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  • A personal SWOT analysis

    One of the tools you can use when analyzing and getting to know yourself is a so-called SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis is a structured planning method that had been used in management for decades before agile and lean entrepreneurship was even invented.

    This is to say, I just want to emphasize that this blog is not only about applying agile and lean methods to personal lives, but also about applying all other business methods that prove to be valuable. It’s not like traditional tools are always outdated and the new ones are magical solutions. You just have to know which tools to use when.

    When analyzing and getting to know yourself, the SWOT analysis can help you a lot. In business, the SWOT analysis is used to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats involved in a project or a business venture.

    It can be applied to the level of a selected product, place, industry, entire organization or many other dimensions. As mentioned before, it can also be applied to a personal level, and it’s especially frequently used as a career-planning and decision-making tool.

    • Strengths and weaknesses are considered as internal factors on which you have a direct influence and which you can change (or influence) by investing your time and energy.
    • On the other hand, opportunities and threats are considered as external factors you have less influence on or maybe even none. Nevertheless, it’s also very important to consider external factors when preparing your strategy.

    It’s very obvious that strengths and opportunities are favorable factors, and weaknesses and threats are unfavorable factors in terms of achieving your objectives.

    Internal and external factors

    When analyzing strengths and weaknesses, you are analyzing internal personal factors such as personal traits, competences, financial situation, knowledge, skills, personal network and so on. It’s the area that you have influence on, and you should act as proactively as possible, not reactively.

    You should be aware of your strengths and act out of power. You should also be aware of your weaknesses and have an action plan concerning what do to about them.

    Strengths

    Strengths are internal factors that positively influence your ability to achieve your objectives. It’s the area of your life where you are strong, where you are better than the competition and where your forte lies. It’s important to further develop your key strengths and make sure that they stay your strengths in the long term.

    It’s easy to forget to constantly keep developing your strengths, but that’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make. If you aren’t progressing in life, you are going backwards and your strengths are no exception here.

    While you are relying on your strengths and aren’t developing them further, there are many people out there who are working hard to enhance their strengths and who outwork you.

    Some questions that can help you identify your personal strengths:

    • What are your talents and which things are you naturally good at?
    • Which knowledge and skills have you developed over the years and are really good at?
    • What are your positive personality traits?
    • What are you much better at than other people?
    • Where do other people see your strengths and what are the qualities that people admire you for?
    • What resources do you have at your disposal?
    • Which subjects did you excel in during formal education?
    • What contributed the most to your past victories?

    Weaknesses

    Weaknesses, on the other hand, represent all the areas where you are lagging behind, where you have shortcomings and gaps in skills. Some of your weaknesses are easily seen while others are not.

    You have to know that your enemies or competition will probably exploit your most obvious weaknesses.

    Nevertheless, you should compile weaknesses into three categories:

    1. Critical weaknesses that you have to get rid of or convert into strengths. These are the weaknesses that prevent you from achieving your objectives or will maybe cause that kind of a situation in the future.
    2. Weaknesses that you have to at least neutralize if you want to achieve your goals and objectives.
    3. Weaknesses that are not a real problem and you should not bother with or those weaknesses that are part of your personal uniqueness and it is to your advantage to have to work around them (more about that later).

    Some questions that can help you identify your personal weaknesses:

    • Where could you improve? (You can do and look at your Kaizen list of potential improvements)
    • Where are you not talented enough?
    • Where in life have you struggled the most?
    • Which things are you avoiding and are afraid of?
    • Where do other people see possible space for improvement?
    • Which resources are you lacking?
    • Can you do anything better?
    • Do you do anything badly?

    Let’s now move on to external factors, threats and opportunities. When analyzing threats and opportunities, you are analyzing external factors such as market trends, labor market trends, macroeconomic stability and changes in your country, technological and legislation changes, promotion options, changes in the company you work for, people who have influence over your life etc.

    You’re analyzing all the environmental factors in your life that affect you. It’s the area on which you have less influence and you should be as flexible as possible.

    SWOT Analysis

    Opportunities

    Opportunities are external factors that have a positive influence on you achieving your goals. It’s all about the environment’s paradigms and flows that help you achieve your objectives and accelerate your execution process. Opportunities are where you can go with the flow of the environment based on your strengths.

    Understanding trends and opportunities is a big leverage you have to count into your life strategy. Markets and trends always win and you should never go against the market.

    Going together with the market, preferably with one that’s in the phase of high growth, is the biggest opportunity in the environment there is. It’s essential to identify such opportunities for your success.

    Questions to identify opportunities:

    • Which are the biggest changes that are occurring in your current environment?
    • Which opportunities are you not exploiting at the moment?
    • Where do you see the biggest favorable circumstances for achieving your objectives?
    • Do you know people who can help you achieve your objectives?
    • What kind of moments do you hope for? Are they actually happening?

    Threats

    Last but not least, threats are external factors that have a negative influence and can prevent you from achieving your goals. It’s about analyzing external factors on which you don’t have much influence and which can prevent you from going forward.

    When analyzing threats, you should think about possible alternatives and how to stay as flexible as possible. Being aware of potential threats even before they actually come to existence is very helpful, since you can react much more rationally when the threat actually occurs.

    When analyzing threats, you also have to identify whether you are potentially going against the markets and what level of a challenge that really brings.

    And some questions to identify threats:

    • Which are the biggest changes that are occurring in your current environment?
    • Which obstacles are you facing at the moment and why?
    • Which is the biggest external danger to your goals?
    • Which factors beyond your control can prevent you from achieving your goals?
    • Which negative market trends are you facing at the moment?
    • What are the biggest risks you are facing?

    Building up a strategy

    Conducting a personal SWOT analysis is a fun way of getting to know yourself and analyzing your situation all in itself. But what counts much more is building a life strategy and a decision-making system based on the conducted SWOT analysis.

    There are two basic ways of building a strategy after doing a SWOT analysis: one is called matching and the other one converting.

    Matching

    Matching simply means connecting internal strengths with opportunities. You look at your strong points and the ways you can take advantage of them based on the opportunities that are given in the environment in which you function.

    This is your main forte and the point where you have to build a strong competitive advantage. Matching your strengths to the opportunities is also where you should be very aggressive and take offensive action.

    On the other hand, matching your weaknesses to threats can show your biggest vulnerabilities. You’re always only strong in a specific context and you have to be aware of that context and which situations cause you to step out of it.

    If you are strong in an unfavorable situation, you can at least fight and regroup and rethink and change your moves. But if you are weak in an unfavorable situation, your personal power becomes very limited and you are left to the mercy of the environment. These are the situations you should definitely avoid in life.

    In situations where your weaknesses are matched to threats, you should act much more defensively. Nevertheless, if you don’t find being defensive is an adequate strategy, there is an alternative strategy available, called “converting”.

    Converting

    Converting simply means transforming weaknesses into strengths and transforming threats into opportunities. It’s easy to write that down, but it’s much harder to do in real life. The key is to understand what converting really means.

    The first approach is to really convert your weakness into a strength. For example, if you aren’t very creative at the moment, you decide you’ll become creative no matter what. Creativity is nothing but a skill and based on the growth mindset, you know you can cultivate it.

    You start going to art classes, you do daily brainstorming sessions etc. You put so much more effort into it, even more so than talented people, that you become really good at it, therefore surely converting a weakness into a strength.

    The second option is that you find a different context for your weakness and you try to see it as a feature. For example, a manager who has a hard time staying focused can be a really successful entrepreneur.

    The best way for converting a weakness into a strength in this kind of way is explained by Marty Neumeier in the book The 46 Rules of Genius:

    A good personal style will mostly come from your limitations, not your strengths. It’s the result of working around your shortcomings, using all the skills you can muster. Since your limitations are unique to you, your style will also be unique.

    And that is how you convert weaknesses into strengths.

    Of course, there is also a third option, in case a weakness cannot be converted. In that case you should try to minimize weaknesses or avoid them. The idea is that you neutralize your weaknesses to the point at which your strengths can be unfettered. .

