agile methodology

Rapid prototyping for designing a superior life strategy
Finding what fits you best in order to design the perfect life you want and deserve takes a lot of experimenting. You have to try dozens of different things to find the one that works perfectly for you as a unique individual. In addition to that, “fits” are not a static thing. Your values, environment, the type of opportunities that you’re exposed to and the things you appreciate change over time. That means experimenting must be done constantly.

Experimenting is fun by itself and you can enjoy many benefits doing it, but it’s also demanding and expensive. It takes a toll on your emotions, because you usually have to face a series of small failures in the beginning and you often need to invest at least some money into performing an experiment; besides time, energy and creativity, which are always needed.

Every experiment does give you a lot – a diverse life experience, gaining insights about yourself and your environment, having lots of fun and putting your creative self to use. Nevertheless, only experimenting is never enough. The end goal of experimenting is to move forward and to progress much faster towards your goals. Experiments must lead you to validated learning that enables you to shape a superior life strategy.

The sooner you shape a superior life strategy, the better off you will be in life. The idea of how to get to massive success is to move fast and learn fast. You have to conduct experiment after experiment until you nail it.

You have to experiment all the way until you can finally move from the search mode into the execution mode. The problem is that a high frequency of many different types of experiments leads to using a lot of resources. And you don’t want to drown before you succeed.

Luckily today with all the technology and tools available, you can do many experiments fast and they don’t cost a lot of money. The concept is known as rapid prototyping and it’s used in business all the time. In this article, you will learn how to use the same principle in your personal life.

The main idea is very simple. With rapid prototyping in personal life, you want to get to the minimum viable experience as quickly as possible using the fewest resources. Before we go to many different ideas for using rapid prototyping in personal life, let’s quickly overview the main theory behind prototyping.

Prototyping and rapid prototyping

You’re probably familiar with the word prototype. A prototype is a simplified early working model of a final product that demonstrates the key functionalities and benefits that the final product will provide.

A prototype can be built to test if an idea even works, it can be built to explore additional ideas, for demonstration purposes and learning as much as possible about how to improve the final product so that the targeted segment will really use it.

When building a prototype, the most important goal is to gather all the data and specifications to build a real working product in the next step. Prototyping is always far away from only talking about theoretical ideas. It’s the first big step towards realizing an idea. It means taking a theoretical idea and materializing it in its simplified form, so you can start learning how well the idea fits into the world.

Prototype is a simulation of the final product so you can start learning as quickly as possible.

We know low-fidelity prototypes that are really basic draft versions of a product. They are often only paper based and don’t allow any real interaction between a user and a prototype. The main goal of low-fidelity prototypes is to visualize solutions, explore alternative versions and encourage additional ideas. They are extremely inexpensive and can be built fast.

And then we also know high-fidelity prototypes, which are much more perfected, exact and evident. They allow test groups at least some interaction and are much more effective in getting feedback. Their problem is, of course, that they demand more resources to be build.

We also know different kinds of prototypes to gather different kinds of data and do different kinds of tests. There are proof-of-principle prototypes, the goal of which is to prove that an idea can work in real life. Then we have visual prototypes to get a good visual representation of how the final product would look like. A user experience prototype simulates the user’s experience with the final product. A functional prototype, on the other hand, puts visual representation and features to the test.

With technology developing fast, there is a relatively new technique called rapid prototyping (wiki) that’s becoming more and more popular. With rapid prototyping, you can very quickly build a scale model of your final product or many different versions of it. With techniques like 3D printing, you can basically print dozens of different ideations fast.

Besides 3D printing, there are many other awesome tools, apps and approaches that enable you to bring models and other representation types of your ideas to life inexpensively and while your ideas are still hot.

Rapid prototyping means that you can test many different ideas in a short time frame, gather all the necessary feedback and move fast towards the solutions that work the best.

Don’t talk about it, do, try, experience or show.

Get educated and then start experimenting as quickly as possible

There are several prototyping phases or, to be more exact, steps before you start prototyping. The standard phases are:
- Understand
- Observe
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test
In the understand, observe and define phase you gather all the data needed to start prototyping. In this phase it’s most often necessary to get well educated. There are rare exceptions when you want to take a fresh look on an old thing, but many times extensive research and acquiring knowledge helps a lot.

When you have the basic knowledge and landscape, you can better orientate yourself towards what exactly you want to achieve and find out by experimenting. You also have an understanding of what other people have already tried, and even more importantly what they have missed.

Especially when experimenting in personal life, it’s extremely important to get very well educated and completely understand the risk, rewards, investments needed and the process. When you understand all these things, you can put your creative mind to work. After you get educated and brainstorm all the potential ideas, the goal you want to achieve with prototyping in personal life is to get a real-life experience as soon as possible.

When designing a prototype, you try to get to the minimum viable experience as soon as possible with the fewest resources with which it can be done. The sooner you start building, the more motivated you are, and immediate implementation enables you to start learning from the beginning of the process.

When you’re in the prototyping phase, you should also explore several options and ideas. You mustn’t get emotionally attached to only one potential solution. After defining your hypotheses and ideas for how you will perform an experiment, you have to start prototyping different solutions, test them and move on before you get fixed on any specific ideas.

In the prototyping phase, you must keep your divergent thinking active, you must completely shut down your inner critic and keep your mind open.

When you’re prototyping you are looking for two things – the ways to (1) improve current ideas and (2) completely new ideas. The first approach is called serial prototyping, which is a progressive method of upgrading known ideas. It means that you are looking for new versions of the same solutions.

The second approach is called parallel prototyping, where you are looking for ideas in completely new directions. You are looking for something that doesn’t exist yet at all.

Minimum Viable Experience is a process of idea generation, prototyping, presentation, data collection, analysis and learning about yourself and your environment.

No matter if you are doing serial or parallel prototyping, you want your prototypes to be simple, provide rapid feedback, help you embrace change and, last but not least, prototyping should be fun. You may be more limited when you’re experimenting and prototyping in personal life than when you are dealing with business ideas, because you’re rarely building a new product, but instead you just want to experience something new.

Nevertheless, if you are creative enough, there is always a way to acquire new experiences without diving in fully and risking everything. Even in personal life there is always a way to first test something in a controlled way with some kind of a prototype.
The most important knowledge and feedback you’re looking for from conducting experiments with prototypes are:

Main insights

What worked

What didn’t work

New questions and doubts

New ideas for experiments

New ideas in general
Examples of rapid prototyping in personal life

The main goal of performing an experiment in personal life is very simple. You want to learn in a very controlled environment or in a very controlled way if something (an idea) works as planned, or you want to better understand how the world works.

You want to get one step closer to the objective truth and get rid of your subjective cognitions and wrong assumptions. You do that by employing the search mode concept and undertaking a scientific approach to experimenting.

You set hypotheses, define how you will collect and analyze data, and then you perform experiments and draw conclusions. Consequently, you validate or disprove your hypotheses. That leads to validated learning and insights.

You can make decisions and take actions based on more accurate data. Prototyping is one of the ways how you can perform the data-gathering part of an experiment. Luckily, there are many different types of prototypes that can help you achieve that.

Below are listed the most popular prototyping techniques together with a few ideas for how you can use each technique in your personal life.
1. Genchi Genbutsu
2. Pen and paper
3. Mockups and models
4. Wizard of Oz test
5. Storyboards and use cases
6. Video prototyping and simulations
7. Role-playing
8. Mind-mapping
9. Scenarios and flow charts
10. Templates and guidelines
Genchi Genbutsu

Genchi Genbutsu is not really a prototyping technique, but the main way of experimenting in personal life. It’s means “go and see” or “go out of the building” to gain first-hand knowledge. In other words, try it and see for yourself whether something works for you or not.

The highest number of experiments you’ll probably do in life are the ones where you try and experience something new and then observe metrics – either your body metrics, your feelings, your capabilities or any other type of life metrics. You try a new behavior and then observe yourself and your environment. In today’s times, you can try many different things easily and inexpensively. All you need is a little bit of courage.

Practical examples

You can try many different sports, diets, types of arts and everything else life has to offer. You live in the best times ever to discover yourself and find the things you are really good at and that you enjoy. You can test different kinds of behaviors in real life and what kind of feedback they give you, you can test different types of habits, technology and careers.

There are almost no limits to what you can try. You can rent an expensive bike for a downhill ride. You can join a hobby group and try any kind of art or other discipline. You have so many resources to try coding. You can join an afternoon project in an industry you’re attracted to. Genchi Genbutsu.

Pen and paper

Using pen and paper is the fastest and cheapest form of prototyping. It can be done anywhere and anytime, as long as you have paper and a pencil somewhere at hand – which I absolutely recommend that you do. When an idea comes to mind or when you need to develop one, you simply sketch it on paper. As an alternative, you can also use the origami technique to present some ideas with paper.

The freedom of pen and paper often encourages experimentation and generation of new ideas. There is a special connection between your mind, hand and pen. You don’t have to be Picasso to sketch, it’s only about giving shape to your ideas and doing many iterations fast. Nobody will judge your prototypes.

Practical examples

You can use pen and paper to brainstorm ideas. You can use pen and paper to do self-reflection and understand yourself better. You can draft a flat or a house you desire. You can draw a persona or write an essay about your perfect spouse or ideal self.

You can easily draw a table with all the pros and cons for a certain decision so you can decide more easily. You can outline what kind of a personal blog you’d like to have. You can try to write a poem or a love letter. You can sketch different ideas.

Mockups and models

Mockups are slightly advanced representations of ideas. They are 3D illustrations or models that represent the core design and simulate at least some functionalities of the final product. Mockups are an extremely popular design prototyping technique. There are many different types, like models or even wireframes that represent an idea of how a website should work.

You can use many different approaches and techniques to do mockups. You can use different software applications, you can build physical models from cardboards, paper, woods and other materials. Not to forget 3D printing. You can take advantage of to print actual models of the ideas you have.

Practical examples

I’m currently testing a standing desk with nothing but a simple model. The model is made out of a wardrobe and a rack. Many do-it-yourself things would fall into this category of prototyping. From office organization and storage solutions to 3D printing of the things you like, there are many ways to use simplified solutions, models, mock-ups and creative innovations instead of buying expensive products and solutions.

