Designing Your Life Quotes

“Dysfunctional Belief: Happiness is having it all. Reframe: Happiness is letting go of what you don’t need.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“Living coherently doesn't mean everything is in perfect order all the time. It means you are living in alignment with your values and have not sacrificed your integrity along the way.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“It doesn’t matter where you come from, where you think you are going, what job or career you have had or think you should have. You are not too late, and you’re not too early.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“For most people, passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery - not before. To put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause.”
― William Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“Our minds are generally lazy and like to get rid of problems as quickly as possible, so they surround first ideas with a lot of positive chemicals to make us “fall in love” with them. Do not fall in love with your first idea.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“You can't know where you're going until you know where you are.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“A well-designed life is a life that is generative—it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise. You get out of it more than you put in. There is a lot more than “lather, rinse, repeat” in a well-designed life.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“A coherent life is one lived in such a way that you can clearly connect the dots between three things: who you are, what you believe, what you are doing.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“Many people operate under the dysfunctional belief that they just need to find out what they are passionate about. Once they know their passion, everything else will somehow magically fall into place. We hate this idea for one very good reason: most people don’t know their passion.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“That’s why you start where you are. Not where you wish you were. Not where you hope you are. Not where you think you should be. But right where you are.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“Decision making is stressful, so the best time to prepare for good choosing is when there’s no choice at stake. That’s when you can invest in your emotional intelligence and spiritual maturity so that those muscles are strong and trained when it’s decision or game time. The best time to get ready for step three is months or years before the choosing. That means the best time is right now—today is the best day to start making that investment.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“As a life designer, you need to embrace two philosophies: 1. You choose better when you have lots of good ideas to choose from. 2. You never choose your first solution to any problem.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“You can’t change employers’ perceptions. Instead of changing how they think, how about working on changing how you appear to them?”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“When you finally get down to making a choice from your narrowed-down list of alternatives, and you’ve cognitively evaluated the issues, and emotionally and meditatively contemplated the alternatives, it may be time to grok it. To grok a choice, you don’t think about it—you become it. Let’s say you’ve got three alternatives. Pick any one of them and stop thinking about it. Choose to think for the next one to three days that you are the person who has made the decision to pick Alternative A.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“We believe that people actually need to take time to develop a passion. And the research shows that, for most people, passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery—not before. To put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“It's worth emphasizing that failures and hardships are a part of every life, even the well-designed ones.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“You can imagine a career and a life that don't exist; you can build that future you, and as a result your life will change.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“We also tend to get mired in what we call gravity problems. “I’ve got this big problem and I don’t know what to do about it.” “Oh, wow, Jane, what’s the problem?” “It’s gravity.” “Gravity?” “Yeah—it’s making me crazy! I’m feeling heavier and heavier. I can’t get my bike up hills easily. It never leaves me. I don’t know what to do about it. Can you help me?” This”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“These are all gravity problems—meaning they are not real problems. Why? Because in life design, if it’s not actionable, it’s not a problem. Let’s repeat that. If it’s not actionable, it’s not a problem. It’s a situation, a circumstance, a fact of life. It may be a drag (so to speak), but, like gravity, it’s not a problem that can be solved. Here”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“We are always growing from the present into the future, and therefore always changing. With each change comes a new design. Life is not an outcome; it’s more like a dance.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“Dysfunctional Belief: I should already know where I’m going. Reframe: You can’t know where you are going until you know where you are.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“Dysfunctional Belief: To be happy, I have to make the right choice. Reframe: There is no right choice—only good choosing.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“In fact, in the United States, only 27 percent of college grads end up in a career related to their majors.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“It’s unlikely that health, work, play, and love will divide neatly into four equal parts. But when life is really out of balance, there can be a problem.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

“The key is to reframe your idea of options by realizing that if you have too many options, you actually have none at all. If”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“Dysfunctional Belief: I should know where I’m going! Reframe: I won’t always know where I’m going—but I can always know whether I’m going in the right direction.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“That’s the problem with letting go—it’s more of an inaction than an action, and your brain just hates that, the same way nature abhors a vacuum. So the key to letting go is to move on and grab something else. Put your attention on something—not off something.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“A well-designed life is a life that is generative—it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise. You get out of it more than you put in. There is a lot more than “lather, rinse, repeat” in a well-designed life. How”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“It’s not hard to imagine that if we added up all the hours spent trying to figure out life, for some of us they would outweigh the hours spent actually living life. Really. Living. Life. We”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

“Because in life design, if it’s not actionable, it’s not a problem. Let’s repeat that. If it’s not actionable, it’s not a problem. It’s a situation, a circumstance, a fact of life. It may be a drag (so to speak), but, like gravity, it’s not a problem that can be solved.”
― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life