    After conducting the SWOT analysis, you can define four different strategies, while also keeping converting and matching in mind:

    • Opportunity – Strength strategies: Obvious natural forte where you can use your strengths to exploit opportunities.
    • Threat – Strength strategies: Easy to defend, where you want to exploit your strengths to wipe out threats.
    • Opportunity – Weakness strategies: Potentially attractive options with which you want to overcome your weaknesses to exploit new opportunities.
    • Threat – Weakness strategies: Your personal very high risk where you want to apply a defensive strategy to prevent threats from turning up because of your weaknesses.

    Traps of the SWOT analysis

    As everywhere else, there are also a few traps when it comes to conducting a SWOT analysis. The first trap is quite obvious. There is always a big gap between what you think is true (the subjective reality) and what actually is true (the objective reality).

    And wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups, as said many times before. Thus it’s really necessary that you implement agile and lean practices when building your life strategy based on the SWOT analysis.

    You have to realize that some of the elements of your SWOT analysis are nothing but hypotheses that you have to test in order to see whether they are true. The best way is to only use the SWOT analysis to help yourself define detailed hypotheses of your superior life strategy. You have to regularly update the analysis based on feedback from the environment.

    The second trap is seeing weaknesses as a balanced antagonist to strengths. Of course we all have our strengths and weaknesses. But there’s no balancing act or “life fairness”. It’s necessary for you to build on your strengths, convert some weaknesses into strengths, put other weaknesses into a different context and then minimize, avoid or neutralize the rest of them.

    You also have to be aware of the fact that the final goal of your personal SWOT analysis is to help you build a superior life strategy and consequently help you make better decisions, big ones as well as smaller ones, in everyday life. Thus the most important items of your SWOT analysis are those that produce valuable strategies.

    As mentioned before, a SWOT analysis should be an input to your AgileLeanLife superior productivity strategy and, even more importantly, it has to be updated regularly, based on the feedback you get from executing.

    For the conclusion, let’s look at some additional guidelines for conducting a personal SWOT analysis. Be as realistic as possible when writing down your strengths and weaknesses. Also be as specific as possible and avoid abstract definitions and grey areas.

    Try to avoid complexity and don’t overanalyze things. It’s good to keep your SWOT analysis short and simple. Definitely build different strategies and options based on your SWOT analysis.

    See the SWOT analysis as an input to your superior life strategy. It will help you come up with better insights, analyze your current position, brainstorm possible directions, highlight opportunities and flag possible threats.

    Know that you have to test some assumptions and do regular updates. A SWOT analysis should help you get to know yourself, but conducting only a SWOT analysis is not real progress in life. Building a superior strategy and executing it is.

    Homework

    Sit down right away and do your own personal SWOT analysis. Happy analyzing. Here you can also find an example of my own personal swot analysis.

  • Do the opposite

    Sometimes the best approach to start improving your life is doing the exact opposite from what other people are doing or what have you been doing in the past. Especially when the expectations of the society and the behavioral patterns are so extreme that nearly everyone is doing the same thing. Like every December. Sometimes the best cure is to take a totally different step from expected when the social pressure is the strongest.

    DoTheOpposite

    Here are some ideas how.

    Life experiment ideas
    Practical examples

    Instead of stuffing yourself, gaining weight and feeling fatigued throughout all December and half of January, do the opposite – exercise every day and eat super healthy. Bring your own carrots and bananas to parties. No, I’m just kidding, don’t do the latter, but you get the point.

    Instead of buying yourself expensive gifts, because you deserve them for having worked so hard all year, do the opposite – save some money, pay off some debt or invest into your future. Trust me, there will be moments when you will need your money much more than you want to spend it on luxuries now.

    Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on expensive gifts, write a personal thank you note to all the people that really matter to you and donate some money or buy gifts for poor kids. Don’t let Santa be a scumbag who buys rich kids more gifts than the poor ones.

    Instead of writing down goals for next year, plan two agile sprints that you will do in December, and actually come closer to your goals. While everybody eats, parties, drinks alcohol and forgets their daily life for a second, you should fight hard for what you really want in life.

    Instead of decorating a Christmas tree, get rid of all the filth, dirt and clutter as well as all other things you don’t use, and make room in your life. Sell some of the things, give away others, throw away the rest of them. Make your surroundings and consequently your mind super clean. You don’t need a nicely decorated tree for good family spirit; just tell your spouse and your kids that you love them more than anything in the world and spend twice as much quality time with them, without the TV and other distractions. Well, some minimalistic Christmas decorations are acceptable for the spirit. :)

    Instead of partying and socializing too much, decide that you will find a connection with your true self. Decide to reconnect with your inner voice and your true desires. Instead of torturing your body and living a “YOLO” life, decide to be gentle to yourself and to feel good in your skin. Without any alcohol and being a party animal.

    Do The Opposite Be Different
    What would be the outcome if you did the opposite?

    Don’t get me wrong. Rituals are very important in life. They remind us of what’s really important and they have a critical role in making us feel connected to other people. That’s perfectly okay. But you can do this in a healthy, economical, environment-friendly and really loving way. Not at all like it’s promoted in the ads. You should increase your margin on holidays, not decreasing it.

    It’s also the way to opening a creativity door

    Asking yourself what end result you would achieve and what would happen if you did things the opposite way from what you were doing in the past or from what other people are doing is a great way to open the doors to creativity.

    It’s not like the opposite way is always better. But merely asking yourself this question makes you challenge yourself, your beliefs and your actions. You open your mind to new possibilities. It’s your new starting point from which you can brainstorm alternative options.

    Sometimes asking yourself about the opposite way releases you of mental limitations. It puts you into the realm of out-of-the-box thinking. Improving yourself means nothing but finding new and better ways to do things. Thus you always have to challenge yourself and question everything, from why you are doing something in a specific kind of way to whether there are any other, better ways to do it.

    Maybe the opposite way is a much better way, or there is another better way that’s very close to the opposite. Try it.

  • Fears & traps when trying new things in life – the challenges of the search mode

    I call the systematic testing and experimenting with new things in life in order to find better ways to perform and achieve higher quality of life the search mode.

    Introducing the search mode into your life is a totally new concept. Rare are the people to whom the search mode (constantly experimenting with new things) comes naturally and for whom it is easy to do it.

    The reason for that is because you have to go regularly out of your comfort zone, experiment with new things that bring uncertainty and accept little failure you can learn from along the way.

    Trying new things in life is hard for most people.

    The “free spirit” explorers who always want something new are probably the closest to the character needed in the search mode. Nevertheless this type of people usually lack the abilities to switch from the search to the execution mode.

    Well, the good news is that being in the search mode (trying new things in life) is nothing but a skill and everybody can learn it.

    First, a few words about the search mode

    One of the best ways to learn about yourself and the world is the so-called “search mode”. The better you know yourself and your environment, the better you can execute, and consequently achieve your true goals much faster.

    The search mode is a phase and a process that helps you to get to know yourself and your environment better, as well as build up an adequate life strategy based on tested facts, instead of only assumptions.

    The main idea is that before committing yourself to anything you have to first do enough searching, experimenting and trying, to make sure you are committing to the right thing – your fit.

    In the search phase, you just try many different things, experiment, observe, reflect and learn about yourself and the world. In the search mode, you make and test different assumptions (beliefs, convictions, facts etc.) you have.

    Search mode is about going out of the comfort zone and experimenting with completely new things with the goal to improve your life.

    After you find your fit, you enter the execution mode. In the execution mode, you execute and optimize what you preserve from the search mode.

    And now all the traps you must avoid when trying new things in life.

    All the fears and traps when trying new things in life

    There are five major fears and traps when trying new things in life:

    1. Analysis paralysis
    2. No presence of validated learning (learning as an excuse)
    3. Dealing with uncertainty
    4. Sticking to NEW things that don’t work
    5. Unrealistic expectations and other irrational fears

    Analysis paralysis

    1. Analysis paralysis – if you never do anything, all that analyzing time was wasted

    The most obvious challenge of the search mode is the analysis paralysis. There are two types of analysis paralysis scenarios.

    The first scenario is quite well-known everywhere in life. You read about it, you talk about it, you think about it, but you never start doing it.

