Are you ready to master all six foundational principles of Life Design?
Good thing! Because that’s exactly what you will learn in the next two articles.
We’ll cover the first three principles here, so let’s dive right in.
The first principle is called the principle of the hot air balloon.
Principles of Life Design #1 — Principle Of Hot Air Balloon
You are in control. You can inflate and deflate when you need to. Just do not explode.
Let’s examine this.
You are the operator of your hot air balloon.
The hot air balloon is your capacity to handle the number of tasks you have in front of you.
As an operator, you need to know how big your balloon is.
You are in charge of deflating and inflating your balloon, putting in more or less hot air.
You can’t do that until you know how much air your balloon already holds. You need to know your capacity.
So now, let’s look at the two sides of operating your hot air balloon – removing or adding hot hair.
THE TWO SIDES TO OPERATING YOUR HOT AIR BALLOON
To fly a hot air balloon, to actually get it up off the ground, you need to put some hot air into it, right?
What does this have to do with our lives?
If there is no action, if we aren’t doing or working on anything, we won’t go anywhere.
So we need to create some action to produce some results.
This is pretty obvious but stay with me.
What happens if you add too much hot air?
Well, we assume it will explode.
What does this mean for us as humans?
We can’t take on an infinite amount of work or tasks or whatever else. Because, at some point, we will explode and burn out.
Once you explode, it’s challenging to return to how things were. You’ve crossed your threshold, and recovery it’s a lot harder than if you had stopped before you crossed your limit.
As an operator, you have to know your threshold.
When you are in the air, you may want to add more or less hot air, depending on a multitude of factors, so that you have some control over the direction you’re traveling.
The same is true for your life.
Only you get to decide when and how much you will add or remove from your plate at any given time.
You know where you want your balloon to go, and it’s up to you to make that intentional decision of how much to take on and how much to remove.
HOT AIR BALLOONS DON’T TAKE OFF OR LAND IN AN EXPLOSION… IDEALLY
Hot air balloons are not rockets or spaceships.
Landing and take-off are very controlled and gradual.
What this means for you is…
When you’re ready to take action or to come back to your comfort zone, you don’t want to go all in there from zero to 100% or from 100% to zero.
You have to increase or decrease your pace gradually because you need to adjust to that change.
The takeaway?
When you’re ready to move from your comfort zone to killing it, take it step by step.
Life Design Principle #2 — Principle of Swatter and a Fly
You need to focus on swatting one fly at a time. Otherwise, you won’t kill any of them.
These principles of funny names and metaphors so they’ll stick in your brain.
- So, let’s imagine you’re in the kitchen, and ten flies are flying around you.
You’d likely try and kill them one by one, right? It wouldn’t make sense to try to hit ten at once because that would likely be impossible.
How does this apply to your life?
Let’s answer a question first — why do we try to multitask when it comes to working on tasks? Why do we think we can tackle two, three, five tasks all at once?
We can’t.
You might want to believe you’re a great multitasker, but the reality is multitasking is a myth. You can’t do it.
Have you ever tried to read something in your head and speak something completely different at the exact same time?
It doesn’t work.
Your mind just switches focus until it drives you crazy.
Switching your focus 10+ times within a minute isn’t good for you. It’s not good for the tasks either.
Multitasking results in:
- Average results
- Feeling less than satisfied once the tasks are complete
- Potentially avoidable mistakes
Look at the tasks in front of you. Do they deserve your undivided attention?
If not, why are you doing them? If they are, give them your undivided attention.
The takeaway?
Only kill one fly at a time. Before you know it, you’ll be done with all ten. If you try to kill all ten at once, you’ll likely miss all of them.
Principles of Life Design #3 — Principle of Open Blinds
Opportunities are out there. If you want to see them, you need to open the blinds.
Do you know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and it’s dark in your bedroom? You have to get up and open the blinds. And when you do…
You’re blown away by the amount of light outside.
I love that feeling like it opens up the whole world to me.
Studies say that when people are in a positive mental state, their vision is wider, and they see more things with their literal vision.
So, if you are stressed or frustrated, or sad, you will likely see less.
This same concept applies not only to our literal vision but our ability to see opportunities and ways to solve problems, find solutions, and achieve the results we want.
Let’s look at an example.
Imagine you have a goal. You desperately want to achieve it.
You become so fixated on results that it’s stressing you out.
According to those studies, your stressful state will likely prevent you from seeing how to achieve this goal.
Your vision becomes narrow.
If the solutions were obvious, you would have already applied them. But because you’re so stressed out, you can’t find the way.
You’re stuck in a negative cycle.
Now, let’s reverse the scenario.
You’ve got a goal you want to achieve.
You’re in a positive state of mind, full of energy and excitement.
You’re trying to achieve the same results, and your chance of seeing the way is higher.
Finally, you achieve your goals and feel even more excited.
You’re in a new cycle, but a good one. Positive reinforcement.
HOW DO YOU BREAK THAT NEGATIVE CYCLE AND TURN IT INTO A POSITIVE ONE?
The only way to turn a negative cycle into a positive one is to start actively and intentionally creating those positive experiences around you.
Look around. Find something positive around you. It’s there. You’re just not seeing it.
Your job is to find it and let it settle into yourself.
Do this again and again until you start to feel positive again.
Before you know it, you’ll wake up one day, and the solution will be right in front of you.
The Principle of Open Blinds means opening your eyes, finding as much positivity as you can in your life, and seeing what magic comes from that.
Stay tuned for the next article, where we’ll dive into the final three foundational principles of Life Design.
Until next time,
Olena xx