At this point, we should also mention crowdfunding and crowdsourcing ideas to get feedback from the community or even to fund your ideas. Today you can easily show your ideas to the world and get immediate feedback. With Minimum Viable Products, you can also easily test market interest for your ideas.

Wizard of Oz test

The idea behind the Wizard of Oz test is that you somehow fake a functionality you want to build. You do that primarily to save resources. The technique is used extensively in software development.

For example, you can test a new software functionality, but instead of coding it and having a computer perform the functionalities and all the interactions, it can be done by a human with remote control technologies. A tester doesn’t know that, of course.

Practical examples

Examples of Wizard of Oz tests in personal life would be to inexpensively try something you want in order to see if it really brings you happiness. Rent a Ferrari for a day and imagine it’s yours. Try to live in a foreign country for a month before you finally move there. Go to a tech store and spend an hour playing with a computer you want to buy.

Or, for example, you can learn 100 most popular phrases of a new language, try to use it on the street and see how it feels to speak a new language. Sometimes you can fake it until you make it; or decide to not make it at all, because it’s not for you.

Storyboards and use cases

With a storyboard, you can describe the whole desired user experience through a series of sketches and images. Storyboards are a great way to brainstorm additional ideas, think of alternative scenarios and all the ways how things can go right or wrong.

You can also use storyboards to describe different use cases of ideas and products; or you can employ use cases as a standalone prototyping technique.

Practical examples

A Kanban board is kind of a storyboard representing your sprint or to-do list. You can use a storyboard to describe how you could/should act in certain situations – when your boss criticizes you, for example. You can outline all the ways how you could use a specific product or how certain ideas could improve your life.

You can use storyboards to prepare yourself for public appearances or how you will tell your kids a story in the best way possible. You can sketch life stories with storyboards. And you don’t need any drawing skills for storyboards, there are many online solutions that can help you with that.

Video prototyping and simulations

The idea of video prototyping is that you illustrate your main idea using video or by making a movie. You can prepare a short movie or a different kind of visual representation. An alternative to videos are also interactive or non-interactive simulations.

Practical examples

Make a video of your perfect life or your perfect self. Design a short motivational video clip on the topic of why you want to be rich. Prepare a video as part of your CV. Open a YouTube channel to connect with like‑minded people. Prepare a video simulation of your dream house.

Role-playing

Role-playing is a great way to develop empathy. You take on a role of another person and try to experience a situation or use a product from their perspective. It helps you understand their point of view. When you’re role-playing, it makes sense to focus on what the person you are impersonating would say, do, think and feel.

Practical examples

You can role-play with your spouse to better understand each other. You can play a role of what kind of a person you would be with a certain characteristic you currently don’t possess and how your life would unfold in the future (the so-called Fixed Role Therapy). You can role-play an action you’re afraid of doing, especially involving authorities that make you freeze up.

Mind-mapping

Mind-mapping means using diagrams to visually organize information. It allows you to represent different hierarchies and relations between elements. Mind-mapping is a great way to brainstorm ideas and outline complex structures. It’s also a very suitable technique for how your brain works. Many smart people use mind maps to learn faster, brainstorm and do analytical work.

Practical examples

You can use mind maps for brainstorming ideas, breaking down complex subjects or grasping the main ideas of the book you just read.

You can use mind maps for strategic planning, personal project management, problem solving, job searching, as a life planner, to-do list, travel plan, risk management or even a personal training plan. There are basically unlimited options for how you can use mind maps.

Scenarios and flow charts

Flowcharts are used to explain a process, algorithm or workflow. Steps of the process are visualized with boxes and arrows showing connections between different steps.

An important part of every process are also decisions that need to be taken in order for the process to be completed one way or another. Decisions are usually visualized in diamond-shaped boxes in the chart. By using a flowchart, you can easily understand the process from the beginning to the end.

Scenarios, on the other hand, aren’t diagrammatic representations of a process, but a written description of a sequence of desired events, illustrating all the activities that need to be performed in the real-world environment to achieve a specific goal.

With scenarios, you can describe in detail how a certain system, process or application already works and why it’s important, or you can describe hypothetical scenarios of what could happen in different settings with different products, knowledge, people etc.

Practical examples

You can prepare a flowchart of how you will get your job or find your perfect spouse. You can combine the flowchart technique with the AARRR funnel. You can prepare a flowchart for how you will get fit or rich or prioritize what you will learn first in your hour of power.

With flowcharts, you can define different milestones in your relationships or life in general, analyze in which directions your big decisions could lead you or prepare a step-by-step career development plan.

You can do pretty much the same by using scenarios as you can do with flowcharts. It all depends on which technique works better for you. With scenarios, you can prepare detailed descriptions of how your life would look like in different settings; for example, if you lived in a flat or a house.

You can develop alternative paths for your life when you’re making big decisions to have detailed representations of where each decision would lead you. You can prepare scenarios as an input for visualization.

Templates and guidelines

Templates and guidelines are a kind of framework for better decision-making or performing certain actions in a very standardized way. A template is a layout that you can use over and over again to save time, energy, decision-making power and other resources.

Guidelines are nothing but general rules, pieces of advice and principles that you follow. Templates and guides should help you work smart, not only hard.

Practical examples

You can prepare a budgeting template that you use to manage your finances. You can prepare work guidelines or time management guidelines or guidelines for how you will raise your kids in order to agree on the main parenting things with your spouse.

You can prepare household guidelines with clarifications of who does what. A personal not-to-do list is a type of a personal guideline.

Homework

It’s time to start prototyping

There are so many ways how you can prototype; and there are so many tools you can use for it. Specialized apps and online tools, boards, paper only, pen and paper, spreadsheets, text editing software, 3D printing, building models at home from different materials, “go out and see” philosophy, PowerPoint presentations, 3D modeling tools etc. The options are endless; you just have to be a little bit creative.

By knowing all these creative endeavors for living a more diverse and fulfilling life, you simply can’t get bored. There is always something to build, something to test, there are so many different things you can try and do. There are so many different ways how you can play and progress fast at the same time.

You don’t have to be a creative genius. You just have to appreciate life enough, be curious and nurture a desire to live a rich life experience. If you can’t find enough motivation, remember that you are going to die someday. Your time here is limited, so don’t waste your life.

It doesn’t matter if your prototypes aren’t as good as the ones from Apple. But what does matter a lot is how full is the life you’ll live and what your life strategy will be. I suggest you decide for a smart and superior life strategy. The one that works in the 21^st century. So start creating, prototyping and experimenting.

Brainstorm what would be the coolest first prototype you can design and then go into action. Go out and see, be bold and start playing.
Regular daily reflections will change the quality of your life forever
In the AgileLeanLife Productivity Framework, you don’t just do things because you always did them in a specific way. You don’t just work and execute tasks like a robot.

Instead, you regularly reflect on why you do certain things, analyze how efficiently you are doing them and, most importantly, you constantly evaluate where your actions are leading you and if you are following your True North.

If you want to avoid being on reactive autopilot, you have to do regular reflections. The main goal of regular reflections is to ask yourself thought-provoking questions so that you can develop a deeper level of understanding:
- yourself and your actions,
- your environment and its paradigms,
- and the main patterns of your key relationships.
With regular reflections, you want to gain as many important insights as possible that can help you shape a superior life strategy, progress towards your goals faster and, in the end, live a better life. The good life.

But that’s not all. One of the biggest values of reflection is that you can change how you see yourself, how you feel about certain situations and, in the end, how you act. New thoughts lead to new emotions and consequently to new actions. That way, regular reflections really help you stay lean, agile, flexible, happy and wise.

There are several points in your life when performing a reflection is extremely valuable:
1. After every sprint (bi-weekly planning session) and 100-day plan (quarterly plan)
2. After every experiment you perform in the search mode as part of validated learning
3. When big or unexpected changes happen in your environment or relationships
4. When negative emotions pile up or you sense big negative mood swings
5. At the end of the day, just before you go to sleep to examine your daily life
Reflections after sprints, 100-day plans and experiments are called introspections in the AgileLeanLife Productivity Framework.

Reflections before you go to sleep or when an emotional or situational trigger fires a need for analysis we call short self-reflection. We will discuss both types of reflections in this article.

But first, let’s answer the basic questions of why, how and when to do reflections.

A short daily reflection is nothing but a healthy habit

Regular daily reflections are a positive habit, like any other healthy and beneficial habit, from exercising to reading and being grateful. Every habit has three key elements.

There must be a trigger, a behavior you perform and, in the end, a reward you enjoy. If the triggers are strong enough and rewards are big, you have a greater chance of sticking to a habit. That’s what you also need if you want to stick to regular reflections – strong triggers and big rewards.

Reward – why do short daily reflections

There are so many big rewards of regular reflections. Everybody doubts it, but then after doing it a few times, they become in love with it. Many times, I had to push people a little bit to do it the first time, but then after performing it a whole new world opens to them.

They are like “wow, I didn’t know my mind works like that and that I can get so many insights by writing a few of my thoughts down. With reflections, you can finally meet the deep and rich internal world you possess. And now the benefits.
- You better understand yourself and your actions,
- You pay more attention to your thoughts and emotions
- You become aware of your rich inner world
- You become connected to yourself much better
- You can more easily see all the ways of how you can properly adjust
- You can plan how to do things in a better way
With all that, you gain more control over yourself and you become much more proactive.

With regular reflections, you explore your needs and wants and become very much aware of them. You explore the fears that are blocking you on your way towards your goal. You can finally understand what kind of conflicts are preventing you from being more assertive in life.

You can more easily identify all the different toxic thoughts and how they’re hurting you. You can identify competing commitments, internal frustrations and other things that are blocking you in life. Therefore, combining reflections with mindset upgrades is the perfect combination.

All this removes different inner blocks and releases emotional tensions. Not to mention that these are all the inputs for a superior life strategy.

Regular reflections help you better understand your environment and its paradigms, including people’s diverse behaviors and changes in their behaviors. You can see and understand your position in your environment exceptionally well and you can analyze how different actions can lead you towards different outcomes.

Regular reflections enable you to go from reactive behavior to proactive behavior. Regular reflections enable you to go from being miserable to being happy.

