There Are 3 Paths You Can Go By- Part 3: Design Your Ideal Lifestyle

If purpose can trap you, and quests can mislead you, what actually works?

For me, it comes down to one thing: lifestyle design.

This is what I call Radical Lifestyle Design—the intentional creation of a life that naturally produces meaning, enjoyment, and progress toward what matters most.

My path toward this started simply:

What would your ideal day look like?

Not your ideal career. Not your five-year plan. Just one day—how you spend your time, who you’re with, how you feel.

That question stayed with me. Over time, it evolved into something deeper—what I now call Zeroscaping: removing unnecessary friction so you can actually live that day more often.

Later, I found language for this idea through Cal Newport’s concept of the “deep life.” His approach reinforced something I had already begun to suspect: you don’t start with purpose or goals—you start with how you live.

So where do you begin?

Start with values.

That’s easier said than done. I struggled with it for years. One helpful approach is to adopt Cal Newport’s suggestion to think in “buckets” like his Craft, Community, Constitution, Contemplation, and Celebration—not as rigid values, but as areas of focus.

What finally worked for me was looking backward.

I reviewed my life in five-year increments and identified the most meaningful moments in each period. One stretch stood out—my time as a student. It was a period of energy, growth, challenge, and deep engagement.

From that, I could see the pattern.

I wasn’t chasing random experiences—I was responding to environments that supported my core values.

That insight led to what I now think of as my “Back on Campus” lifestyle strategy—I am implementing a design that recreates the conditions where I do my best living.

That’s the shift.

Instead of chasing purpose or simply goals, design the life that makes them inevitable.

So let me ask you:

What does your ideal day actually look like?

What values are you already living—when you’re at your best?

And how could you design your life to support more of that?