    Well, if you never do anything, all that time was wasted. It shouldn’t take you more than a few days to do research and then set and conduct the first experiments. After that you can continue researching and thus improving your further experiments.

    A ton of theory can’t compare to a single gram of solid real-life experience.. You can read all about swimming but until you set foot in water, your knowledge is very limited. The solution is very simple.

    After everything you read while doing the research, you should write down the bottom lines and make a few hypotheses out of it. These are the hypotheses that you are going to test and see whether they work for you personally.

    The second analysis paralysis trap is not switching from the search mode to the execution mode. There are many reasons for why that can be in case, but whatever it is, make sure you move to the execution phase when you find your fit.

    The secret is to move really fast in the search mode in order to find your perfect fit and get to the execution mode as quickly as possible. In today’s turbulent and complex world, extreme speed is the main ingredient of success.

    That is why you need focus, that is why you need to learn and progress systematically and quickly, that is why you need a superior strategy. You have to find out what works for you as soon as possible.

    The solution is simple. Your goal should be to get to the execution phase as quickly as possible. It usually takes a few months to get there. The goal of the search mode is to find your perfect fit and then do a perfect execution. You don’t want to stay a “startup” forever.

    Executing perfectly means setting execution intervals, doing sprints, measuring your progress really closely and meeting your goals as quickly as possible.

    Even in the execution mode you are still conducting experiments and trying new things to some extent, but what’s more important is that you do regular sprints and measure your progress in a more traditional way (KPIs). After the search mode you know what you want, so in the execution mode you make sure you get it.

    • The search mode = Find what you really want, what’s really your fit
    • The execution mode = Make sure you get what you want
    Validated learning
    Validated learning cycle

    2. No validated learning – don’t use learning as an excuse

    Besides analysis paralysis there is another big trap you can fall into in the search mode. The goal of the search mode is to learn about yourself and the world around you, to find your perfect fit and then build a superior life strategy, and after that to move into the execution mode as quickly as possible.

    The goal of the search mode is to lean the ladder against the right wall, while getting to know which material the ladder is built of, how long it is, what the traps of climbing it are, how the top looks like etc.

    To learn about all that, you have to fail a lot. Success is nothing but going from failure to failure until you succeed without losing motivation. But the key point is that you learn something every time you fail – it’s called validated learning. And you should take that as progress.

    There are two possible outcomes to failing in the search mode.

    Learning as an excuse

    Well, I tried a new thing, it didn’t work out, but I have learned something. That sounds nice, but it clearly shows that you haven’t learned anything. It clearly shows that learning is just an excuse for you to feel better while failing. But that is the real failure.

    An example of validated learning

    My hypothesis was that introducing a no-interruptions day once a week to my calendar would dramatically increase my productivity (you can even set the measures for how much). I did my first no-interruptions day and my hypothesis was rejected. After a self-reflection, I had learned the following:

    • I don’t have enough concentration to work the whole day
    • It’s really hard to get rid of all interruptions, especially on the computer
    • I need a task that motivates me enough to work several hours straight

    Based on what I’ve learned, I will conduct a new experiment. (1) I will try a half-day (4 hours) no-interruptions day to test and train my focusing abilities. (2) I will try three different big tasks for the next three no-interruption days – one document analysis, writing one article and one brainstorming session. I will see what will engage me the most.

    (3) I will test two locations – my balcony and my local cafe, with my laptop that has no games installed and is without an internet connection.

    The idea is to find your perfect location and your perfect setting so you can have one no-interruption day per week at some point. Imagine what such a day could do to your productivity once you find the right setting.

    That’s 50 completely productive days per year. It may be the difference between you being average or really successful. Of course it’s worth it to test several different settings to find the best one and to train your focus while conducting experiments.

    If you have learned something new, you haven’t failed in the search mode. That should be your motivation and perspective for overcoming failure.

    If you haven’t learned anything new, you have failed big time and wasted resources on top of that. To learn something new, you have to keep setting and testing hypotheses all the time. That is called “validated learning”. Here are the steps how to do it:

    • Do research first if needed
    • Write down the first set of hypotheses
    • Conduct experiments
    • Validate or reject hypotheses
    • Reflect
    • Write down a new set of hypotheses
    • Make your execution plan

    Facing uncertainty

    3. Dealing with uncertainty – to live an extraordinary life, you must do extraordinary things

    It’s quite easy to understand why we love certainty and are scared to death of uncertainty. We like certainty because it makes us feel safe and secure. Even though change is the only real constant in life (besides taxes), we hate it.

    This hate towards change has been written into our genes as a mechanism for survival in a dangerous world. Not that long ago, you could very easily have gotten killed and to be frank, you still can in some parts of the world.

    An unknown and unstable environment brings threats to us and to our lives. That is why we don’t like uncertainty and why it’s so hard for us to try new things.

    The really big problem is that testing is not your natural state, because of the lack of security, because of the unknown. Trying something new can be scary from time to time. But you know, you need guts in order to live an amazing life. Nothing worthwhile in life comes easily.

    Here are some tricks for how to deal with uncertainty:

    The gain has to be bigger than the pain

    Write down all the rewards that experimenting and finding a new lifestyle will bring to you. All the rewards. All of them. The rewards must be so big that they strongly outweigh your pain and the trouble of trying out new things.

    If you don’t see the final reward clearly, you won’t be motivated enough to try anything new. You must have a strong why that is more powerful that uncertainty.

    Build your safety nets and take calculated risks

    A big plus of today’s world is that you can experiment without risking your life or lives of others, at least in most cases, and where such a danger exists, you should avoid it.

    You should carefully define the downsides, build some safety nets and not do anything stupid. Testing, experimenting and trying new things should not sound like a risk at all.

    If you do too big steps at a time, you go from the learning zone into the panic zone. The panic zone doesn’t bring anything good at all, as it means that you have lost control.

    Entering the panic zone means awakening negative feelings and you will consequently develop hate towards trying new things. Therefore you should always take small steps and master one step at a time. But move quickly while doing that.

    Just make the first step

    Making the first step is the biggest pain in the ass. But you have to do it as soon as possible. The second step is much easier and the third one is even easier, if you do it the right way. But you always need the motivation to kick yourself in the ass and take the first step.

    There is a trick to doing it. Timebox your first step. Open your calendar. Schedule an hour or two for the first step and when the time comes, just do it. Don’t think, don’t overanalyze, no matter how you feel, just do it. After the first few minutes you will start feeling proud of yourself.

    Make it fun, consider it play

    See yourself as an explorer and adventurist. See the whole search mode as a tool to not waste your life and live it to the full. Surround yourself with people who support you and want to try new things in life with you.

    Have fun while doing it, even if you fail. Learn from your failures. Then there are no failures at all, just validated learning. Laugh. Smile. Have fun. Never settle into a routine.
    Einstein - Quote about insanity

    4. Don’t waste your life by sticking to things that don’t work

    Our psychological tendencies dictate that we finish what we begin. For example, it’s quite difficult for the human mind to stop watching a movie in the middle, even if the movie sucks.

    I know that it’s kind of ironic. Initially it’s so hard to try and do new things, especially the ones that aren’t the most pleasant, and then we want to stick to something even if it doesn’t work.

    That is a big trap that you can fall into in the search mode. For example, when I was searching for my perfect diet I also tried the raw food diet. Well, I even tried different types of raw food diets, from the fruitarian one to the fatty and green one.

    It was extremely hard to start and stick to that kind of an extreme diet, but once I started, I regarded it as a magical solution for all my health problems.

    It was more than obvious that the raw food diet didn’t work for me, but I had stuck to it for too long ­­- for more than a year to be exact. And before that, I was a vegan for two years and a vegetarian for five.

    It was only after a severe burnout, fatigue, dry skin, cavity, sugar intolerance, vitamin deficiency and other health issues that I came to the conclusion that this diet really doesn’t work for me.

    It’s very strange, but by going to that kind of an extreme diet, your beliefs about health and diet also become quite extreme. In the raw food community, all negative effects of the diet are connected to the fact that the body is cleansing.