Behavior – how to do short daily reflections

Doing a short daily reflection is an extremely easy exercise. All you have to do is take a notebook and a pen and start writing down your thoughts. You provoke yourself with a few tough questions, you encourage yourself to look at things from different angles and you ask yourself why dozens of times. Then you dig deep. As deeply as possible.

Here are examples of questions you ask yourself during reflection:
- How am I feeling? Why am I feeling like that? Why am I so anxious, angry etc.?
- What does this situation remind me of? When did I feel the same way as I do now?
- What am I trying to achieve with my behavior?
- Why are others behaving towards me as they do?
- What is the best way to improve my situation? Why am I blocking myself?
- What am I scared of? Why am I persisting at this thing that doesn’t work?
- Why does this bother me so much? Why do I really dislike that person?
- What will happen if I do the complete opposite? How would my life look like if I believed the opposite from what I believe now?
- After every question you ask yourself why, why, why and dig deep.
The solemn end of every reflection should always be new insights about you, about your position in the world and how your life relates to different relationships, marketing trends and other environmental elements. After you do a reflection, you should finally understand. There should be many “aha” moments.

When you do retrospections (after execution), you consciously decide how you will change your behavior and actions. You discipline yourself to follow a new behavioral pattern. On the other hand, in very well performed self-reflections it should all come naturally to you without any force. You should feel it in your bones how you can do things differently and how it makes sense to change.

Trigger – when to do short daily reflections

There are many potential triggers that can lead you to do a reflection. Some of them can be planned (after a sprint, before sleep) and some of them can be spontaneous. I suggest you combine both types.

The strongest and most useful triggers are usually emotional ones. Examples include interesting thoughts or ideas you become aware of, big negative changes in your moods, getting hurt by other people, and so on. In such situations, you go straight to the most painful things a lot more easily.

The second most common triggers are time- and location-based. You do a daily reflection before you go to sleep. You do a reflection as part of a planning meeting with your team, and so on. You should always have a few strong location and time triggers that naturally lead you towards performing a reflection.

Introspections – reflections after executions

Now let’s go a little bit deeper into the concept of introspections.

Introspections are reflections you do after different periods of execution and after performing life experiments. They are an integral part of bi-weekly sprints and quarterly planning sessions, and their main purpose is to improve your strategy, tactics and actions.

With retrospections, you want to make sure you’re progressing towards your goal in the best possible way. With regular retrospections, you want to have the smartest strategy and be one step ahead of your instincts, life itself and other people.

Introspections are otherwise also an integral part of agile software development (SCRUM), where a team reflects on how they work and where they can improve. As I mentioned, introspection is done after every sprint. The things you want to achieve with introspections (you can do it by yourself or with your team if you have one) after sprints and 100-day plans are:
- Reviewing the tasks done in the previous interval
- Carefully planning your next sprint
- Thinking of all the ways you can adjust to achieve your goals faster
- Thinking of all the ways you can adjust to achieve your goalswith fewer resources
- Making sure you are going into the right direction (following your True North)
- Brainstorming how you can do things better and how you can improve and adjust
- Analyzing all the new ideas you have
- Better connecting with yourself or with team members if you have a team
- Updating your life vision or vision of the team
- Measuring your real progress based on the metrics framework you set for yourself
- Adjusting the strategy and plan and reflecting on new things that you learned
Sprint planning and short morning meeting with yourself (and/or your team) are great starting points for execution, and reflection is the perfect activity to end every execution interval.

The best practice is to combine planning a new execution phase with reflection on the previous one. That way you can really improve yourself on the way from one sprint to another. The simple rule is to never even leave out execution retrospection when planning your next sprint, quarterly plan or an experiment in the search mode. Never. Because that’s what successful people do.

The bottom lines of introspection are the most important part of the process. If you don’t have the bottom lines, you have a very poorly performed introspection. The mandatory thing is that after every introspection, you have answers to a few very basic, but extremely hard questions:
- What went well during the last sprint that I/we will continue doing?
- What could I/we do differently?
- How can I/we implement the change?
Based on that, you should make three decisions and stick to them:
- What should I start doing?
- What should I stop doing?
- What should I continue doing?
After every introspection, you have to change your behavior and your actions. You have to do things differently. You have to improve and grow. If you don’t, introspection was useless. Changes and adjustments are the whole point of it.

Before we go to short daily reflections, let me once again emphasize the important difference between introspections and self-reflections. The changes and improvements after introspection can be a little bit pushed, you can discipline yourself to do things differently.

Meanwhile changes after self-reflection must come completely from within, they must feel completely natural. You can train yourself to perform a new behavior, but you become wiser after an epiphany that changes how you see the world in every one of your cells.

Short daily reflections – do them at the end of the day or whenever you feel like doing it

Now let’s move from introspections to short daily reflections.

Explained very simply, performing self-reflection means that you take from a couple of minutes to an hour or more to reflect on your goals, beliefs, behavioral patterns, negative and positive emotions, emotional knots and everything else that’s happening in your life.

The best way is to do it daily by writing a journal. Once you try it, you will see what kind of amazing breakthroughs self-reflection can lead you to. It’s better than any thriller movie once you discover your rich inner world.

There are two perfect moments for doing a short daily reflection. One is at the end of the day. At the end of the day, you can analyze and compare your plans to what actually happened in reality.

You can write down what you’ve learned, people’s unexpected reactions and interesting changes in your relationships, how productive you were and how well you completed the three most important tasks that you had given to yourself for that day, and so on.

The second trigger is when you sense an interesting thought, observation or insight or when negative emotions pile up. When you get extremely moody, when something upsets you, when things don’t go as planned, sit down and start analyzing.

Use the D.E.A.R. concept in those cases. Drop Everything And Reflect. Or sometimes Drop Everything And Read, you know, to get wiser and more educated.

A short daily reflection is slightly different from introspection. If you have to force yourself to make a certain decision after self-analysis, you hadn’t done it right. Self-analysis is about understanding yourself and noticing, not judging and forcing yourself into anything.

There are no “stop doings”, “start doings” and “continue doings”. It’s about changing the course of your life without any force, by better understanding who you are and what you want through analytical thinking.

Here are a few additional ideas for what you want to achieve with short daily reflections:

Analyze your day

Think about how your day went compared to – (1) your daily plan and (2) your ideal day. Analyze if you executed all the planned tasks, especially the three most important tasks for the day. Analyze what went wrong and what went right, what you’ve learned throughout the day, and write down the insights you gained.

You can also write down all the cool things that happened to you, so you never forget them. In the end, you can also add all the new things you’re grateful for.

Look for errors in your subjective reality map

You see the world through your subjective lenses. I call it the subjective reality map or the frame. You operate based on this mental frame, a set of schemas defined by your beliefs, values, way of thinking and many other factors. Subjective lenses are like unique code that runs in your brain. You’re only aware of a small part of it, most of it is subconscious.

This frame or the subjective reality map is not the truth, even if it most often feels like it. But it’s not the objective reality, it’s only how you interpret the reality with your limiting senses.

That’s important, because there are many errors in your subjective reality map. From wrong assumptions and cognitive biases to all the things you don’t even know you don’t know. With reflections, you should identify as many errors in your subjective reality map as possible.

Through analysis, you should notice that you were wrong about something (but first you have to put your ego aside) and then say to yourself: “Oh gosh, I was really wrong about that” or “I can’t believe I was lying to myself so hard” or “I really operated based on toxic behavioral patterns and beliefs, now I see it”.

With regular reflections, you should come closer to the objective truth and identify all the ways you’re lying to yourself or deceiving yourself.

Make subconscious conscious

By asking yourself tough questions and digging deep, you can find many emotional knots in yourself of which you weren’t aware before. These knots are tied by all the mistakes your parents made in your upbringing. The more toxic the family environment where you were raised was, the more tension there is. Not all family environments are toxic, but many of them are.

When you identify these emotional knots, they lose some of their power and some tension gets released. On top of that, you can become aware of why you are performing some self-sabotaging behaviors.

With regular reflections, I identified all kinds of different things, like why I was always late, why I was afraid to start my own business, why knowledge is so important to me, and much more.

Brainstorm ideas

The only way to keep your creative muscle strong is to regularly brainstorm ideas. If you do it every day, the creative part of your brain will be fit and strong.

It’s hard to brainstorm ideas every day, but you can still make it a part of your shutdown routine before you go to sleep, just after making a short reflection. In such a case you will never forget to train and stretch your creative muscles.

An idea that isn’t written down is an idea quickly forgotten.

Of course you won’t have only brilliant ideas with regular brainstorming, but writing down as many ideas as possible is the only way to get to brilliant ideas. If you write down 100 ideas every day, most of them will be absolutely crappy; but every now and then, a new brilliant idea will be born among all the crap. An idea that might lead you to a new course of life.

An idea to start a business, to help your company to grow, how to improve your relationships or how to experience life more fully, and so on. One such powerful idea can change your life forever.

Giving instructions to your subconscious

Your brain works 24/7. No rest, no holidays, just work. Even when you sleep and enjoy your dreams, that’s your brain at work. One good way to use your brain better is to keep the dreaming function alive during the day as well. It helps you be more creative, stay curious and an optimist.

Very similarly, but the other way around, it also makes sense to give instructions to your brain what to work on when you are asleep. There are many different types of instructions you can give to your brain. Revealing a part of your subconscious self to you in your dreams, finding a new solution for various problems, experiencing lucid dreaming, and so on.

As the last step of your daily reflection, just after your brainstorming session and before you go to sleep, give instructions to your brain what to work on while you’re sleeping. Just say to yourself (or to your brain) what you want your cognitive power to be used for during sleep. It will absolutely raise your productivity levels and lead you to many cool new insights.

Homework

Drop everything and go buy yourself a notebook

Richard Branson, one of the most successful entrepreneurs ever, always carries a simple inexpensive notebook and a pen with him. He writes down all cool ideas, meeting minutes, observations, and so on. You can do the same just for personal purposes.

A simple notebook that you always carry with you is the best way to do regular introspections and self-reflections. Because when an interesting thought appears, you can simply sit down and start writing. Whenever and wherever you are.

You can do it digitally, of course, but there is a special connection between paper, pen, your hand and your brain. So I suggest you go to a stationery shop and buy yourself a notebook you like, a pen that feels comfortable to write with, and start with regular daily reflections.

