnic involves a terrine (made or bought), a tart you can serve at room temp, lemon slice (with no concern for whether it’s daggy). If there’s a crowd, I’d also pack some Chorley cakes and sharp cheddar, because they’ll never go astray.
MAKE | Stir a little spoonful of pistachio spread ($) into a shot of espresso and pouring over ice with milk… Sorry, not sorry. You’ll indulge in these all summer.
LISTEN | I love the thematic playlists that
puts together for her Substack . This is a fun one to pop on in the afternoon when you need a bit of a boost:
Thanks for the mention!