Radical Lifestylists Unite!

Are you living the life of your dreams? Are you actively working towards creating such a life?

If you are interested in doing so, then you are engaging in what is commonly referred to as lifestyle design.

Much of psychology and personal development is based on helping people design and live the life they want. In antiquity and even today, this was called living the good life.

Several components can be used to describe the “good life,” but to simplify it, there are five that matter most:

-       Place

-       People

-       Wellness

-       Contribution

-       Freedom

Place encompasses your home, stuff, location, region, and movement.

People include your family, friends, colleagues, network, and influences (mentors, heroes).

Wellness contains aspects of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Contribution is an outcome of your work, volunteering, vocational, and avocational pursuits.

Freedom is an ability to accept or change your life circumstances in the first 4 components.

How free are you to make and sustain meaningful and purposeful changes in your life? To me (John), this is the bedrock component we want to develop for living the good life.

For the last 20+ years, I have studied how to develop the freedom to live your truth. This is a radical concept for many reasons, but in essence, I set out to investigate and share what I have learned about effective forms of self-discovery, authentic living, and processes of self-actualization.

I recently joked that I have become a Radical Lifestylist!

Being a Radical Lifestylist is similar to intentional living, in which you live your life in alignment with your values and beliefs.

It’s radical because you go to the root of understanding how those values and beliefs have been informed, shaped, and adopted. With this understanding, you can develop the freedom to live your truth as your most authentic and best self. You uncover your interests, passions, skills, and experiences and then leverage these for a more meaningful existence. Start where you are and move towards this envisioned way of showing up.

In the last decade, I created three developmental approaches to help someone do this.

The first is a process to help you better understand yourself and move towards living a life of greater Creative Integrity.

The second approach addresses the most common sticking points in one’s developmental journey. I call this Zeroscaping, and the idea is to reduce the unhelpful friction points in your life that keep you anchored and less able to live as your most authentic self.

The third method is designed to help you find your voice and pursue your unique version of the hero’s journey. Initially, I called this Questing because you are embarking on a multi-year adventure of implementing your vision of the good life. As one of The Leavers, I also call this finding and getting on your version of The Highway to Yeah!

Dig The Past To Dig The Future

Most of us envision a future lifestyle based on fantasy and reality. The mixture is essential. You want to take a Goldilocks approach to defining your version of a Radical Lifestyle. You want to embrace the fantastic (using imagination) and your real lived experience.  

Here’s an exercise you can do that incorporates both your imagination and lived experience. If you are over 21 years old, I believe you will find it beneficial.

Step 1 - Review your life and separate it into 3 parts. The first part is the time you were 5-10 years old, the 2ndis when you were 10-15 years old, and the 3rd part is 15-20

Step 2 – Reflect on the highlights from each five-year period. Create a list of 3-5 memories of things you did that stand out as significant occurrences.

Step 3 – From the 3-5 memories for each period, pick your most vivid, exciting, energizing, and cherished one.

Step 4 – Determine how to bring those things back to life today.

Let me share my results from doing this exercise as an example.  

When I was 8 or 9, my family went on a road trip to Colorado. We stayed in Colorado Springs, and on one of the days we were there, we went horseback riding through The Garden Of The Gods. I was so thrilled by this experience that I started trying to earn and save enough money to buy a horse. My parents, god bless them, even signed me up for horseback riding lessons. After they learned how expensive and time-consuming owning a horse was, I think they directed me towards playing baseball instead (which I never liked).

When I was about 12 or 13, I watched the animated movie The Hobbit and became somewhat obsessed with all things Tolkien-related when I found out it was a book, too. I bought the book, read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I discovered that there were follow-up books! So, I bought and read The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and later purchased The Silmarillion. My significant memory was of reading The Lord Of The Rings during the summer, starting every morning and reading much of the afternoon. I remember being electrified as I read it…I couldn’t put it down, and I was never much of a reader until then.

When I was 17, our mutual friend, Musgrove, got Lee and I, and a few others, together to form a band to play our High School talent show. You can read more about that in The Start tab on this website. That was the beginning of The Leavers, and it was just the beginning.

Later, Lee and I continued to collaborate, and one day, when I was 19 or 20, I recall the band rehearsing in our drummer’s garage, and I had this profound feeling of intense joy and fulfillment. I don’t profess to be an expert on the Buddhist concept of enlightenment, but I know that that same experience and feeling reoccurred when I learned about the Eightfold Path years later. Both experiences felt like a form of transcendence, inner peace, and joy.

After picking these 3 memories, how did I bring these things back to life?

I didn’t do much for horseback riding when I completed this exercise, but later, I realized that it was the freedom and adventure aspects of the experience that I loved best. I now call this roadtripping. This means travel experiences, preferably slow travel experiences, in which I can explore the landscape and find that feeling of timelessness, freedom, and adventure.

For my love of Tolkien, I bought a set of The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings books. I then re-read The Hobbit, paying careful attention to the parts of the story that “spoke” to me, making me feel energized and enthusiastic. I recall the chapter on Rivendell was particularly riveting, and I became interested in finding a “real world” Rivendell. Eventually, that interest led me to move to the PNW and visit Esalen for the first time.

Of course, the high school talent show and garage band experiences made The Leavers a reality again. Still, almost immediately after doing this exercise, I started guitar lessons and finally learned how to play the darn thing (somewhat).

It’s a powerful exercise, and I hope you choose to do it.

In summary, you start becoming a Radical Lifestylist when you:

• Have a Quest that moves you and that you are committed to accomplishing.

• Have, or are creating, the “freedom to live your truth” because you have acquired the skills, resources, and time freedom to pursue the Quest(s).

• Take the time to understand “who you are” and “who you want to be” …you are pursuing an authentic life.

• take action to understand and clearly state your most cherished values.

• and Continue to work on defining your core values because clarity doesn’t happen overnight…Your Core values evolve with you and your pursuit of a radically designed life.

Finally, at the heart of becoming a Radical Lifestylist is that you take consistent and ever-increasing effective action towards living those values in the things you do with your time in this life, be it your interests, hobbies, the work you do, and in the relationships you build and sustain…

as the kids say these days, in “all the things.”