The mantra here is to just do it. As mentioned several times, it’s hard the first few times. I have people in my life I care deeply about and it took me years to convince them to try self-reflections. It took me three years to convince somebody I love to do their first self-reflection. Three years.

The first few times, you always feel blocked somehow. There’s nothing to write down. It feels weird. But you have to be patient with yourself.

Sooner or later your heart opens and your thoughts start to flow.

After performing one really deep self-reflection I guarantee you that it will become one of your favorite parts of the day and one of your favorite personal development tools; especially because you will forge a better connection with yourself and you will be able to easily enter your rich inner world that’s hidden deeply inside you. Have courage and start exploring your inner self.

Wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups

One day, I was hiking in the mountains with my girlfriend. On the way back, we got a little bit lost and I decided to put my survival skills to work. It didn’t take long for me to find the trail. I assumed that this was the trail we followed to get up to the summit. I was sure of it. I remembered. I saw the same trees. Of course the trail wasn’t the right one and we got even more lost. It took us hours to get back on the right track.

Almost a decade ago, I spent a few months in California. I saw that every elite university has an alumni club and graduates are its proud members. When I returned home, I decided to found an alumni club of my high school, since it was an elite one. I strongly assumed that the school will see the benefits, people will love it and everybody will be happy. The school blocked it, people ignored it and it became one of my failed projects.

A few years back, I decided to get fit. I never did any sports, and healthy living was something alien to me. On top of that I was super fat. It made complete logical sense to me that to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you only have to go to the gym a few times and mind your food a little bit. Maybe you eat a cup of protein powder from time to time. Now more than three years have passed and I still don’t look anywhere near like Schwarzenegger.

In all three stories, I was operating based on wrong assumptions. I was 100 % sure that I knew what I was doing, but I was wrong. Meeting reality wasn’t easy. And you have to meet it sooner or later in one way or another.

Life works in a way that in many cases, you have no other choice but to rely on your assumptions. But it helps a lot if you know that they are nothing but assumptions that need to be tested as quickly as possible. Because wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups.

Don’t doubt yourself, but absolutely doubt everything you assume.

Subjective objective reality

Two realities

We know two types of reality – the objective and subjective one. The objective reality isn’t accessible to any living being. The objective reality is how things really are in the world. We try to come as close to it as possible, especially with science.

Nevertheless, complete objective reality will probably still be inaccessible for a long period of time, because there are always things for which we don’t know that we don’t know them. Artificial intelligence may be the first one to come as close to objective reality as possible.

Here is an example of how complicated it may be to get to the bottom of objective truth:

People used to believe that you got ill because you became possessed by evil spirits.
Then doctors believed that illness was caused by an imbalance of the four humors.
Now we “know” that viruses and bacteria cause a big portion of diseases, but the question is if maybe there even exists something else that we don’t know yet and that causes real illness? In hundred years, will a pill be seen as a primitive solution, like a herbal potion mixture is seen today?
And many times, the placebo effect can help you get better, so it’s not only about drugs.

The second type of reality is your subjective reality. The subjective reality is your own interpretation of the world. It’s the lens through which you see the world, the frame in which you operate.

The lenses of how you interpret the world are created by your beliefs, values, past experiences, upbringing, environment and other similar factors, including your assumptions. These lenses are the primary source of how you make your decisions in life.

As we’ve learnt, there are many errors in your subjective reality. Your senses have a limited capacity for capturing information, your brains have a limited ability for processing information, there are many things you don’t know or lack experience, everyone has many cognitive distortions and there are numerous other sources of errors in the subjective reality map.

One big family of errors in the subjective map of reality are cognitive biases. It’s something you can’t avoid, but you can become aware that they’re part of your thinking. From stereotyping, conformation bias and anchoring to projection, transference and the halo effect. The list of cognitive biases is very long.

Ironically, many of the cognitive biases exist to support your survival. They serve to help you protect your self-image, to deal with optimization, to help you make complex decisions, judge probabilities and avoid danger.

They may often provide you with psychological safety and protection, but they also often help you hide behind lies or drive you to make stupid decisions.

The other big family of errors in the subjective map of reality are wrong assumptions. You assume something will happen, but it doesn’t. You assume you know something, but you don’t. You take action, but you get a different reaction than you expected.

That’s because the objective world is always different from your subjective representations and unique interpretations. Because of this gap, expecting anything leads to a very high probability of disappointment.

Wrong assumptions

The world of wrong assumptions

You make assumptions all the time, you can’t avoid this phenomenon. It’s the way we humans operate, it’s how our brains function. Therefore, it’s impossible not to make any assumptions. The problem arises when you believe that your assumptions are the truth. But they are not, they’re only assumptions.

It’s impossible not to make assumptions, but you can become aware that they are only assumptions, not the truth.

There are so many different types of assumptions you make. Let’s look at just a few of them.

Practical examples

You assume you communicated something clearly, but maybe you haven’t. You assume other people know what you want or that they have the same values as you. But they probably don’t. You make different assumptions about what might work and what might not. In reality, you never know.

You make assumptions about what other people think and what will they probably do. You even make assumptions about what other people think of you. You make assumptions about which ideas will work and which ones won’t, how it would be like to live in another country and so on, you make assumptions practically about everything.

The key question is: if you can’t avoid making assumptions, what can you do about it? First of all, as we said, don’t mistake assumptions for the truth.

Be aware that you are making nothing but assumptions. Then put assumptions to the test as soon as possible. Do a series of actions and experiments that will get you closer to the objective truth.

Put your assumptions to the test

The best cure for those errors in your subjective map of reality that you make because you assume things is to put assumptions to the test. You conduct a series of small actions and experiments that slowly lead you to a better understanding of the objective reality.

You will never completely reach the objective truth, but you don’t have to. All you need is a superior understanding and key insights on which you can set your actions.

There are many ways how you can do that. Before we dive into different approaches to testing assumptions, or hypotheses to sound more scientific, you must make sure that you become aware of the assumptions you’re making. You do that in two simple steps:

You say to yourself: I am only making an assumption, I don’t know the truth.
Then you ask yourself: how can I validate or reject my assumptions, how can I put them to the test?

After becoming aware of the assumptions you’re making, there are several ways how you can test them. Here are a few most common approaches:

Ask questions and get educated
Get out and gain experience
Search before you execute
Actionable metrics
Random experiences
Research techniques

Ask questions and get educated

The first thing you can do to put certain types of assumptions to the test is to ask questions. Don’t be shy, just ask.

You assume s/he doesn’t feel the way you feel? Ask. You assume a person doesn’t like you? Ask if that’s true and why. You don’t understand something? Ask. When you’re in a dilemma and you can ask a person to give a clarification, do it, don’t hesitate.

A quick important note, when you ask people about clarifications make sure you also observe their behavior, not only listen to what they have to say. What people do is often more important than what they say. Because everyone lives in their own subjective reality, where we don’t even know the truth about ourselves.

The second thing you can do is to get educated. Read books on the topic. Talk to people who have already achieved what you want to achieve. Subscribe to an online course. Model other people.

Knowledge is not as valuable as real-life experience, but it absolutely makes sense to get very well-educated first and then you immediately apply knowledge to practice.

There are always “aha” moments when you start educating yourself. You say to yourself many times, oh I didn’t know that is so, I imagined it (assumed) a lot differently. Ask questions, get educated, doubt every statement; but believe in yourself.

Go out and gain first-hand experience

First-hand experience acquired by small carefully set experiments is definitely a very good way to test the majority of assumptions. There is no better teacher than reality.

Meeting reality can be harsh, but it really enables you to understand the world and yourself better. That’s why you have to do small manageable experiments. In other words, you have to be constantly in the learning, not the panic zone.

There is a saying that you make good decisions based on experience and you gain experience based on bad decisions. That saying exposes very well how gaining real-life experience works. You’re always wrong before you’re right. You take a small step, you fail, you learn, you stand up again and then you continue in a new direction; you go from failure to failure until you succeed.

You assume you have a good business idea? Build a landing page and send some traffic to it. It costs you a weekend of work and a few hundred dollars. You assume you don’t like to travel? Try it. You assume you’re a bad lecturer? Give it a shot. Today, you can luckily test almost everything, quickly and inexpensively.

Experiments in life

The search mode

The search mode is nothing but a systematical series of experiments for finding your perfect fit in a specific area of life. You consciously decide that you will search for a thing that works for you and you don’t stop until you find it.

In the search mode, you shouldn’t have any expectations, you shouldn’t make any commitments and you shouldn’t do any hard work. Expectations lead to disappointments and before you understand something, your expectations are definitely completely wrong. In the search phase, you just try, experiment, observe, reflect and learn about yourself and the world.

The most important thing in this phase is to have no fixed ideas and no expectations at all. Your only job is to test the assumptions you’ve written down, correct them, and try different things in order to find out what suits you best.

This phase is only about learning, nothing else. No goals. Just learning and playing. After every experiment you conduct, you decide whether to persevere or pivot.

If you want to be in the search mode, you have to meet the following criteria:

You consciously decide that you will enter the search mode
You write down what kind of experiments you will make
You set “search mode” metrics and define very well how you will measure your progress
Every experiment needs to be validated or rejected based on the set metrics
You write down what you’ve learnt after every experiment
You make a decision whether you will pivot or preserve
Everything needs to be written down, otherwise you can quickly forget what you’ve learnt

Use actionable metrics

Science conducts a carefully orchestrated set of experiments to better understand how the world works. In order for the experiments to be as accurate as possible, there are many different rules to follow – deduction, induction, hypotheses, variables, control groups etc.

In most cases, some kind of metrics are involved – you have to measure to either validate or reject your assumptions.

That’s why metrics go hand in hand with experiments. Metrics, at the end of the day, are the best indicator of how accurate your assumptions are. Thus you have to base most of your agency and learning on life metrics.

You have to measure when you’re right and when you’re wrong. You have to measure when you’re progressing and when you’re lying to yourself with the fake feeling of progress.

There are many ways how you can measure things. From your physical responses and emotions, to the feedback you get from your environment and the monetary value you create.