    Their standpoint is that you just have to do it a little while longer and all negative effects will go away. It’s the price you pay for not being on the raw food diet straight after breast feeding.

    Since I’m very persistent and disciplined, that was quite a big downside in this situation. I waited for the body to cleanse, but that was not really the case. The diet didn’t work for me and I was starting to damage my own health.

    Back then I didn’t see changing the diet as an experiment, but rather as an ultimate solution that I had to stick to no matter what. That was pretty stupid, but it can easily happen to everybody.

    Thus you have to make sure that you set the boundaries and limitations to your experiments very specifically. Here are some other ideas how to make sure that you don’t become stubborn about the wrong thing and keep your final goal in mind while staying flexible when experimenting:

    Do regular reflections and always question everything

    Do regular reflections after experiments and after sprints. Every reflection event should be an opportunity to question everything you are doing. Do you see the progress in your life, how is the environment reacting, how does it influence your short-term and long-term goals, is that something for you or not etc.

    Define the hypothesis and the experiment very exactly

    The more explicitly that you define what you want to test, the limits and the duration of the experiment, and the expected results, the more you will learn and the quality of the experiment will be that much higher.

    When defining the hypothesis and the experiment you can also incorporate enough safety nets that stop you when you are going to an extreme that isn’t giving the right results.

    Make sure that you aren’t causing any damage to yourself or to your environment

    Whatever experiment you are doing, make sure that you’re not doing anything really dangerous. Make sure that you aren’t causing any damage to yourself, to other people or to the environment. Consult with a specialist, do enough research and take small steps. Don’t be stupid.

    We have invented standards and averages (diet, working day etc.), because they represent the safest thing for most people. It doesn’t give the best results for every individual but it’s safe and good enough for all people. Deviating from the average means that you are looking for something that is better for you as an individual.

    Thus you have to take some risks. But they must be calculated risks (small downside, big upside) done in the right kind of way, not being really dangerous.

    At some point it’s more art than science

    There is a very thin line between giving up just before you start to see some results and sticking to something that doesn’t work. At this point we are talking more about art than science.

    You have to listen to your inner voice, do an enormous amount of self-reflection and know yourself to the point where you recognize when you are being lazy, when you are procrastinating, when you are not investing enough into it and when it really does make sense to stop.

    Don’t experiment to compensate for your negative feelings

    Make sure that you’re doing all experiments and new things with positive emotions of excitement, love, respect for yourself and others. Your negative emotions like anger could lead you to do extreme things just to prove something to yourself and others.

    In that case you can do a lot of damage to yourself and others. It’s extremely important that you are tender to yourself in all kinds of ways. Nothing good comes out of rough accession. Yes, you have to be tough, yes, you have to be fair, but acting out of extreme negative emotions means nothing but hurting yourself.

    Trying new things in life

    5. Don’t have unrealistic expectations and manage your irrational fears properly

    There is one more trap you can fall into in the search mode and it’s by far the most difficult one. People love short-term results.

    But all real results are long-term and they come after years and years of hard work. You usually overestimate what you can achieve in a few months and underestimate what you can achieve in a few years.

    While being in the search mode, you can find out how hard it really is to achieve big goals. It takes years to get yourself in really good shape. Going to the gym a few times is not even remotely close to getting into extraordinary shape.

    People in magazines devote their lives to their bodies. In much the same way, it can also take decades to build up personal wealth. You have to make many hard decisions in order to progress in life. It’s not easy and it never becomes easier, you only get better at it.

    Well there’s good news and there’s bad news for all this. The bad news is that I have zero tricks at this point. You either want it badly enough or not. If you want it badly enough, you will always find a way; if not, you will always find an excuse.

    The hardest thing to do is to motivate an unmotivated person. And a blessing is giving the direction and tools to a motivated person. You will have to decide for yourself if you want it badly enough.

    Here is an ancient story that shows this point really well:

    A young man visited Socrates and asked him for the secret to success. Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met. Socrates asked the young man to walk with him towards the river. When the water got up to their neck, Socrates took the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water.

    The boy struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him there until the boy started turning blue. Socrates pulled his head out of the water and the first thing the young man did was to gasp and take a deep breath of air.

    Socrates asked, ‘What did you want the most when you were there, under the water?” The boy replied, “Air.” Socrates said, “That is the secret to success. When you want success as badly as you wanted the air, then you will get it.”

    And here come the good news. It really takes brutal efforts to get to the top. It really takes brutal efforts to have a perfect athletic body, to become super rich, to win a Nobel Prize etc. But it doesn’t take that much effort to live a life happy and true to yourself.

    It doesn’t take that much to live healthy, to have enough financial intelligence to properly manage your money, to find your dream career etc. That’s something that anyone can do. And you can do it too. You just have to kick yourself in the ass a little bit harder.

    At the end of the day, you have to decide what you want out of life. Just don’t settle for average and for the society’s expectations for you. You want to live your own life with your own goals. So start experimenting without any irrational fear.

  • The Search Mode

    One of the ways to learn about yourself and the world is the so-called “search mode”. The better you know yourself and your environment, the better you can execute, and consequently achieve your true goals that much faster.

    In order to get to know yourself and your environment, as well as build up an adequate life strategy, you have to first do enough searching, experimenting and trying, since all that leads to understanding and insights. Based on that, you can start executing and making sound decisions.

    As you can see in many action movies, when the super team steps into action, the first order they always get from their command officer is “Gather intel”.

    In the search mode, you make assumptions and test different options. In the execution mode, you constantly perform and optimize what you preserve from the search mode.

    There are two main reasons why you want to introduce the search mode into your life:

    Wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups and execution based on wrong assumptions means nothing but failure, sorrow and obstacles. Reality (the objective reality) is significantly different from your assumptions and your own interpretation of reality (the subjective reality). You want to come as close to the objective reality as possible.

    The difference between what you think is valuable to you and what really is valuable to you in your life creates waste. One of your tasks when living an AgileLeanLife is to eliminate all waste by finding out what really brings value for you. You don’t want to live life based on wrong assumptions of what you like or expectations of other people.

    You learn three important things in the search mode:

    You learn about yourself

    You learn about yourself as a person, what you want in life, your true desires, fears, who you are and where your talents lie, your current capabilities and so on.

    You want to get a very clear picture of who you are and what you want.

    You learn about your environment, the world and the society

    We all live our own lives as well as the common destiny of the world and the smaller environments we live in (country, company…).

    In the search mode you experiment in order to learn the basics of how the world works, how people behave (from the aspect of biology to the aspect of psychology), and so on. You learn how to build an environment that supports you and how you can create as much value as possible for other people.

    You learn how to build an environment that supports you and how you can create as much value as possible for other people.

    You learn about the markets

    Markets always win. You don’t want to play against the market. Therefore you want to understand the trends and movements on the market, be it the labor market, the dating market, financial markets etc. Markets are like turbo accelerators on your car. They can help you advance really fast.

    But first you have to learn how to drive a car, which means learning enough about the previous two points.

    The better you understand all three, the greater the potential you unlock in your life. Therefore in an AgileLeanLife, you have to divide all activities of all areas of life into two groups:

    Here are some additional reasons for why you need the search phase before doing any real execution:

    • To do adequate research and form first assumptions about yourself and life
    • To conduct small experiments and figure out what your best personal fits are
    • To not put pressure on yourself to achieve and do something that’s not really you
    • To have fun and try as many things as possible
    • To set a realistic execution strategy that you can follow and really implement

    Once we become adults we assume that the time for searching, exploring and learning is over. But that is a completely wrong approach. You should never stop experimenting and learning about yourself and the world.

    No goals, just learning

    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 and before you understand something, your expectations are definitely completely wrong.

    Commitments lead to heavy energy investments, and you shouldn’t be investing before you know what you are truly investing in 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.

    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 job is only to test the assumptions you have written down, correct them, and try different things in order to find out what suits you best This phase is only for learning about yourself and the world. No goals. No measurement of progress. Just learning and playing.

    After you find your fit in the search phase, you start executing. You set a big vision, strong foundations, have laser focus, commit fully, start working hard and achieving your goals. You optimize, improve and measure your progress. But first, you have to find the right thing. You must put the ladder against the right wall before you start climbing.

