Self reflection with a side of manifestation

If you sketched out what your ideal life looks like, what does it look like?

To reference Tim Ferriss’ ideal life exercise from the last newsletter, what would you be, what would you have, and what would you be doing? What would make life unbelievably cool, so much so that you’d pinch yourself?

When I feel inspired, sometimes I take 40 minutes to dream big and write out what exactly this ideal life might look like.

What do I do when I wake up? Where am I? Who am I with throughout my day? What is it about this life that makes me feel like I’ve won the jackpot?

When I first started this activity a few years ago and looked down at what I wrote, I was unimpressed.

It was clear that I didn’t know what I actually wanted, that I hadn’t really really defined this for myself. Most of my thoughts pretty much centered around vacations, shopping, and the catch-all “I would have endless money to do whatever I wanted.”

Not super original.

Since then, after doing this activity many more times, it’s gotten a lot more specific. Some things in my ideal life include:

• Spending 2 months in Japan a year to spend time with my grandma and visit my favorite spots

• Get 8 scuba dives in a year, hopefully traveling with other friends who also dive

• Working on cool, creative consumer goods and doing collabs with brands that I respect

• Living close to family and friends

• Monthly massage & skincare treatments

• Family trip 3x a year

I could go on, because I’ve really thought about it.

It’s not that I have this perfect life mapped out for me, I just give myself space to really dream it up and get clear on what I really want.

Some guidelines

This is your time to go crazy. You know how you always have to hedge your imagination in real life? Don’t do that here.

Write out the most outrageous, most awesome version of your life that you can possibly imagine in utmost detail. Dream big.

Here are some tips that I follow:

1. Paint a picture of a day, then zoom out and think about an ideal year

2. Really visualize your day as you write it out

3. Be as detailed as you can

4. Be as outrageous as you can

Some realizations

1. My imagination could be wilder. The things I journal in the most amazing version of my life are still usually quite simple things, which reflects that life is made up of the simple things, but I also think that I want to practice stretching my imagination of what’s possible.

2. I realize that I can do a lot of the things in my ideal life right now. It’s only various excuses or illusions that are keeping me from doing it. Personally, this is super motivating and freeing for me to be reminded of this.

3. Friends & family == the most important. And yet if I look at the number of days I spend to travel to see friends and family, there’s a discrepancy in how I spend my time. Working on it!

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