So first become aware when you’re making assumptions, then brainstorm what would be the most appropriate experiment to put assumptions to the test and in the end, have a set of metrics that will guide you into the right direction.

Examples of actionable metrics in a personal life:

Health	Money
Exercise frequency Potential progress of illness Managing your body weak points Regular blood test Body composition (% of fat, muscle size) Aerobic endurance (run a mile, VO2 max) Muscular endurance (push-up test, plank test) Muscular strength (one-rep max) Flexibility (yoga poses)	Personal income statement Earned income Passive income Portfolio income Expenses Taxes Monthly plus/minus Net-worth Assets Doodads Liabilities (Debt)
Career	Relationships
Your company position (employment contract vs. organizational chart) Public influence (number of interviews, public ratings) Social media influence (Klout score) Work enjoyment (from 1 to 10) Professional connections Your legacy (number of positive ideas that influenced local/global society)	Number of close friends you have Time spent with the people you love How much you do for your partner (massage, dinner, etc.) How much you get out of a relationship (giving and receiving must be in balance) How often you say I love you How often you give a compliment to your partner How often you make love
Competences	Mind/Emotions
Number of books you read Number of seminars you visit Domain knowledge you possess Number of skills you master Number of tech skills Number of creative ideas you have Your IQ Your EQ	How well you are able to control your mind (your maximum meditating time) Your daily Happiness index Number of negative thoughts daily (with use of emotional accounting) Dominating cognitive distortions
Number of new things you tried in life Number of breathtaking experiences you have encountered etc. Other metrics as part of your life strategy (countries you traveled to, number of languages you speak etc.)

How you should measure your success in life? Compare…

Your current metrics on different life areas
Your past metrics on different life areas (past month, year etc.)
Don’t compare yourself to others too much (only healthy competition is okay I guess)

Random experiences

From time to time, it makes sense to go for a random experience, especially for things where you assume you’ve found the fit that work best for you. Because sometimes a completely new experience opens a whole new world to you, a world you didn’t know even existed.

What you think you like and what you actually like are two different things. That’s why it always makes sense to go for a rich life experience and try new things when you get the opportunity to do so.

An example would be considering your favorite dish. You’ve tried many different foods in the past and now you know that you like pasta Bolognese the most. Then you travel to a completely new place and they have your favorite dish on the menu and a dish you’ve never eaten before, but it’s their bestseller.

In the same way, I encourage you to try different sports, investments, get to know different cultures, life settings, read things you never read before, try new hobbies, and so on. Sometimes do it strategically by employing the search mode, other times do it when the opportunity pops up, and sometimes just go proactively for a random experience.

You will never know until you try and you will never know if you always stick to the same things.

Research techniques

For some of your assumptions, especially in business, you may need a professional scientific approach to testing assumptions and employing different research techniques like interviews, surveys, split testing, card sorting, contextual inquiry, mental models, different types of analysis and many other similar research techniques.

Scientists use these techniques in their daily work to better understand the world, and there is no reason why you wouldn’t use them in your personal life while keeping the same goal in mind.

You can use these techniques to test your (business) ideas, assess different investment opportunities, when you analyze your environment and its paradigms, when you study people’s behavior and in many other cases. Keep your mind open and use different tools at your disposal when an assumption needs to be tested.

Tech changes

Life changes and so testing assumptions never ends

No matter how experienced you get, there are always errors in your subjective interpretation of reality. The fast-changing world contributes to that even more. Even if you could reach objective reality in a certain moment, an error would occur the next second. Because the world is constantly changing. And it’s changing faster and faster.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

That’s why you constantly need to keep testing your assumptions. You have to see life as a playground, where you have to test what works and what doesn’t. Based on your findings, you have to constantly adjust your life strategy and actions.

That’s why the search mode is so important. That’s why regular reflections are mandatory. That’s why you have to adjust your course of action and how you will get to your goal on a bi-weekly basis, if not even more frequently. That’s how you stay lean and agile.

Don’t just assume. Experiment and validate. Only then take action.

Optimize your life for productivity and flexibility
For decades, individuals and organizations aimed to optimize their agency for the highest productivity levels possible. Superior organization and disruptive innovation were the front-runners of any success. And it all makes sense.

Both concepts greatly contribute to being different, better, faster, more efficient, or can lead to adding more value, solving problems that were not yet solved or solving them better, and so on. Empires were built on superior organization, disruptive innovation and enterprising.

Nevertheless, the contemporary environment is becoming so complex, turbulent and fast-changing that a third element needs to be added to the superior organization and disruptive innovation of superior entities.

Startup world, as the part of the business world that’s most exposed to the unstable environment, is already adding this new third element – with agile and lean techniques. The sooner you add this third element to your life or the organization you’re running, the better off you’ll be.

I’m talking about flexibility of course, and in this article I will focus on how to develop and keep flexibility in personal life as the ultimate competitive advantage. If you aren’t flexible by nature, this article is a must read. Think about what happened to the dinosaurs only because they weren’t flexible enough.

What does flexibility even mean?

If we want to understand what being flexible really means, let’s first ask ourselves how not being flexible looks like, let’s analyze the opposite. In fact, it’s really easy to notice when you or anybody else is inflexible.

You’re usually doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results, but there are none. So you whine, bitch and complain, but don’t do the only thing that would really help – change your actions. Being inflexible means that you stubbornly persist at something that doesn’t work at all.

Staying flexible on the other hand means nothing but easily being able to dis-invest your resources (ego, beliefs, values, time, energy and money) from one thing and start investing into another that has bigger potential or works better. Being flexible means you have no problem to stop doing one thing, and start doing another.

Being flexible signifies the ability to stop doing an activity that doesn’t work (anymore) and finding a new better way to do something or a completely new opportunity or path that leads to the same goal.

“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water, my friend.” Bruce Lee

Let’s look at some practical examples. If you’re a flexible person you have no problem (an example):
- Changing from one diet that doesn’t work anymore to a new one (from vegan to paleo)
- Doing a completely different type of exercise after you injure yourself (from weightlifting to yoga)
- Reprogramming yourself to have a more positive approach towards life (going from constantly frowning to constantly smiling)
- Learning how to respond more wisely in tough situations (responding calmly instead of losing your temper)
- Developing a new set of competences and your talents (the ones that are currently in a much higher demand compared to what your job is at the moment)
- Switching to beliefs that are more appropriate in contemporary times (from acting out of dominance to acting out of prestige)
- Changing a job, the place where you live or the team of people you work with
- Learning a new language or adjusting to cultural differences if you change your environment
- Accepting weather as it is and not complaining about it
- Using new devices and technology
- And so on
I’m very inflexible by nature, so I have to work hard on keeping my mind flexible. That’s why I can also write about it, because I know the difference in the approach and the quality of life if you can keep things flexible or not.

Here’s the story of the last time in my life when I had to remind myself to stay flexible. I spent my summer vacation in Sri Lanka. I had a great time there with my girlfriend, but only after I decided to stay flexible. I couldn’t follow my carb-cycling and intermittent fasting there.

I had the goal that I will read at least three books during my holiday, but I read none, since there were so many other things to do and see. I had a plan to write a few article drafts and I wrote zero, since I didn’t have any energy left after travelling for the whole day.

Bitching, complaining and punishing myself because I wasn’t able to follow my goals there could have easily destroyed my holidays. But only if I stayed inflexible, like many times before.

This time, I decided to stay fully flexible and to maximize other things on my vision list and other opportunities presented by the new temporary environment – I enjoyed the local food and tasted completely new dishes. I embraced and learned about the new culture. I met many interesting new people. I did many exciting activities like safari, diving with sharks, rock climbing, going on a pilgrimage, and so on.

I decided to enjoy my vacation, even if I didn’t read a single page, write a single word, and even if I gained a pound or two and ate too many carbs. That’s what I did and I had a phenomenal time. The day after I got home, I started to following my original commitments again.

It’s a very simple and plastic example, but that’s the way of how you should approach to life in general – in the most flexible way possible. And if you’re a flexible person by nature that may seem funny to you, but yes, if you’re inflexible, rigid, then you have almost zero capacity to adjust to new circumstances. That’s why you go extinct.

I had to completely adjust my goals while travelling.

Now let’s look at a few approaches that will help you stay flexible.

Have many options and alternative paths

If you want to stay flexible, you need many options and alternative paths. Only if you have many alternatives can you switch to following new goals or can easily decide to either persevere or pivot when you encounter a roadblock on the path towards your goal.

Having many options is what brings real safety today, having many options is what keeps you away from being stuck in life. But you must be strong enough to need get burdened by the tyranny of choice.

There are a few general ways of keeping many options in your personal life:
- Be a person of value. Develop competences that have a high demand and low supply. Acquire people skills and know how to provide value in key relationships. Maximize your sexual market value and other types of values. The better version of yourself you become, more options you will have.
- Be innovative and curious. If you’re interested in many things, if you’re comfortable with many different alternatives of how to potentially design your life, if you’re always prepared to innovate your way out of hard situations, there is always a step you can take forward, there is always a way to maximize your quality of life, based on factors that you control and the ones you don’t. Always stay curious, always stay hungry, always stay foolish.
- Avoid the onetis mentality. The number one killer of flexibility is the onetis mentality. The onetis mentality means being obsessed with one single thing – one girl or boy, one job, one car, one investment etc. If there is something that represents all to you and everything else is nothing, it’s only a question of time when you will be miserable and stuck.
In practice, that means you have many items on your vision list and you prioritize them based on your current needs and desires, up-to-date paradigms in your environment, new opportunities you’re exposed to, and so on. You constantly adjust your life strategy based on the feedback you’re getting from the environment.

But be careful, with many choices you can easily catch yourself into the trap of the tyranny of choice. You can get overwhelmed by all the possible options and encounter decision fatigue.

For that to not happen, you have to combine both concepts, keep alternative paths open, but simplify your life in current settings to the point that you aren’t hindered by constantly thinking about the other options you have.

In practice, that means that you know what plan B, C … Z could be, but you don’t overthink it and you act as if they don’t exist at all while you’re following your plan A. When you get stuck, you decide to either persevere or pivot.

When to persist and when to move on is often one of the hardest decisions you have to make. That’s why being flexible isn’t easy.