    It doesn’t make sense to set deadlines for being skinny and fit until you understand your body, metabolism, your favorite sports, what kind of a diet suits you best etc. It doesn’t make sense to make deadlines for being rich if you don’t have enough financial knowledge, don’t know how to increase your earning potential and which financial investments suit you best etc.

    It doesn’t make sense to make plans for getting married after a second date, when you don’t even know the person next to you and how you two function together.

    Before making any real execution plan you should learn, talk with people, try different things, test, experiment and write down your insights. After that you will be able to execute perfectly.

    You have to do it scientifically

    The search mode is all nice and fun with the right approach (it can be scary but more about that later). There is one big catch, however. You have to do it scientifically and systematically.

    No goals, no pressure, just discovery, but you have to make sure that you are really learning about yourself and the world. Learning can become an easy excuse for failure. And you don’t want to fail.

    If you have learned something new, you haven’t failed in the search mode. If you haven’t learned anything new, you’ve failed big time and wasted resources on top of that. But how do you know whether you’ve learned something new or not?

    Very easily, namely by setting and testing hypotheses. We call that validated learning. Let’s look at an example.

    You want to get in better shape. The formula for getting in shape is pretty easy. You have to eat less, the food has to be of higher quality, and you have to exercise more. No greater secret. But there are many ways for doing that. Based on knowing yourself, you start making some assumptions and then testing them.

    Experiment

    Practical examples

    Example of assumptions about exercising

    H1: I prefer individual sports over team sports. I will try two individual and two team sports. (Validated)

    H2: The individual sports that suit me best are fitness, running and boxing. I will also try crossfit, golf, judo and hiking.

    (Validated – with one exception: I like hiking more than boxing)

    H3: Since I’m in bad shape, it’s enough if I start exercising two times per week. I will try to do it three times for the first time and see how it feels.

    (Rejected – I can work out three times per week without a problem. Will try four times after one month)

    H4: I will make better progress with a personal trainer and I have the money to afford it.

    (Validated – Personal trainers show me how to do exercises right and boost my motivation. After two months, I will see how well I work alone, following a new program prepared by a personal trainer)

    H5: My motivation is better if I have a pairing buddy to work out with.

    (Rejected – Scheduling, talking, drinks after the workout, it’s not really helping me)

    H6: I now have enough knowledge to set serious goals about my fitness progress. I will make a 3-month program and measure how I am doing.

    (Rejected – I need more time to adjust my body to exercising. I will enjoy it without any serious goals. Will try again after three months).

    It’s more or less the same with dieting assumptions (or any other for that matter). You have to see your body’s reaction to cutting down calories, decreasing the consumption of sugar, finding the veggies that you like the most etc. For some people, eating at night is a catastrophe, for others it’s no big deal. After a few months of experimenting, you will find the right diet for you, the right activities and after that you can do some fine-tuning and additional adjustments.

    The main point is to write down what you have learned (especially when doing reflections). That way you won’t feel like you’re running in place but you will see your progress. You will also focus on things that work.

    Finding the right fit will enable you to really change your lifestyle and become healthy in the long term, not just go on a diet and gain back all the weight afterwards, according to the yo-yo effect.

    After searching and trying and finding the right fit, changing your lifestyle is fun and easy. That is what the search phase is all about; getting excited about the changes that you will make in your life and finding the right things that will not lead to a loss of motivation after only a few weeks.

    But you have to do it gradually and scientifically to some extent.

    The Search Mode

    Your life is like a puzzle you have to build

    By knowing what you want, how the world works and what markets need, you can put together all the pieces of life that suit you best, and build the right strategy. You can compose your masterpiece life puzzle, your dream life.

    Your job in the search mode is to find the perfect diet for yourself, the best career to serve the world and provide real value for it, the relationships that empower you the most, the best computer operating system for you (or whatever), the things that you enjoy the most in life, and so on.

    What suits you best may be a waste for someone else. And vice versa. You have to search for what fits you best.

    There are four more goals you have to achieve in the search phase besides validated learning:

    Acquiring the best knowledge possible

    The rule of an AgileLeanLife is to go straight to the best knowledge there is and then adjust it to your life. For every life area, there are only a few key points you have to know and master, and then practice them regularly.

    To go straight to the top, you have to learn and mirror the people at the top. You can easily get lost in crappy content in today’s post-information age.

    Setting strong foundations

    The bigger the skyscraper you want to build, the stronger you need to make the foundations. Implementing the best knowledge into your life requires extraordinarily strong foundations.

    You set a strong foundation by making small linear changes and then accumulating them into rapid big changes or quantum leaps. The key principle of the AgileLeanLife is to really master a few things that are the building blocks of strong foundations.

    You can build your skyscraper floor by floor on that. Strong foundations mean nothing else but mastering yourself and your environemnt.

    You won’t get more fit if you can’t skip dessert and exercise a few times per week. You won’t get rich if you don’t learn to increase your earning potential and spend less than you earn. You won’t find your dream career if you are obsessed with a current secure job.

    Setting strong foundations means mastering yourself and you can do that in the search mode by testing and experimenting and consequently building up your will and stamina (being in the search mode means handling uncertainty).

    Preparing a plan for execution and daily application

    When you find your fit in the search mode, you have to start making a shift into the execution mode. For the execution, you need discipline to perform daily tasks that lead you to your goal. Search mode should help you get insight into how fast you can progress and what realistic expectations are.

    In AgileLeanLife practices, you execute in intervals (sprints) and after every sprint you make a reflection and adjust the plan. Your first execution plan when going from the search into the execution mode will be the worst and you have to be aware of that.

    Thus you need to make constant adjustments to your plan during regularly scheduled reflections. Learn more how to organize yourself with to-do lists.

    Interacting with other people

    In the search phase, you should interact with people who have achieved the same things you want to achieve as well as with people who have views totally different from your own. Talk with them, try to understand them.

    Try to walk a mile in their shoes. Imagine your life and your decisions if you were to live with those kind of values. Broaden your horizons and test things that don’t come naturally to you. That approach will help you manage your own expectations and expectations of others in life.

    The search phase is the phase of constant tests and experiments. The really big problem is that testing is not your natural state, because it lacks security, because it contains the unknown. Trying something new can be scary from time to time.

    But you know you need guts to live an amazing life. Nothing worthwhile in life comes easily. In the search phase, you have to constantly keep trying out something new, fail over and over again, and do things that you haven’t mastered yet. As already said, that is scary.

    But it can also be fun. If you are consciously in the search mode and you carefully define your downsides and upsides, shape an adequate strategy and focus on validated learning rather than on the outcome, then the search phase becomes the fun life experience all in itself.

    A big plus of today’s world is that you can experiment without risking your life or lives of others (in most cases; and where such kind of danger exists, you should avoid it). There is no lion behind the corner that’s going to eat you if you try new ways. You have the tools, knowledge and examples. Thus it’s time for you to start scientifically and systematically testing and learning about yourself and the world.

    Every test should be seen as a life experience, part of your life vision. After performing the test, you should know more about yourself, the world and the society. In some cases even about the markets. If something new works for you, great. If it doesn’t, you should discard it and look for clues on which experiment to do next. That’s called pivot.

    There are two main goals for testing and experimenting in the search phase:

    1. Looking for your best fits so you can start building your dream life
    2. Trying, experimenting and testing more and more new things, so you can not only improve but also experience as much as possible. Testing and experiencing new things is the best way to not live a dull and routine life.

    The sum of all desired experiences is the vision of your life. You should have a list of potential ideas and constantly brainstorm for new ideas and possibilities. You can choose priority experiments for every interval.

    In order to test as many things as possible the concept of Minimum Viable Experience can help.

    Reflection in the search mode

    After every experiment you do in the search phase, you have to make a reflection. That is the most valuable part of the process. Before marking a hypothesis as validated or rejected, you should ask yourself about what you have learned, what you will test next, how you will change your plans, and so on. A search mode without deep and systematic reflection has very little value.

