If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. ~ Lewis Carroll
When you get right down to it, many people simply don’t have the guts to take the risks involved in true marriage design. In designing the life or marriage you want, there are risks. Sometimes large risks.
But these risks may appear larger than they actually are.
This can all be summed up in the phrase “fear of the unknown.”
Designing a life or a marriage involves some unknown. But it may not be what you think. It may not be quitting your job to travel the world. Or figuring out a way to work a few hours a week in order to live anywhere.
Life and marriage design also happens when one parent decides to stay home with their children, when a middle-income family moves out of the city to a small rural town in the mid-west so they can retire earlier, when a family downsizes their home in order to live below their means, or when a person finds their call working a “regular” job in order to provide for their family and fund the activities they really enjoy. It happens every time an entrepreneur starts a business. It’s starting a consulting company so you can work 20 hours per week and make 35k per year instead of 50 hours a week for 80k (and using the free time to sleep in and exercise).
Marriage design doesn’t necessarily mean you dream up and create some exotic lifestyle that would be the envy of all those around you. It means you design and then begin living the life you choose!
Life is choice.
It’s one of my foundational beliefs. You don’t like something going on in your life, work to change it.
The other pitfall that comes up is people say “they just want to be happy.” You hear it all the time. Ask a random co-worker or family member what do you want out of life and you’re likely to hear this response. The problem:
seeking happiness is too vague and too relative.
Seeking a life filled with happiness is largely impossible. It’s chasing the wind. First, because nowhere in life are we promised happiness. The Declaration of Independence (for American readers) only allows for the pursuit of it. And another source many people around world follow, the Bible, never talks about happiness in this manner. In fact, the Bible says God is more concerned about your character than your happiness (Ecclesiastes 7). And second, our likes and dislikes change too frequently. What you thought would make you happy, once obtained, doesn’t.
The reason our tastes seem to change so often is because they are constructed in part by those around us. We compare ourselves to others all the time. I do it too. What are they driving, wearing, watching, owning?
It’s probably the number one plague on marriage and life design.
What will other people think if I do this or that? What would my spouse say if I told them I wanted to try this or that?
Instead of seeking happiness, what if you designed life and marriage to be exciting?
What excites you is a better question.
Spend some time working on this question and you can uncover more of your core. And…
Living from your core is the way to radical growth and lasting passion.
Be it in marriage or in life.
In order to help get you started, here are two tools to use.
1. Get a more accurate view of where you are in life. Many people have no idea where they are in life. They go through the day lost in routine and roles. You may be one of them. Did you know that humans are the only mammal that when lost, speeds up! Perhaps this accounts for the fast paced society we all live in. All other mammals in the mammalian kingdom will stop, sit down and get their bearings before they proceed.
In order to do this, one effective tool is the Wheel Of Life. This gives you a gauge as to how satisfying the areas in your life are currently and can help you uncover where to begin working first.
After you’ve discovered how smooth your wheel of life is, take the steps to begin working on the areas that need improving.
2. Sort out your core values. The second tool is The Value Sort. This takes about 20 minutes of your time. But at the end of the process you’ll have the top 4 or 5 values for your life. All that’s left is living life more in line with your core values.
For the next step in the process of building a better marriage, allow the words of master Yoda to encourage you.
Do, or do not. There is no try. ~ Yoda
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If you’re interested in more on relationship design, pick up a copy of A Simple Marriage.
You could also pick up Tim Brownson’s new book How To Be Rich And Happy (full disclosure: I’m an affiliate of Tim’s. That being said, I’ve read half of this so far and it’s worth every penny if you actually do the stuff written in this book.)
Photo courtesy PassionForLifeArt
I agree wholeheartedly with your post. If couples would put their primary emphasis on the “design” of their lifestyle and marriage, they could build the rest of their lives around these most-important aspects and get their priorities straight.
My wife and I recently attended a marriage retreat and had the opportunity to briefly design our dream marriage. Even though we have a great marriage, we recognized some major life issues that we need to discuss and work towards achieving fulfillment in. I actually just wrote a blog post about our experience at the retreat and how deeply it impacted us.
this is truly helpful. hats-off!
after being married for almost 13 years, 3 kids (almost 12, 10 and 7) and 36 years of age we are re-designing our own marriage: from two income to one, simplifying and planning, regular schooling to homeschooling and better perspective in life with less material gain but more on simple pleasures.
this helps so much. thank you!
Very helpful….
Especially concerning happiness
This hit right at home
Thanks
Many people thought I was nuts, quitting my job to start my own business, but it’s been great. I’m not yet making the money I was, but the potential is great.
I so agree that life is about choice. Giving myself the power to choose is the best thing I can do to feel alive. Choosing the kind of life I want, the kind of relationship with my spouse, how I want to spend my time, has been a great gift to myself.
I really love this post. It is so important in a marriage to figure out specifically what excites you, where you want to head towards. This way you won’t get caught in the middle of the marriage trying just to abstractly “be happy.” Defining what is happy is a excellent way out of that. Thank you for the post!