Don’t have any fixed ideas

If you want to stay flexible, you shouldn’t have any fixed ideas about how things should be, how they will happen and what will be the exact path that will lead you towards your goal.

You should definitely have a life vision, strong mission, superior strategy, but you must be prepared to adjust them at any second based on the instant feedback you get – from yourself (body, mind, emotions, spirit) or your environment (trends, relationships etc.).

Make a small step forward, analyze the feedback and adjust immediately.

Things never go as planned. You set your strategy based on many untested assumptions. The environment is changing so fast, and people are completely unpredictable.So having fixed ideas about how something will happen and when it should happen is nothing but a recipe for misery. Remember, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face by reality.

No matter if you want to get fit, rich or married, accept the following very basic facts of planning and going after your goals:
1. You will never get to your goal in exactly the same way as you think you will
2. There will always be an unexpected problems on the path towards your goal
3. Everything will take much longer than expected
4. The cost for everything is usually much higher than planned (in effort, money or any other resource)
5. Your ego will get hurt when you realize how many wrong assumptions you had, but that’s how you learn
If you learn to accept these simple yet harsh facts of life, you will save yourself many grey hairs. You aren’t the only one who has to deal with that kind of harsh reality, everybody does.

Nevertheless, the ones who learn to play the cards of life better under these circumstances are the ones who thrive, especially because they’re staying flexible and aren’t overly optimistic.

Keep your mind agile

It’s very beneficial to have no fixed ideas, but it’s also quite hard to accomplish. There are many exercises that can help you keep your mind flexible. Here are a few of them:
- Ask yourself how your life would look like if you believed the opposite, or what would be the result if you would do the opposite? Practice defending the opposite view than you have.
- Always try new things. Learn new skills, use new routes on your commute home, constantly meet new people, travel, be open to new life experiences.
- Daily brainstorm new ideas, at least 50 of them. Don’t be critical at all when you brainstorm, just make sure you list as many ideas as possible. Keep your mind open.
- Practice cognitive reframing, meaning that you put the same situation into a different context and you try to find the context that works best for you to move forward.
- Change your environment to encourage new thoughts. You can go for a walk or a run. You can get a cup of coffee or go work in a coffee shop. Many times, changing the environment leads to new creative thoughts.
- Imagine life being just a dream, where you can be easily flexible.
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” ― Albert Einstein

Don’t have a problem with being wrong

Your strategy and all of your actions are based more or less on your assumptions; and many of your assumptions are wrong. Now read this carefully: wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups.

That’s why you’re always wrong before you are right; or in other words, you can make good decisions solely based on real-life experience, but you gain real-life experience based on bad decisions.

So don’t mind being wrong. Expect to be wrong. Expect to fail. Be able to fail and move on to the next experiment in a second. That’s real flexibility. I tried x, it doesn’t work, so let’s try y. And you keep trying until you find one variation that works.

That’s also how nature operates. Nature doesn’t make a better version of an organism with every offspring. Nature encourages as many different variations as possible and then lets the best variations survive and thrive.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

Having no problem failing, being wrong or changing their mind is an important characteristic of many successful people. It’s not easy to develop such a characteristic, but it brings you an enormous competitive advantage.

It’s a personality characteristic that helped Tomas Edison go through 10,000 failed experiments and persist until he found a way for a lightbulb to work. Steve Jobs had the same mentality, here is a segment from an interview with him that emphasizes exactly that:

I’m one of this people that… I don’t really care about being right. I just care about success. You will find lots of people who will tell you I had a very strong opinion and they presented evidence to the contrary and five minutes later I completely changed my mind.

Because I’m like that. I don’t mind being wrong. And I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t really matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing. Steve Jobs

Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Don’t put your ego in front of learning something new. Don’t put your ego in front of success. Don’t be too ego invested in anything. Instead stay flexible and look for solutions that work and bring success into your life and make you happy.

Search before you execute

The best way to stay flexible is to consciously decide to put yourself in the search mode before you really commit to anything. You consciously decide to be in a phase where you will fail, test your assumptions and learn.

You decide with full awareness that you won’t get yourself ego invested or committed, but just put your assumptions to the test.

So in the search mode, you shouldn’t have any expectations, you shouldn’t make any commitments and you shouldn’t do any hard work. In the search phase, you just try, experiment, observe, reflect and learn about yourself and the world.

The most important thing in this phase is to have no fixed ideas and no expectations at all. The key thing is to not get ego invested too much. Commitments lead to heavy energy investments, and you shouldn’t be investing before you know what you’re truly investing into and whether the investment really fits your character.

Hard work should always also be smart work, but you can’t work smartly if you don’t have the right map and coordinates.

Your only job in the search mode is to test the assumptions you wrote down, correct them, and try different things in order to find out what suits you best – your personal fit. This phase is only for learning about yourself and the world. N

o goals. No measurement of progress. Just learning and playing. And staying 100 % flexible. Because the more you invest yourself, the more inflexible you become.

The sunk costs mentality makes you inflexible

Sunk costs are all the costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. The sunk costs fallacy encourages loss aversion, meaning that you have an irrational tendency to follow through with an activity even if it’s not meeting your expectations, only because you’ve already invested some resources into it.

To simplify, when you start investing into something, you find that you have a strong tendency to keep going, even if the investment doesn’t make rational sense.

The sunk costs fallacy makes you inflexible. The sunk costs fallacy encourages you to make even more bad decisions. That’s why you have to be aware of this cognitive bias very well and manage it properly. The less you’re influenced by the sunk cost fallacy, the more flexible you can stay.

Let’s look at a few examples of when the sunk costs make you very inflexible:
- You bought a ticket to see a movie in cinema, but now the movie is boring. What do you do?
- You ordered and paid for too much food, should you eat it or not, even if you aren’t hungry?
- You bought an expensive MOOC that you find useless and there is no money-back guarantee. Should you watch it until the end or not?
- You already invested so much into a relationship, so does it even make sense to switch to a new relationship and start everything from scratch?
- You already invested x EUR into your project, house or anything else, and now much more money is needed, but if you already invested so much, why not invest a little more?
What is the best way to turn this into an advantage?

On your way toward your goals, you will encounter small roadblocks as well as complete dead-ends. You can usually go around the small roadblocks with small adjustments.

Dead-ends, on the other hand, require bigger changes in strategy and action plan. Big obstacles usually make you emotionally upset and thus that more inflexible.

When you meet greater obstacles on your way, you can easily start feeling sorry for yourself and put yourself in a position of a victim, thinking how everybody is against you. Of course that doesn’t bring you any good, only additional negative energy and delays in achieving the finish line.

Every time you receive a setback, immediately ask yourself how you can turn this into your advantage.

Therefore, there is one question that can help you a lot in staying flexible in your thinking when you encounter big problems. It’s a simple question based on optimal thinking – what’s the best way to turn this situation to my advantage?

There is always a way how you can do that, if you’re flexible. You can always reframe it, regroup your resources, refocus, adjust, pivot or change settings in any other way. Just don’t get stuck in your mind.

Optimize your life for flexibility in every possible way

Staying flexible will help you not get stuck in difficult life situations and find a way towards your life vision and goals no matter how different the path is from your initial plan.

In addition to that, flexibility will save you many gray hairs and emotional pain. But remember, if you aren’t flexible by nature, you have to constantly practice it.

At first, being flexible may feel alien to you, like you’re betraying your values, beliefs and principles, but it’s not about that – it’s about finding a way that works.

You definitely have to make sure that when you’re looking for alternative paths, you keep your moral standards and integrity high. Nevertheless, you’re looking for long-term wins. But there is no sense in persisting at things that don’t work, only because you already invested so much in them or because you’re simply stubborn. Be flexible instead.

It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. – Megginson’s interpretation of the central idea outlined in Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”
Here are a few other ideas how you can make sure to keep your life as flexible as possible:

Drop any 5-year plans about anything

List all potential pivots you can do if you encounter a big obstacle

Be tolerant and open-minded so you can work or be friends with all kinds of different people

Have no problem moving to a country or a town with more opportunities if necessary

Be a minimalist and own as little as possible so that you are mobile and can easily move around

Don’t be overly attached to anything, because nothing lasts forever

Rent or share, don’t own things

Keep your digital life and work in the cloud

Manage your energy, not your time

Keep your body flexible with stretching, much like you have to keep your mind flexible
In the future, flexibility will be an even more important personality characteristic than it already is today. In a complex, volatile and unpredictable environment, only the most flexible will survive.

Luckily, flexibility is nothing but a skill you can learn. Once you learn to stay flexible, nothing can stop you in life, because you always find the next smart move to make. Be super organized, constantly innovate and stay flexible.
Anti-Kaizen
You can find a lot of information about Kaizen, the basic Kaizen rules as well as more specialized Kaizen rules for teams on this blog. Now let’s look at the same topic from a slightly different perspective. Let’s talk about the so-called Anti-Kaizen. It’s a toxic mindset and includes all the limited beliefs that prevent any kind of improvement and progress.

Before we go to Anti-Kaizen, make sure you remember all the Kaizen rules. The best thing you can do is to download and print the rules and stick them to a visible place in your home or your office. When stuck, look at the list, read the rules, and you will refocus your brain on the path towards the solution, and hopefully stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s the best way to avoid any kind of Anti-Kaizen behaviour.

You can download the documents here:

[sociallocker]
- Kaizen Rules: Your Personal Mindset for constant improvement (PDF)
- Rules of Kaizen for teams: The mindset teams should have (PDF)
- Anti-Kaizen: The mindset that prevents any progress in life (PDF)
[/sociallocker]

Now let’s go to the most frequent Anti-Kaizen beliefs.

Negative beliefs that prevent any improvements

There are 13 quite frequent beliefs and toxic behaviors that prevent any kind of progress and improvement. You’ll find that kind of behavior in many toxic and unproductive environments, where the status quo is the only constant; and most people in an organization like that are nothing but zombies. Well, even the status quo is only a mirage, because if you aren’t going forwards, you’re going backwards. There is no status quo in the long run.