    You learn about yourself by reflecting on your actions. Reflection is an insight into knowing yourself and life better. Never forget that reflection is actually an insight into how to do things in a better way. Therefore if you want to be more successful, effective and efficient, you have to find better ways to do things for you personally, by experimenting and reflecting.

    You should also remember that insights only come to a relaxed and rested mind that’s prepared to think about the experience that had happened.

    Never stop searching for new ways

    You never know whether you’ve reached your local maximum in life and where other, even bigger maximums are. That is why you should constantly be in the search mode, even when you had already switched to the execution mode and vice versa. It’s just the emphasis that’s different.

    Local maximum
    Achieving local maximum. But is there a higher hill to climb?

    In the search mode, you make assumptions and test different options. In the execution mode, you constantly perform and optimize what you preserve from the search mode. But even when executing, you should test new things from time to time. And in the search mode, you are already doing execution in a way.

    For the end, another important thing. Because all living beings, including you, don’t like change by nature, you should not implement too many experiments and changes at once. From the macro perspective, the whole search mode must be limited to the point at which you can still measure what’s happening with your life, what works for you and what doesn’t.

    Our willpower is a weak muscle, thus all experiments and changes should be made in a systematic and controllable way. And you should have as much fun as possible on the way.

  • The ways of getting to know yourself

    You become a successful entrepreneur not because you know how to build a company, but because you have a superior understanding of the customers and their needs. You can simply hire people for everything else (very simplified). It’s the same in your personal life. If you want to be really successful and happy in life, you have to know who you are and what you want very clearly and also understand your environment in order to build the superior strategy for achieving your life vision.

    Knowing yourself is one of the most important things in life. It’s the first step. It’s also the most important foundation of the AgileLeanLife lifestyle. In life, you either follow your own goals or goals of other people. But if you want to follow your own goals, you must first know what you truly want and how you function as a person.

    Most really successful people had known what they wanted to become from a very young age. They discovered what they’re good at early in their lives and devoted their life to that one thing with all their passion and focus. Well, even if it doesn’t happen early in life, it happens at some point. When the right opportunity comes, you simply know you were born to do that with your life.

    You can unlock your true potential when you get the insights in your true self: not only into what you want, but also into how you function, what your psychological survival mechanisms are, your desires and fears, strengths and weaknesses and other personality traits, how the environment works, what are the upcoming trends and paradigms, then you can unlock your true potential. If you want to transcend, you have to first understand yourself.

    There are several ways for getting to know yourself. Let’s look at them.

    People and activities you like

    The first one is very obvious. People with the same values always group together. People who surround you and you like to hang out with usually have the same beliefs, values, likes and hobbies as you do.

    We all know that, but what you can do to systematically get to know yourself is to carefully analyze who are the people you like and what activities do you do together. Same goes for the activities you like to do alone. Think of your hobbies and why you like them. Ask yourself what topic you would like to teach if you had an opportunity or what you would love to blog about.

    You are and become more and more similar to the people you are spending your time with. Analyze the people who surround you.

    Your values

    Your values very clearly show what’s important to you in life. But here’s the trick. Your values are not what you say is important to you, but how you allocate your time, money and energy. For example, if you have to decide between working out and going to the pub and you choose the latter, socializing is more important to you than health. If you have to decide between spending time with your spouse or friends and you choose the former, your partnership is more important to you than your friends. And so on.

    Carefully analyze how you’re spending your time, money, energy and other resources. When do you say no and to whom, and how do you make a choice between two different activities. Analyzing that will clearly show you your personal values. You can also help yourself with this value list and then prioritize chosen values based on your decision-making system.

    You may find out one very painful thing, namely the inconsistency of what you say you value and what you actually do. But don’t torture yourself. There are no wrongs and rights. It’s about really knowing yourself and living life true to yourself. That kind of exercise helps you develop integrity and honesty.

    Your talents and fields of interest

    When you are analyzing yourself, a very pleasant part of it is analyzing your talents and fields of interest. Every single one of us has talents, things that we are naturally good at, and so do you. May it be sports, mathematics, some sort of arts or anything else. Each of us has special talents and gifts. This is also where one of your greatest potentials lies, be it financially or in self-actualization terms.

    Think about the subjects you liked when attending school, which activities were natural to you and you had to put in much less effort than other people, which activities make you lose sense of time and you simply enjoy them, what are your hobbies and so on. But also go one step further with your analysis. Think about all different kinds of strengths that accompany your talents.

    A good tool to do that kind of analysis is the so-called SWOT analysis. You analyze your strengths on the one hand and weaknesses on the other. You also analyze opportunities and threats as outside factors that can influence your ability to achieve your goals and desires. Much as you have to be aware of your advantages, so you have to be aware of your disadvantages as well.

    People you hate

    It may not seem that obvious, but we can really learn a lot from people we hate or dislike. We always dislike people who have personality traits that are a part of our character yet unresolved (we deny them) or that remind us of a bad experience we had had in our past. Additionally, we usually also have values very different from those of people we don’t like.

    Nevertheless, there are two different states or situations. We can have different beliefs and values from people and have neutral feelings about it. That is what we call rational behavior. People have different views on life and there is nothing wrong with it. Every one of us has the right to live life as they want, as long as they cause no harm to other people. But when we are not neutral in this kind of a situation and we get negative feelings about a person that simply means we have some internal issues that are not being solved. We can learn a lot about ourselves by observing who we hate or dislike.

    Thoroughly asking ourselves why we hate or dislike someone can tell us a lot about ourselves. Are we envious (of what and what our desires are), did somebody in the past treat us the same way etc.

    5 Whys

    5 Whys is a simple technique also used in business to identify the cause and not only deal with the effects. If you want to get rid of the consequences for good, you have to get to the root of the matter. You can identify the real cause by asking yourself “why” several times in a row. It’s a way of identifying your deeper volitions and why you behave in a certain way.

    Let me give you an example. I like geeky superhero movies. Why? Because the good always wins despite the inoperative formal protective and legal system. Why? Because there is “someone” more competent to protect the victim from the bad. Why? Because no one deserves to be a victim and bullied by others. Why? Because I know how awful it feels. Why? Because I experienced domestic violence as a child.

    Getting to know yourself

    Self-reflection

    There is also a big systematic step further you can do to analyze yourself. Psychoanalysis, the psychological technique popularized by Sigmund Freud, is based on you reflecting on your behavior, talking about yourself and coming to small epiphanies and insights into why you are behaving in a certain way and what drives you. It’s especially based on free associations, fantasies and dreams. And you don’t need a therapist for that.

    Explained in a very simplified way, self-reflection means that once per week, you take an hour or more to reflect on your goals, behavioral patterns, negative and positive emotions and everything else that is happening in your life. It’s even better to do this daily, by writing a journal, but you need a lot of time for that, of course. Nevertheless, you can have great breakthroughs by knowing yourself.

    Reflecting is also an integral part of agile software development (SCRUM), where the team reflects on how they work and where they can improve regularly on a weekly basis. I do self-reflection at least two times per week and I come to a small insight about myself every time.

    Having a persona coach is also a viable option to help you with self-reflection. You are always very biased when judging yourself and others. It’s a no-brainer that you judge others much more strictly and that you are indulgent towards yourself. An honest and tough, but fair, coach could greatly contribute towards more realistic reflection.

    Search mode

    A much more fun way to get to know yourself is testing and trying different things in life. Based on the AgileLeanLife principles, I call that the search mode. You may assume what you like and dislike in life but you don’t really know until you try it. Besides developing yourself (personal evolution) and providing value to the world (creating), another important purpose of your life is to be happy and experience as much as possible.

    Why not try as many things as imaginable. You can then do the ones you like over and over again, and simply discard the ones you don’t. But at least you know you’ve tried. You should always be in the search mode in your life – testing, trying and experimenting new things. New travel destinations, new meals, new people, new sex poses, you name it.

    Routine is a much more popular approach to life, but only because it’s easy and safe. Nevertheless, routine is a partly wasted life. There are so many things to do in life, so many things to try. Never settle for a routine just because it’s easy. Your life starts at the end of your comfort zone.

