Design the Life You Love: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Meaningful Future

Is it a journal? Is it a planner? Is it a self-help book? Yes and no on all counts. Birsel is a designer and she has applied her process of item design to life. I am a planner/agenda junkie and I love being able to write on paper, so this book was right up my alley. This book is hard to describe without giving away too much of the process (for me, an important part of the book was coming at the exercises with a fresh/unfamiliarized eye). But, basically the exercises force you to think about life as it is, break down that reality into its component parts, the reassemble reality into what it could be minus the undesirable components. Could you do this yourself without buying this book? Probably. And, I am definitely a budget-conscious bargain shopper; so, I was skeptical of the price. But, after finishing the exercises, I have considered perhaps going through the exercises every year and perhaps buying a new copy of the book periodically over the years. Will this revolutionize your life? Probably not, but I realized that it is worthwhile to spend some time evaluating my life to figure out what I can do to reach my personal development goals. Overall, this book is geared toward all audiences--including teenagers. The book combines mapping, drawing, and writing to appeal to learners of various modalities. I also feel that there was a good balance of "here's something to read" and "here's something to do." Birsel does share her own experiences, but in an engaging and illustrative manner. Generally, I am not into prompted journaling or self-help books BUT this book has caused me to change that stance *a little* :-)

I absolutely love this book. I am an Executive managing teams based in multiple countries. I am always looking for a book I can use for Team Building across cultures and disciplines. What I love most about this book is the focus on designing and drawing the concepts and goals. This visual language translates everywhere and I have found that drawing situations and solutions is a very effective way of achieving continuous improvement on a global level. The steps of DECONSTRUCTION, POINT OF VIEW, RECONSTRUCTION, EXPRESSION and LIVING weave a clear path for you to Design the Life You Love. I am excited about sharing this process with my global teams. I am in pursuit of a life well lived and this book will be my guide. I plan to revert back to this book often as I continuously review my life choices, reflect on the direction I am headed, and evaluate the people I bring along with me.

The author basically takes you through 4 main points in the book to create the life you love: deconstruction, POV, reconstruction and then expressing your life. It was okay. It's very straight forward. It's more of a workbook than an actual book you would read word for word. There's an activity to do every few pages. An 8 year old would have no problem reading and doing the activities in this book.

I am recommending two books to my coaching clients who are in the midst of career transitions, and to anyone else who wants to think more creatively about the life - work and personal - that they want to lead. This book by Ayse Birsel invites the reader to journal using design techniques and exercises that help us clarify what is truly ours to do and be. I found her leveraging of her design mastery especially helpful when inviting us as readers/journalers to discover new points of view. And I especially loved the Heroes/Heroines exercise. It helped me not only clarify core values that I hold dear, but hadn't pragmatically prioritized into my business planning. It gave me the creative urgency to translate the insights into my business plans for 2017. And I hear that particular exercise also had a strong influence on Marshall Goldsmith's 100 coaches legacy initiative! Also, the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans is my other strong recommendation Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life [...]

I liked the book. It gives plenty of tips on how to use your strengths for your own benefit, how to determine what are the most important things in your life, which aspects of your life you should focus on and how to find out what you value most. I didn't find the book mindblowing, though. And I would have preferred the book to have some success stories: for example, how did a painter manage to use the pieces of advice in this book and realized he needs to paint horses or something which he truly enjoys. Or how did someone manage to find out the perfect family-work balance by using this book. Because if there's no success story, maybe they're just theoretical tips with no real effects over your life. I honestly think this book can be very helpful for some people. But for me it was just a nice read and provided some fun and intriguing exercises in knowing myself. That's why I will give it 3 stars.

This is a brilliant little book, although I admit it has its problems. First, the Kindle edition is hard to deal with (I bought it so I could enlarge the print and then bought the hardcover edition as well). Second, the author's explanations of the techniques are sometimes questionable. I ended up going in directions unlike any examples given, although it's a personal and subjective experience which makes it okay, just different. Third, and most importantly, to do this properly, you need to take some time. I went through it three times and came up with three different "new lives." So I slowed down the process, gave myself plenty of time (especially before re-constructing), and now have a raft of papers I can use. The method is working. Don't be put off by some of the examples. If you think differently, just do it your way. It'll work beautifully.

This is a great book. I've been reading performance psychology books for years. This is a refreshing new idea in a subject area that is pretty diverse. Ayse takes you through a design process commonly used by product designers in order to help you visualize the structure of your life currently and where you want to take it. Most people that have read anything in this genre know about goal setting and such but this book takes you through the process of analysis using visual cues vice just lists of things to do. The exercises and concepts in this book are well worth your hard earned dollars. I hope she continues to develop this process and write more about it in the future.

This book helps you see all the connections in your life and how they can help you make changes that benefit your future. There’s a new version out but I wanted to read this one first.

Llegó en estado regular. La portada del libro tiene un raspón que afortunadamente no se nota tanto. De resto bien.

One of the best books out there. It’s transformative. If you want to truly design the life you love, this is a must read. There are many books out there but Ayse Birsel’s book is one of those rare, almost magical books that is destined to change your life for the better. She is the real deal, and more!

Great text and drawings. Educational and fun to read...

Outstanding book

If you're a designer you will literally fall in love with this book. All the tools of your work are applying to the real life problem. Really nice work, I appreciate mostly the fact that through this book many people can truly start to design the most important thing ever: their lifetime.