Here they are, Anti-Kaizen beliefs and situations:
1. Lying to yourself
2. Victim mindset and being stuck in an emotional cage
3. “There’s no need for improvement” mindset
4. Lack of time
5. Firefighting and enjoying adrenalin rushes and dramas
6. Lack of confidence in self and others and lack of courage
7. You want to change others, not yourself
8. Getting in trouble for failing or pointing out the problems
9. Not following up on ideas
10. Giving up too quickly
11. Solving problems with additional administration
12. Hoping that others will do it for you and waiting for better times
13. Jumping to solutions too quickly
Lying to yourself

If you lie to yourself about where you are, there is no need for improvement. Many times, we like to picture ourselves or even the world as a whole in a much more beautiful scenario than it actually is (or, in some cases, much worse than it is, if the necessary improvement is to relax, for example). But in general, people are very indulgent towards themselves, lying where they really stand, and great critics towards others.
- You can lie to yourself that you live healthy just because you regularly use olive oil
- You can easily lie to yourself by only looking rich and not really being rich
- You can lie to yourself about how productive you are every day, but in reality only work a few hours on the things that matter most
- You can lie to yourself that your job is pretty okay, but in reality you suffer a lot and so on
If you want to make any improvements in your life or in any organization, you first have to know where you are. And be extremely honest about it. Today, that’s quite simple with all the data available. Never lie to yourself. Always be honest and seek the truth. Know where you are and where you want to go. Then start improving yourself or an organization step by step. For example, don’t only look rich, actually be rich.

Victim mindset and being stuck in an emotional cage

The victim mindset is one of the most common reasons why people get stuck and never start improving themselves, their life situation and the environment around them. It’s very easy to blame others, from your parents to the government, market trends, life in general, and so on. And many times, you have every right to do so.

But it doesn’t help anyone. Whining, bitching, complaining and feeling sorry for yourself never bring results, improvements or more happiness, only more sorrow. You only live once and if being stuck in an emotional cage is preventing you from improving and growing, start dealing with your past, your emotions and all the cognitive distortions. It’s the best option you have, no matter how difficult your past was.

There is always a move you can make in your life towards a better position. After you stop being a victim and take full responsibility for your future, you will easily find a move you can make. Don’t be a victim, take control over your life once and for all, and start improving. If you focus on problems, you’ll only get more problems in life, and if you focus on solutions, positive things will start happening to you.

“There is no need for improvement” mindset

You can have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. If you have a fixed mindset, you assume things are as they are and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you believe that there’s no need or no room for improvement, you won’t improve. Why would you?

Nevertheless, studies show that a growth mindset is one of the top personality traits of successful people. The most successful people constantly improve, even when they’re on top; because there is no top. In addition to that, the organizations that constantly learn and improve are the ones that are winning in business.

The conclusion is therefore pretty simple. If you want to be successful in life, you need to grow, you need to evolve and you need to constantly improve. It’s one of the reasons why you’re here on this planet.

“I/We have always done it like that” is the most evil sentence ever.

Lack of time

Many times, people work so hard that they don’t even take the time to look around and analyze if they’re digging the right hole. Until it’s too late. A lack of time should never be an excuse for not brainstorming and implementing improvements. You always have to work smart as well.

Therefore, the AgileLeanLife Productivity Framework has three levels of planning – the strategic, tactical and operational level. You have to see the woods and you have to see all the trees. You must always take enough time to plan and make improvements in where you go and how you do things on all three levels.

There is a very simple test that shows your speed of improvement. How many things are you doing differently now than you did six months ago? If the answer is none and you’re only working hard the same way you did half a year ago, because you don’t have the time to improve your working methods, it’s time to change something.

If necessary, make sure that your first improvement is that you start dealing with improvements at all.

Firefighting and enjoying adrenalin rushes and dramas

People who are prone to deadline adrenaline rushes and dramas in relationships rarely take the time to stop and analyze how to improve. The frequent reason for that is the existence of an internal conflict. Improvements take away the drama, unproductive adrenaline rushes and other toxic behaviors. And you simply can’t focus on improvements if you need to feed your emotional monsters.

An important part of improving yourself is to become happier and more satisfied, productive, relaxed etc. Firefighting and playing a drama queen means going in the opposite direction. The solution is simple. If there is any kind of drama, anxiety and constantly chasing deadlines in your personal or company culture, it’s time to start improving fast.

Not to be too extreme, everyone finds themselves in such a situation from time to time, but if it’s a part of the culture or how a person operates and it happens more often than not, then that is big Anti-Kaizen behavior.

Lack of confidence in self and others and lack of courage

As I mentioned many times, it’s not easy to implement new changes, even if they are positive ones. We are all afraid of change on the biological level. Nevertheless, you simply need the courage to face your fears and start improving. The first step is to have more confidence in self and others.

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. In the same way, doubt kills more improvements than failure ever will. Skepticism, cynicism, excessive sarcasm, drama, negativity, indecisiveness etc., they all kill creativity and potential for improvements. Believe in yourself and believe in people around you. There is nothing to doubt about, to be honest. Your growth and personal improvements (or the improvements of family or company culture) are the best possible investments.

To improve or not to improve?

You want to change others, not yourself

As cliché as it sounds, change always begins with you. First you have to understand (system, process, environment, relationships, history etc.), then you have to ignite the spark in yourself with a great vision and a powerful mission and only then change and adjust yourself to the right vibration in coherence with the system to start influencing other people and implementing change.

Implementing change is always a carefully and surgically orchestrated process that starts with changing yourself and adjusting your actions to face the least resistance from environmental forces.

Why do you have to change yourself first? Well, it’s easy to blame others. It’s easy to see flaws. It’s much harder to come up with good solutions. It’s even harder to analyze the system and pull the right moves to implement a change step by step in a very non-invasive way. Everyone wants to change the environment, shape it more to their liking, but nobody wants to change themselves first. But that’s the only place where the change really begins.

Before you can start implementing change, you have to find common ground with the environment and then build on it. To find the common ground, you have to first change yourself.

Getting in trouble for failing or pointing out the problems

If you judge others when they fail or make a mistake, you’re doing a very Anti-Kaizen thing. But there’s a catch. Usually people never openly criticize failure, of course. They do it with gossip, silence, sarcasm, mockery or some other type of intolerant emotional behavior. That kind of behavior means people get in trouble for failing and making mistakes.

A whole different thing is if you show curiosity for why something didn’t work, if you’re interested in what has been learnt and in the new ideas for how improvements could be made. Because Kaizen people have to feel emotionally secure and not be afraid to fail and make mistakes. You show people that it’s okay to fail with words and emotions.

Make sure people don’t get in trouble if they show you the problems or if they fail when trying something new. It means they care and that they have the willpower and probably many good additional ideas for what to try.

If you get in trouble for failing or showing the problems, explain to your boss what the Kaizen philosophy is and how it can help the organization. Try to find a way for moving the system towards the philosophy of constant improvement. But if it’s not worth your energy, if you don’t care enough, find a different system that will appreciate your ideas and suggestions, and vice-versa, a system where you will really care and have the power to test and implement new ideas.

Not following up on ideas

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Testing ideas and executing the best ones is pure gold. For implementing change, you simply have to be a doer, not only a talker. You must have a culture of immediate implementation and execution. Not following up on ideas is one of the most Anti-Kaizen things you can do besides having a victim mindset.

There are several reasons why there’s usually no follow up on ideas. Either the ideas are too complex or completely unreachable, or there are strong emotional issues that block the implementation. Going back to basic Kaizen rules and having an honest conversation is the best cure for a situation like that.

Giving up too quickly

Implementing change is no easy task. It not only takes motivation and creativity, but also a lot of patience and a long-term view. Changing the culture of an organization can take years, for example. In reality, implementing change is not very different from going on a diet. You have to work hard and make sacrifices now, for benefits that are far far away; while eating sweets gives you instant gratification and the punishment in excessive fat and bad health seems far away. That’s why it’s so hard to go on a diet.

The reason why it’s so hard to implement any change is the same. Because you have to put in the effort now for results and benefits you will enjoy sometime in the future. But if you stay in the status quo, you don’t have to put in any effort and the punishment comes sometime in the far-away future.

With time, the hard road becomes easy and the easy road becomes hard. So you must have a long-term view for every change you plan to implement. Never give up too quickly. Even when you lose motivation, remember that tomorrow is a new day to start over. And don’t overestimate what you can achieve in a few months and don’t underestimate what you can achieve in a few years.

Solving problems with additional administration

Many times, when we identify the root problem, additional administration in the process seems like the right solution; but in reality, it rarely is. If you take that kind of an approach, you can soon find yourself drowning in paperwork and everything becomes counterproductive. Never let additional administration be your best solution, you can always find better solutions than additional paperwork.

Let’s get back to a practical example of the 5 Whys technique and how it can help you focus on the process that was presented in the Kaizen rules for teams. It’s very simple: you describe the problem and start asking yourself “why”.
- The vehicle will not start. (the problem)
- Why? The battery is dead. (first why)
- Why? The alternator is not functioning. (second why)
- Why? The alternator belt has broken. (third why)
- Why? – The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (fourth why)
- Why? – The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, the root cause)
After the last “why” and discovering core problem, one of your first solution may be, let’s add a checklist or some other form of paper to the process. Or an engineer should sign dozens of forms on what s(he) has done, and so on. Many times, our initial ideas include additional bureaucracy, who knows why. But that’s rarely the right solution.

Hoping that others will do it for you or waiting for better times

An interesting thing can happen. When markets go up, they can solve many problems so you don’t have to improve at all. Or sometimes you get a rock star in your team who solves many of your problems and, again, you don’t have to improve. Sometimes a few problems die on their own. It can happen, problems can be magically solved without you making any improvements.

But hoping that others will implement changes and improvements instead of you, or waiting for better times that will take care of everything makes no sense at all. Because sooner or later, new challenges will come and afterwards, you may be in an even worse position. The main idea of improvements is that you become better and more competent and capable. You want to develop abilities to tackle problems better, provide more value, and so on. Inner assets or competence, if you want, are one of the most powerful securities you can have in life.

It’s also one of the reasons why you’re here on this planet. You don’t want to be deprived of the feeling of satisfaction when you win a battle with yourself and change to a better version of you. The feeling is awesome.

