Objective: In Part 3, we’ll take your top 5 passions and drivers and identify small, achievable actions we can start on to make the bigger goals in your life (and your ideal life as a whole) a reality.
From Part 2: We have a great list that tells us what your ideal life looks like, but it doesn’t do a whole lot of good on paper. At this point, we start making it a reality by figuring out what to do first and how to do it.
If you want a reminder of doing the Drive Test and Lifestyle Design Exercise will lead to your best life, visit The Drive Test introduction page
DRIVE TEST CONTENTS
- Drive Test Part 1: Define your passions and what drives you
- Drive Test Part 2: Rank and prioritize your passions and “drivers” to understand what makes up your best life
- Drive Test Part 3: Create a plan, with small achievable steps, to make your ideal life a reality
- Drive Test Part 4: Polish your results, save them to review for motivation, and following up on your test every 6 months
Suggestions for completing the Drive Test:
- Do this exercise alone
- Encourage your partner to do this exercise (alone as well) and share the results upon completion
- Take note of “AHA!” moments and realizations
- Don’t edit yourself, and don’t rule out the possibility of drastic changes
- Consider keeping a notebook for the duration of this exercise and after to reference back to in 6 months
- Note interesting realizations, negative ideas that come up, realizations that something is important to you but neglected in life right now, or realizations that something is not important but heavily consumes your time, energy, and resources
Now, let’s continue with Part 3 of the Drive Test and rank your passions
Step 1: List achievable tasks for your top 5 drivers and passions
- For each driver statement in your “Top 5”, list 3 small, achievable tasks you can accomplish that will put you one step closer to fully realizing that driver in your life, putting you one step closer to your ideal life
Think small at first – keep the chosen tasks achievable and manageable. Focusing on small tasks makes completing them more likely, and the low effort required allows you to diversify the tasks and goals on your plate at any given time
Aim for tasks wherein the act of completing the task delivers a boost of motivation
Ideas to consider when deciding your tasks
Research tasks: What information can you gather and analyze to support a decision moving towards your ideal?
Habits to develop: What habit can you cultivate that each time performed
Relationships to develop and improve: What relationships can you cultivate (and how) that will help realize the driver
Aim for one task for each driver or passion to be an easily accomplishable task, one to be a habit to develop, and one to be a longer term project
Now…get after it!
Top 5 Drivers with 3 tasks
| Driver #1 | |
| Task 1 | |
| Task 2 | |
| Task 3 |
| Driver #2 | |
| Task 1 | |
| Task 2 | |
| Task 3 |
| Driver #3 | |
| Task 1 | |
| Task 2 | |
| Task 3 |
| Driver #4 | |
| Task 1 | |
| Task 2 | |
| Task 3 |
| Driver #5 | |
| Task 1 | |
| Task 2 | |
| Task 3 |
Post-exercise food for thought
Look at this list and think, have your efforts and conscious priorities over the last year and 5 years matched up with how you have prioritized the components of your ideal life in this exercise?
If there is a mismatch between the priorities of your ideal life and your current life, why do you believe this is? From what you’ve realized in this part of the exercise, if you could change just one thing now…what would it be? And what advice would you give “future you” a year from now?
As always, write down any great epiphanies in your notebook to reflect on later.
You now have a prioritized list of statements that embody the relationships, activities, places, and things that drive you, and the first steps in a plan to make them a reality in your life
We’ll take this list into part 4 of the Drive Test & Lifestyle Design Exercise to clean it up and review incorporating this plan into the long term
See you in Part 4.
Continue to PART 4 of The Drive Test & Lifestyle Design Exercise>>
Interested in sharing your results or have questions? Drop them in the comments below, we’d love to see how your progress is coming. Or, email me at [email protected] with thoughts, questions, or suggestions
Other Great Links
- Overview of the Drive Test & Lifestyle Design Exercise
- The LivMin philosophy