Most people think they are trying to discover their life. What if they’re asking the wrong question? What if a meaningful life isn’t found?

What if it is designed?

I recently finished reading “Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. One of the book’s central ideas is that there is no single “right” life waiting to be uncovered. Instead, a well-lived life is created through curiosity, experimentation, and continual refinement and iteration.

In other words, it is designed.

As I read the book, I realized that to my surprise, much of what Burnett and Evans describe parallels the work we’ve been exploring through Life Review, ReStorying, and Identity Experiments. In fact, I began to see that Life Review and Life Design are not separate activities. They are two halves of the same process.

A Life Review looks backward to understand the stories that shaped us.

Life Design looks forward to create the stories we want to live.

Together, they form a continuous cycle of growth.

When we review our lives, we begin to notice patterns. We see recurring themes, pivotal decisions, hidden assumptions, and the beliefs that have guided our choices. We discover stories we’ve inherited, stories we’ve consciously chosen, and stories we’ve simply absorbed without questioning.

The purpose of a Life Review is not merely to understand the past.

Its deeper purpose is to help us consciously design what comes next.

But before we can design effectively, we must identify the problems we’re trying to solve.

Many of our lives are organized around untested assumptions:

“I’m too old.”

“I’m not creative.”

“I’ve always been this way.”

“I can’t change.”

“I don’t belong.”

These stories often operate beneath our awareness, quietly influencing our decisions and limiting our possibilities. The good news is that stories can be tested.

The fastest way to challenge a limiting belief is not through argument but through experience. You design an experiment and let reality answer the question.

This is where curiosity becomes essential. Curiosity is the engine of growth. It invites us to replace certainty with exploration.

Instead of asking, “Is this true?” we can begin asking, “I wonder if this is true?” That small shift changes everything.

Curiosity helps us approach our lives with openness rather than judgment. It accelerates learning, deepens relationships, fosters creativity, and expands possibilities. Yet many of us lose touch with our natural curiosity as we grow older.

We become attached to certainty because certainty feels safe. But certainty can also keep us trapped.

During the Life Review process, curiosity allows us to revisit significant events and ask new questions.

Why did I make that decision?

What meaning did I assign to that experience?

What story emerged from that event?

And perhaps most importantly:

Is that story still serving me?

Once curiosity opens the door, experimentation allows us to walk through it.

Designers use prototypes: small, low-risk versions of an idea to test what works before making larger commitments. We can do the same in our lives.

If you’re thinking about a career change? Talk to people already doing the work.

If you’re interested in a new hobby? Take a class.

Perhaps you’re wondering whether a particular dream still matters to you?Try it on before reorganizing your life around it.

Experiments provide information that thinking alone cannot.

One of the biggest turning points in my own life came when I began losing my hearing. The possibility of becoming deaf frightened me so completely that I spent years pretending my hearing loss wasn’t as significant as it really was. Denial felt safer than facing the reality of what was happening.

Then I met a man who had received a cochlear implant. He wasn’t merely talking about possibility, he was living it. For the first time, I saw evidence that a different future might be available to me. 

That encounter became a prototype. It challenged my assumptions about deafness, hearing, and what my life could become. I didn’t immediately decide to undergo implantation. In fact, I spent nearly a year wrestling with the possibility. During that time, I slowly revised my beliefs, adjusted my expectations, and reconsidered what was possible.

By the time I chose surgery, the change had already begun. The procedure itself was only one step in a much larger redesign of my identity and my relationship with the world.

And this is where iteration enters the picture. Rarely do we get things right the first time. Design is an ongoing process of testing, learning, adjusting, and trying again.

Every experiment generates information. Sometimes that information confirms our direction. Sometimes it tells us we need to make a course correction. Neither outcome is failure. Both are learning.

The most successful people are not those who avoid mistakes. They are the people who consistently learn from them. Failure is often nothing more than data. And data helps us improve the design.

As I reflected on “Designing Your Life,” I realized that many of the principles Burnett and Evans describe are embedded within the ReStory Method.

We review our experiences.

We become curious about the stories we’ve created.

We design experiments to test those stories.

We gather new evidence.

We revise our conclusions.

Then we review again.

Review leads to design.

Design leads to experience.

Experience leads to review.

The cycle continues.

This is how transformation actually happens. It’s not through a single insight or breakthrough, but through repeated cycles of reflection, experimentation, and growth.

So I invite you to consider:

What story in your life is ready to be tested?

What belief is waiting for an experiment?

And what might become possible if you approached the next chapter of your life not as something to discover, but as something to consciously design?

P.S. I’ve begun collaborating on a new project inspired by Dante’s “The Divine Comedy.”

We’re exploring how the journey through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso can serve as a powerful map for navigating leadership, change, and personal transformation.

More to come.

For now, I’ll simply leave you with Dante’s reminder:

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”