Jumping to solutions too quickly

Jumping to conclusions without any real proof is one of the cognitive distortions that happens to people very often. Jumping to solutions too quickly, without any testing, experimenting and measuring, is what often prevents real change to the better. It’s not that hard to come up with a solution or ideas for what to do. But it’s usually quite hard to come up with a solution that works and can be realistically implemented with sustainable effects.

You need a systematic and scientific approach to implementing improvements. You need to measure your progress. You need to use real data, not just your hunches and intuition. Just coming up quickly with a solution and thinking that you’ve done your job is definitely an Anti-Kaizen approach; after all, you’re breaking rule number one of not lying to yourself.

You must not wait for the perfect timing or the perfect solution when implementing improvements, but on the other hand, acting without thinking is damaging as well.

The key takeaway

The roots of Anti-Kaizen behavior lie in either the wrong mindset or toxic emotional behavior. Therefore, you have to deal with both of them – mindset and emotions. Rationally, you have to see constant improvement as the common sense you simply have to follow in order to achieve your peak performance. That’s usually the easy part of the equation.

The emotional part is much harder. But there is no other way than to work on more self-confidence, facing your fears with courage and dealing with laziness and procrastination or whatever holds you back from becoming the best version of yourself. Sometimes playing it safe is no different from being locked in a safe. Upgrade your mindset, face your fears and start improving yourself.

Kaizen rules!
The happiness index and the happiness chart
If your body gets hurt, you feel physical pain. One of the roles of physical pain is to tell you what not to do, for example to not hit your head against the wall over and over again or play with fire. Besides having many other functions, emotions can also play a pretty similar role. They can tell you whether you’re on the right path, if you’re following your life vision and what your whys are (even if your emotions are repressed and you aren’t even aware of them) or if you’re going against yourself, marching in the wrong direction and being in the wrong environment with the wrong people.

The compass is simple. A longer period of positive emotions shows that you’re going in the right direction, while negative emotions (anger, dissatisfaction, sadness…) warn you that you aren’t on the right path; negative feelings could be a signpost that you aren’t on the path that’s meant for you. If you are accompanied by constant negative emotions, it means that your soul is suffering.

Just as a reminder, being on the wrong path is one of the options why you are experiencing negative feelings, but there may be many other potential reasons. You must carefully analyze yourself and find out what the real source of your negative feelings is. For example, besides being on the wrong path, cognitive distortions can also cause you to have constant negative feelings. You may be on the right path and just think too negative. But now let’s get back to being on the wrong path.

The good news is that your emotions sense something is wrong and that you aren’t going in the right direction way before you can arrive at the same conclusion with your rational and analytical mind. It’s called instinct. Something either feels right or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t feel right and you still do it, you usually go against yourself and bring misery and unhappiness into your life. Therefore, your emotions are a great predictor of your future and your quality of life.
- If you know you aren’t with the right person, but you still stay in a relationship just because you’re afraid to be alone, you’re going to be miserable.
- If you sense that your bosses aren’t running the company professionally and that it’s just a matter of time before things go south, but still don’t do anything about it (search for a new job), you’re going to feel miserable.
- If you’re driving in a car with a lunatic and you don’t have control, you won’t feel good because you feel that there’s a great probability that something dangerous will happen. But in real life, you have control in the most of situations if you only listen to your emotions, are aware of your personal power and you act.
Happiness Index, Source: Agile trail

Happiness and productivity

If you’re happy, you’re more productive (some studies show you’re around 12 % more productive), you’re more optimistic and have higher level of motivation, you nurture relationships better at home and at work, and you have no problems with expressing gratitude, you are more innovative and creative. You can also enter the workflow without distractions more easily and are more committed to your goals. You also help to create better working or home environments. Nevertheless, there are several issues we have to address, because things aren’t that simple.

First of all, we all love to ignore our emotions and what we really want. Maybe you’re afraid, maybe you’re clinging to safety, maybe you aren’t aware of your personal power, maybe something else. But if we take one step back, you most often aren’t even consciously aware of how you feel throughout the day, you don’t pay much attention to your emotions, you just get mad at your spouse or a coworker, or become grumpy in a traffic jam or whatever, but you don’t ask yourself why; in that case, you unfortunately don’t live, you only exist. You may even be a zombie. So the first important rule is to regularly and systematically monitor your emotions and become aware of them. Then ask yourself why.

The second thing is that there are three areas for monitoring your emotions. One is your home environment. If you don’t have loving and caring personal relationships and don’t feel home at home, you can’t feel happy in life. Home should be like your temple of positive energy, emotional security and deep relationship bonds with people you love the most.

Then we have the working environment. You spend one third of your life at work, so you must have good relationships there (do you have a best friend at work?), you must do meaningful work and fit into the company culture. You can’t be happy in life if you hate your job.

Last but not least, you’re here to grow and enjoy life. You can’t be happy if you aren’t progressing from your real to your ideal self and if you aren’t enjoying life in the moment (while having realistic expectations). The bottom line is that you have to monitor your emotions in all three areas, and if one area is suffering, all areas are suffering.
1. Your home environment
2. Your work environment
3. You
And the third thing is that our emotions are complicated. They aren’t so easy to understand. If you decide to pay attention to your emotions, you’ll have to spend a lot of time dealing with self-analysis and how to live a life honest and true to yourself. It may seem that everything is in order in your life, but you may be totally unhappy and not even aware of it. When you decide to really pay attention to your emotions, you must start living life with courage and full of love towards yourself and others, and always be truthful to yourself. No dishonesty. It’s hard work but it pays off.

Even if our emotions are complicated, there are two simple exercises you can do every day, as the first steps towards better understanding yourself and how you feel – they’re called the happiness index and the happiness chart.

The happiness chart

There’s a really simple method of monitoring your emotions and doing basic emotional accounting. It’s called the happiness chart. The main advantage/point of the happiness chart is to never forget about yourself or lose awareness of how you’re really feeling, even if you’re very busy. You put yourself first. Many times, if you aren’t super happy, angry, depressed or feeling some other extreme emotion, you just go through the day like you’re used to. Some people smile because they’re used to it, some people are grumpy all day because they’re used to it, and so on. You wear a social mask out of habit. But you never know what you’re really feeling and why. That’s existing, not living; that’s being a zombie.

With the happiness chart you will:
- Always be aware of your emotions
- Have early alerts for things are going in the wrong direction
- Easily communicate your emotions with others (spouse, team etc.)
- Have a basis for further analyzing your emotions further
- Link your happiness level to your productivity level and see how happiness influences your day
Happiness Index Calendar, Source: Agile Trail

The idea is pretty simple. You have an uncomplicated chart with different indicators showing how happy you are. Every day, when you wake up, go to sleep or while working, you put an indicator on the chart, marking how you’re feeling.

You have three charts on which you indicate the happiness level every day:
- Me (that you share with yourself)
- Intimate relationship (that you share with your spouse)
- Work (that you share with your team)
It makes sense to engage other people to use the happiness chart, of course. For example, you also ask your spouse to mark their level of happiness on the chart and when the mark from you or your spouse goes below a certain level, it’s time to talk and communicate more intensively about what’s going in the wrong direction and why.

After marking your happiness level on the happiness chart, you should ask yourself four questions:
- Mark how happy you are (at home, in a relationship, at work etc.) on a scale from 1 to 10. Why the x number? Watch out that you aren’t always in the average (5, 6, 7, 8). If you are, use only 1, 2, 3 and 9, 10 as a scale. Because you’re either happy or you aren’t. You can even simplify it with three smiley symbols: :) , :| and :(
- What feels right at the moment?
- What feels the worst or wrong right now?
- What should I do to increase my happiness?
When you have your answers to all four questions that should be enough material to do a retrospection (maybe at the end of the week or your sprint), where you answer three additional questions:
- What should I start doing in my life?
- What should I stop doing in my life?
- What should I continue doing in my life?
The most important thing while using the happiness index and the happiness chart is to be really honest and true to yourself. If you’re lying to yourself about your feelings, you repress them and ignore them. But they’re like an evil monster that starts growing if you ignore it. The evil monster keeps growing in you and will come back in times and places you least expect (you start destroying your relationships, become depressed etc.). Therefore kill the monster while it’s still small. The happiness chart will be the first to tell you when a small monster is born. Pay attention to your emotions, because they matter the most!

agile methodology

Rapid prototyping for designing a superior life strategy

Prototyping and rapid prototyping

Get educated and then start experimenting as quickly as possible

Examples of rapid prototyping in personal life

Genchi Genbutsu

Pen and paper

Mockups and models

Wizard of Oz test

Storyboards and use cases

Video prototyping and simulations

Role-playing

Mind-mapping

Scenarios and flow charts

Templates and guidelines

It’s time to start prototyping

Regular daily reflections will change the quality of your life forever

A short daily reflection is nothing but a healthy habit

Reward – why do short daily reflections

Behavior – how to do short daily reflections

Trigger – when to do short daily reflections

Introspections – reflections after executions

Short daily reflections – do them at the end of the day or whenever you feel like doing it

Analyze your day

Look for errors in your subjective reality map

Make subconscious conscious

Brainstorm ideas

Giving instructions to your subconscious

Drop everything and go buy yourself a notebook

Wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups

Two realities

The world of wrong assumptions

Put your assumptions to the test

Ask questions and get educated

Go out and gain first-hand experience

The search mode

Use actionable metrics

Random experiences

Research techniques

Life changes and so testing assumptions never ends

Optimize your life for productivity and flexibility

What does flexibility even mean?

Have many options and alternative paths

Don’t have any fixed ideas

Keep your mind agile

Don’t have a problem with being wrong

Search before you execute

The sunk costs mentality makes you inflexible

What is the best way to turn this into an advantage?

Optimize your life for flexibility in every possible way

Anti-Kaizen

Negative beliefs that prevent any improvements

Lying to yourself

Victim mindset and being stuck in an emotional cage

“There is no need for improvement” mindset

Lack of time

Firefighting and enjoying adrenalin rushes and dramas

Lack of confidence in self and others and lack of courage

You want to change others, not yourself

Getting in trouble for failing or pointing out the problems

Not following up on ideas

Giving up too quickly

Solving problems with additional administration

Hoping that others will do it for you or waiting for better times

Jumping to solutions too quickly

The key takeaway

The happiness index and the happiness chart

Happiness and productivity

The happiness chart