For most of my adolescence, I spent a lot of time developing various visions of my future.
However, I have learned to keep these thoughts to myself. Many people associated them big ideas that remain only in the sphere of dreams. My ideas were very distant and seemed to have no practical application in everyday life. A life filled with duties, challenges and routine. Get down to the earth, man!
However, such thoughts were not carefree having head in the clouds, but part of the process of designing my own life. Exploring different variants of the future that I would like to be part of. Listening to my feelings and making your own opinion. It does not matter if it was an idea for the next year or for 10 years.
I believe that if we can approach our dreams consciously, they can become the best tool for creating ideas for ourselves. What's more - ideas that combine our best features and predispositions. Tailored to ourselves, our needs, and most importantly - to the real world.
In addition, they help find meaning in seemingly small activities and decisions that we make every day. It is indeed the smallest steps taken over the years that allow us to build something bigger. Therefore, even though our vision may be very distant - seeing a full picture from a distance, we know that what we do today brings us closer to a specific goal.
If you manage to determine the dream image in your head, dreams become the best motivation and lesson of responsibility for your decisions. Having a mission, I knew the value of my life and noticed the consequences of my actions.
A sense of calling is not just a nice picture in your head. It is also a strict judge, closely watching over what you have achieved, at what stage you are and whether you are heading in the right direction. Sometimes it becomes the best friend, warming your heart with beautiful hope, in times of sadness and reverie. Sometimes, however, it reproaches you for letting it go of sight, irresponsible behaviour and lack of response when you could act.
Over time, it came to me what is a reason for such a common misunderstanding of the role of dreams in our lives. In schools, you do not learn how to design your own path of development. Passing smoothly through all stages of education, we usually make safe decisions within a structured system. We learn to adapt to the imposed requirements and act according to the patterns developed over the years.
Therefore, entering into adult life, we want to use the same strategy. We try to adapt ourselves to the pool of available directions, in the sense that it will define who we will be once and for all.
And at this point the problem arises. In addition to medicine and law - no other direction of development accurately determines our path of life. Studies are just one of the tools in acquiring the knowledge we need for a purpose. We may not know it yet, but now we should ask ourselves: What do I want to learn in my life? What is interesting in the world? How to combine what I love, with what I can share?
There is never a definite answer to this and the one-off choice of the direction will definitely not define it. This is the way everyone has to go through.
Each of us has many features that, combined with each other, give a unique value. We are the resultant of a mass of factors: our parents, predispositions, the environment, the people we surround ourselves with and the events that happen to us. No life path is the same, because of how many factors affect who we are.
We can become a person who will answer the needs of the niche or connect distant fields, solving a bigger problem in an unconventional way. We can develop our potential by helping others, being a great parent or guardian.
Moreover, this diversity is the strongest side of humanity. It is thanks to her that we are able to create so much, complementing each other like various cells in the body or musicians in the orchestra.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that we all start with a blank card, we are looking for ready recipes for life that must succeed. Regiments in bookstores bend under the weight of guides on how to become a successful person, how to motivate yourself and where to find happiness. However, from the design point of view, the use of mismatched recipes is the worst thing you can do. All the more so in the case of the most important project we participate in - our life.
Therefore, you can use two approaches. Being a cook who only recreates the already written recipes, and you can also be the chef of your own kitchen and on the basis of trial and error, knowing your favorite flavors, prepare your own original fate.
Understanding who we are, what our real needs are and what we really want is a key element in the design of a conscious path of life suited to us. Dreams are a tool to explore this space and help in navigating life.
Many people reserve the concept of creativity for art, design and literature, and this is such a narrow definition of creativity. Creativity is not just expressing itself. Creativity does not have to be colorful. Creativity is a creative process. It's progress, this mysterious feature that distinguishes us from machines.
In any field, no matter if it is medicine, science or accounting - if there is progress - there is creativity. If there is an opportunity to create something that was not there before - there is a creative process there.
The same applies to our life - the fact that you have not chosen a creative profession or passion, does not mean that you will miss design! Each of us has a unique set of features and predispositions that must be combined in the most sensible whole. It does not matter whether it is the life of an accountant or a baker.
Therefore, using the knowledge that gave me design studies, I treat my life as the most complex project in which I can participate. Designing taught me systematics - not everything at once!
Taking the problem of conscious dreams into practice, it is worth going through all the stages of their design:
Empathy: getting to know and understanding our needs.
To know own values and what is most important to us
Defining the problem: defining the real problem by taking into account the needs of us and the world we live in.
To know exactly for what questions we are looking for answers
Research: of knowledge and inspirations needed to solve the problem. Creating connections between facts.
To have something to build with
Generating ideas: stage of dreams - getting into your skin from the future and creating many ideas, based on learnt knowledge and experience.
To have a choice from something that can suit us!
Prototyping: development of various attempts to implement our ideas, ready to be tested in the least costly and time-consuming form.
Testing: checking which solution works best. If necessary - with new knowledge, start the process form the beginning.
To find out on your own skin, whether such a challenge suits us before we invest in our time and energy into it
Implementation: The final step will be breaking our vision into visible steps towards its implementation.
I knowy already what we want to achieve and we work on it to put it into practice.
Best-run projects, however, never rest on this last point. You always have to remember that the world is changing and we are also changing with it. What could have been true for us today may turn out to be something else tomorrow.
Therefore, each process is a never-ending loop - every now and then, you need to refresh your values and ask yourself what is the most important to me now? I Start the whole process from scratch, refining your vision to the realities of changing circumstances.
However, with all the knowledge you have already acquired, it will be easier. It's like health. If we know how to take care of diet and activity and put it into practice - prophylactic research only serves to improve our approach. Adjusting our activities to the changing body or catching problems that need to be resolved.
And although often many things can surprise us, a healthy approach and prevention help us in a controlled exit from difficult situations. But most importantly - do not lead to the development of serious diseases, and if they are independent of us, guarantee a quick response to facilitate treatment.
Just as for the body - we must also take care of our spirit.
Designing your own life from scratch is the feeling of wearing snowshoes on an unused trail that runs through a 5 m deep snowy desert.
Putting your own experiences into a meaningful whole is always a path of many failures - we do it after all by trial and error. In the end, however, we are sure that our life decisions were tailor made. They are tailored to our unique person and emphasize all our best features. They don't hang awkwardly like a mismatched prison uniform. Let yourself shine and develop what you are created for!
Dreams will help you. I have the impression that they are just that magical dust that we need to believe in ourselves. Believe in something very distant in the future - sometimes even hard to describe. These are the visions that frighten us.
The series I want to start is devoted to the huge problem of designing my own conscious dreams. This is not a motivational text of any kind that would convince you to follow them. First, these dreams must be properly designed. And although I love our Polish philosophy of happiness "Somehow it will be" it certainly is not suitable for making life decisions.
Let's pause for a moment to look at what we're creating and where we're going to get - and make sure it all makes sense. Only when we know that we are fighting on the right side, let us return peacefully to our faith that everything gonna be all right.
It is not without reason that our backpacks are our passion. Although we love Wrocław, we have long dreamed of embarking on the world and working remotely. What do travels teach us about designing and ... life?
What stories can you meet when you decide to travel to the edge of the world to deepen your knowledge of the secrets of your passion? Read the story about traveling with our backpack in search of new masters!
It's amazing when, while searching for a font for the project, you wonder if your client ... has a script? Get to know the first part of the story about the project that changed our view of the world.
If you want, we will inform you about the newest parts!