    Personality tests

    Another approach for getting to know yourself are personality tests. There are many different personality tests you can take. You can find many of them on the internet, some of them you can even take for free, but they are not usually the best.

    Investing into knowing yourself is one of the best investments you can make, so spending some money on that kind of a test should not sound like a waste of money to you. Maybe you can also contact one of the HR agencies or personal coaches to help you choose the right tests and give you additional directions. Well, even if you didn’t like tests in school, these tests should be fun.

    Here is an example of really good personality test.

    Primary and secondary socialization

    A good way to see some parts of yourself is to analyze your parents and their personalities and behavior, your family history, schooling process, your nation’s history and current state, culture and so on. The less you know yourself, the less you are determined to live your own life, the more you are only a product of the environment.

    Nevertheless, whether you want it or not, most parts of your personality are not chosen by you but are rather inherited and imparted. Understanding your roots, history and especially your parents can help you a lot in understanding yourself and becoming closer to your real self, in knowing which parts to keep and which parts to discard.

    Analyzing these factors can really help you understand who you really are, what are your inherited positive and negative behavioral patterns, what kind of stuff was imposed on you, how you are similar or different from your parents, what they did right and wrong when raising you and so on.

    Your environment

    Your outer world is merely a reflection of your inner world. At some point, when becoming an adult, you choose almost all elements of your environment. Besides analyzing people, analyzing your environment can reveal a lot about your personality and who you are.

    Is your desk tidy or not, where do you live, which applications are you using on your computer and mobile phone, do you have animals or plants at home, the culture of the company you work for, the places you choose to travel to or visit etc. Everything reveals small parts of your character and who you are. Analyze it carefully. You can help yourself with all the elements of life strategy.

    Ask other people

    The next technique for getting to know yourself better is simply asking other people. There is one simple trick to doing that. We all love praise and hate criticism. Thus we have to prepare ourselves for good and bad feedback, as long as it’s constructive and fair. The good thing is that we can usually learn much more from the negative than the positive feedback. Ask people to give you feedback.

    In business and human resources, there is a very well-known evaluation method called the 360-degree feedback. The main point of this analysis and reflection is to include direct feedback from all the different stakeholders – an employee’s subordinates, peers and supervisor(s), but a self-evaluation is also included. In some cases, it also includes feedback from external sources, such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. The more feedback, the more angles, the more ways to improve.

    Thus you can ask your friends, coworkers, spouse, parents, kids etc. for feedback about yourself.

    Alternative methods

    There are also some alternative methods you can use, like astrology (a natal chart) or other spiritual techniques (numerology and hundreds of others). I don’t see any arguments against that kind of tools and techniques if they work for you. And if you think they are useless, ignore it.

    That is the basis of the AgileLeanLife and I don’t want to go against it in any kind of situation. Choose the tools and things that work for you personally as an idividual. Having an open mind is essential in life. As the famous quote goes: your mind is like a parachute, it only works when it’s open.

    Listen to your inner voice

    If you really want to be happy and successful you always have to be in touch with your true self and your inner voice.

    The first problem is that you already somehow lose touch with yourself through primary and secondary socialization. The less your desires are listened to, the less you get heard and valued and loved at a young age, from your parents, teachers and other people, the more you start suppressing your desires and living to expectations of others and the society.

    The second problem is that there is too much noise out there because of all the interactive devices, advertising billboards, chores, tasks and other activities. Rather than listening to ourselves and our true desires, we tend to behave according to the society’s expectations.

    Don’t do that to yourself, your life is just too precious. Get to know yourself, always do regular reflections and stay connected to your inner voice and true self. It will do miracles for the quality of your life.

    You can help yourself perform self-analysis with the template below. Download it for free.

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    At the end, here are some additional ideas for what you should clearly know about yourself:

    • What you want to experience in life and making the list of it as a life vision
    • How you learn best – look at the different types of learning and think about which method usually helps you learn a specific topic the fastest
    • Environment in which you function the best – is it stressful, calm, organized, creative etc. How big of an organization suits you best etc.
    • What are your main talents, values, beliefs, hobbies etc.
    • How you can contribute to the world and make it a better place.
    • In which environments, organizations and with whom do you really blossom and can really be yourself.
    • Who you were, who you are and who you want to become (your ideal self).
    • What are the things that you would regret in life
    Homework

    Your homework

    Here is the homework you should do to really get to know yourself better:

    1. Analyze the people who surround you. What kind of people do you like and what kind of acitivites you do together.
    2. Make your personal enjoyment list, the list of activities you like, your hobbies etc.
    3. Carefully analyze how you’re spending your time, money, energy and other resources.
    4. Perform a personal SWOT analysis.
    5. Analyze what kind of people do you dislike and why.
    6. Learn to analyze your dreams and fantasies.
    7. Consider having a mentor or a coach.
    8. Try as many things as possible to figure out what you really like and what you don’t.
    9. Do the 16personalities or any other personality test.
    10. Analyze your parents and their personalities and behavior, your family and nation’s history and culture etc.
    11. Analyze environment you currently operate in.
    12. Go through the life strategy template to become aware of your different beliefs and behavior patterns (here it is).
    13. Ask your friends, coworkers, spouse, parents, kids etc. for feedback about yourself.
    14. Do your ideal-self persona.
    15. Think of all the things you would regret in life if not trying them. Ask yourself why.

     

  • Start with a life vision

    The first thing you should do after reading the Agile and Lean life manifesto is set your life vision. All the masterpieces that have been created in the world began with a big vision, and so should your life. As the famous quote goes: the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

    A strong life vision helps you clarify what you want out of life and helps you focus yourself. If you write down your life vision correctly, it should serve as a roadmap, helping you make your dreams and passions a reality. A life vision is your compass that helps you live life to the full.

    The old way of setting a vision

    Writing down a life vision is not all that new. It’s a very well-known concept in personal development. But unfortunately the way it’s usually done is outdated. The big problem of “the old way” of setting a vision lies in the linear approach. When doing it the “old way”, you should answer questions such as where do you see yourself in five, ten or thirty years. By answering these questions and thinking about the future, you project partly your own goals and wishes and partly the society’s expectations (when to get married, when to retire…).

    For example, when you are in your twenties and setting a life vision, you assume that in ten years, you should have a home, kids, a well-paid job, and so on. Those are the expectations of the society and you add details and specifics according to your desires and personal preferences. For example, you could write down that in ten years, you will live in New York, have a big house, two kids and a managerial position in finance industry.

    The problem here is very obvious. Today no plan survives contact with reality. Not that long ago, life was quite linear, so linear planning of a life vision made sense. Today, the environment is too fast changing, complex and turbulent to make linear life visions. It’s impossible to predict what kind of a job you will have in ten years, what will happen to financial markets and your net worth, whether you will get or stay married, and how many countries you will visit.

    What can happen is that a few years after writing down your linear life vision, you can clearly see that you are not moving towards that life vision and become depressed or disappointed. It is very naïve to expect that you can just write down what you want out of life in a linear way and it will happen/and this will make it happen. Even if you do have a sound strategy and fight for it.

    But there is another way. A way where you don’t regard your life as a linear story that should unfold, but as a list of things you want to experience.

    Life vision

    Your Agile and Lean Life vision

    First things first. You should definitely have your life vision written down on paper. If you don’t have your own life vision, you won’t be motivated enough, you won’t be focused enough and there will be too many directions to move in to make any sound decisions for moving toward your real goals.

    Your life vision is the hope for what your life could be and something you can share with people you deeply care about, want to spend time with and who support you and empower you. The vision is your true north, a final destination to keep in mind.

    Your vision should be huge and exciting and breathtaking. Your vision should be your biggest inspiration in life. It’s what makes you ready for a new adventure every morning.

    To define your life vision, you should answer three simple questions:

    1. Who do you want to become (your personal evolution)? … and make your ideal-self persona.
    2. What do you want to experience in life (and how to enjoy it)? … and make a list of it.
    3. What kind of a legacy do you want to leave (what will you create)? … and write down a strong emotional statement.

    Who do you want to become?

    Your actual self is who you are at the moment. It represents the attributes you currently possess. The ideal self is the person you want to become. The ideal self is what motivates you to change, improve and achieve. When writing down your life vision, you should definitely include who you want to become as a person. It’s about your personal evolution and about how would you like to be remembered.

    We all have strengths we want to keep, assets we want to develop, and weaknesses we want to get rid of. The best tool for creating your ideal self is to make a persona. Here is the Agile and Lean Life guide on making personas.

    When making a persona you should look at the following elements and decide which one you want to keep, which one to strengthen, which one to develop and which one to get rid of.

    • Beliefs
    • Values
    • Behavioral patterns
    • Talents
    • Knowledge
    • Skills

    You develop and change yourself with identity shifts, life experiences, finding new better ways of doing things, epiphanies and many other ways. When thinking about who you want to become, you should also think about the situations in life that can shape you in that kind of way. Even if some of the experiences have to be tough. In fact, we usually develop the most through tough experiences.

    What do you want to experience in life?

    There are three main purposes in life. One is to evolve (grow, improve, learn…), the second is to experience as much as possible, meaning enjoying life, and the third is to create and leave a legacy. This part of setting the life vision is the really exciting and fun part. You should simply sit down and make a list of everything you want to experience in life. There are seven life areas you should start with and brainstorm further on.

    • Body (diet, sports, sex, food, massages…)
    • Relationships, emotions and romance
    • Money and wealth
    • Career, achievements and respect
    • Fun, creativity and travel
    • Spirituality
    • Technology

    The list of what you want to experience should be long and thorough (your bucket list). You can browse the internet, magazines, listen to your inner voice and so on.

    The countries you want to travel. The food you want to taste. The things you want to buy or rent. The things you want to experience with your spouse and other people. The things you want to create. The crazy achievements you want to accomplish, like dancing in the rain. The jobs and occupations you want to try. The sports you want to enjoy. All the types of chocolate you want to taste. The mindsets you want to live by.

    When writing down the things you want to experience, you should think about all those things you know you want to experience, or already like and want to experience more of, and those things that you think you want to experience. Remember that wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups, thus you have to know which parts of your life vision are only assumptions. For all the assumptions, you should first do small experiments to get better insights on what you really want.

    Testing and experimenting in life

    Testing and experimenting allow you to test each element of your vision and what you truly desire from life. Testing and experimenting help you discover and clarify your real vision and separate vision from illusion. Testing and experimenting also help you discover, clarify and expand your vision. You should constantly test new things, question everything and be encouraged to be curious and experience life to the full.

    Let me give you an example. Maybe you assume that you would be much more successful having your own business than being employed. You assume that being a business owner is something you want. But you’ve never been a business owner. Before making any big life decisions and opening your own business, it makes sense to carry out a small independent project for one of your hobbies in addition to having a daily job. In doing that, you can test yourself on how well you perform in inspiring people, managing teams, innovating, administrating and selling. If you see that you don’t like all that, maybe having a business is not something for you. While doing it, you can find out that you can work great as a multi-level marketer or whatever.

    Here is another case. I personally assume that I don’t like all the adrenalin stuff, like roller coasters etc. Maybe it’s only fear or maybe I really don’t like it for whatever reason. Nevertheless I don’t want to not do things just because of fear. Instead of going straight to bungee jumping and potentially dying from a heart attack, I can start with a slide for kids and then try experiences with more adrenalin rush. In the process, I may start loving it or maybe I’ll find out that those kinds of things are really not for me.

    Make environment and global flow your friends

    The final question is how to build a life around the vision you have, juggling all the areas of life. I think that the best answer to that question is adapting to changes that happen in the environment and to exploit the opportunities that come into your life. Thus you align your life vision with the flow around you. It’s not always possible, but it’s a big accelerator of experiencing things in life.

    For example: in my career, I want to experience and try many different occupations. I have all of them written down on my life vision list. I can always choose the one that has the most potential in a certain period of time. Sometimes the opportunities come by themselves, sometimes you have to make them with your own effort. But the key point is that you have a list you can choose from. Just the right amount of options that you are not lost, but are at the same time still aware of your personal freedom (options to choose from).

    For bigger experiences that you want out of life, you have to break your vision down into small parts. The small parts are like smaller visions you want to experience.

    And for some experiences, you have external limitations like your age, biological clock etc. For these kinds of experiences, you probably need some timeframes and perspectives on when is the latest that you can experience them, and make sure you shift your priorities if the deadline is fast approaching.

    Last but not least, I probably don’t have to emphasize that each and every part of your life vision should benefit others, not do any harm to them.

    What kind of a legacy do you want to leave?

    Life isn’t easy. But we can make it easier and more comfortable for the generations to come. Like the past generations did it for us (most of the time). Your greatest inspiration in life and a very important part of your life vision should be your plan for making the world a better place. You can do this by either investing your money, your time or both. The best way to do it is with your will to create.

    There are so many things you can do and contribute to help make the world a better place to live. Pick one and make it the strong emotional part of your life vision. You have to be aware of your personal power to positively change the world, and make use of it.

    You can choose difficult problems like: Domestic violence. Drugs. Human trafficking. Poverty. Depression. Bullying. Armed conflicts. Diseases. Climate change. Etc. Or you can tackle smaller, but no less important, problems like: Unhealthy diets. Information overflow. Materialism. And so on.

    The strong positive emotional situations you will experience with other people and the legacy you will leave for the generations to come are the most valuable parts of your life. These are the things you’ll remember with pride and joy on your death bed. There are the things that will make your life count. These are the things that will make your life worth living. Fight for something good. Change the world. Create. Innovate. You have the power to do it.

    The agile, not linear way

    The most important fact you have to be aware of when setting your life vision is that your life vision is not a linear plan or path. It’s a list of who you want to become (personal evolution), what legacy do you want to leave (creating a better place to live) and what you want to experience in life (how will you enjoy it).

    Everything when the right time comes; regardless of the expectations of the society; regardless of your own expectations towards life, how it should be. Expectations lead to disappointments. Experiences lead to a full life. But know that experiences are not only the easy and fun parts of life.

    Your life vision is a list that should constantly throw you out of your comfort zone and routine, and remind you of what else you want to experience in life. The list is your reminder to not waste your life and to live it to the full.

    You should regularly update your list and happily tick things off when the environment enables you to improve yourself, create or experience something new. Well, your environment or your personal will, or both.

    You should put no pressure on yourself about how your life should look in ten or twenty years. You should have a smart list of what you want to experience in life, and fight to experience as many things as possible that are on your list. Again, when the right time comes, since nobody knows when that is. The most important thing is that you are ticking things off the list. Except for the time-sensitive things where you have to make more effort, maybe even against the external forces.

    The vision is as important as the drive to achieve it

    There is one important word I’ve used in the previous paragraph. All this is about a smart list. That is the really important part of it, one not to be missed.

    You don’t win or achieve your goals only because of the life vision, but also because of the superior strategy. Thus, the first step is setting a life vision, but what happens next is even more critical. You also need a superior strategy for achieving your vision.

    How the Agile and Lean Life superior strategy looks like:

    • You sit down once a month and look at your Life Vision list.
      • Who do you want to become?
      • What do you want to experience?
      • What do you want to create and the legacy you want to leave?

    Download a template to help yourself with the exercise. You will also find an example of a life vision below.

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    AgileLeanLife – Vision Template

    Example of my life vision

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    • You make a reflection on what have you experienced, how you have changed and how you are moving towards your ideal self.
    • You should look at all the things you want to experience and, based on the analysis of your environment and your life situation, pick the things that make the most sense to experience in the next time frame.
    • You can simply plan smaller and more pleasurable things in your calendar. These are the fun things you want to experience in life.
    • For bigger experiences, you should devise small steps for how you will achieve them and how you will make adjustments based on the feedback from the environment. This part of your life vision should be broken down into small steps and defined by experiments that show you the way to go further.
    • You should move the experiences for which the time pressure is increasing higher up on your list of priorities. You still have to consider all the settings and how favorable they are to help you positively experience a certain thing.
    • You should keep updating (adding and removing) the list with all the things you want to experience.

    You can find more inspiration on how to do it in the Agile and Lean Life manifesto.