Imagine you wake up, without an alarm, to soft sunlight and the sound of waves crashing on the beach. You prepare your favorite cup of fragrant tea and stroll along the sand sipping and feeling the sunshine warm your skin. After your walk, you spend some time preparing a delicious breakfast and practicing your preferred form of exercise. You take a dip in the warm, clear ocean and then sit at a desk in front of a window overlooking the sea for two hours to work. You’re on no one’s schedule but your own, and it feels so good. After a brief siesta and lunch, you do another hour or two of work and then meet up with some friends for a trip to the market and some exploration of the island. After an adventure and some local delicacies, you sit around a bonfire with a cold beer and some lighthearted conversation. Tomorrow, you’ll get to do this again. You’ll get to do this for the rest of your life, if you so choose.

Did you think I was describing a wonderful work-related trip (or a slightly work-centric vacation) where you only have to work a few hours a day and can spend the rest of your time sleeping in, walking on the beach, touring your tropical paradise, and spending quality times with friends? Could you imagine this being your lifestyle, permanently? I’d be willing to bet that your answer to the latter question would be no. You may be thinking that it sounds wonderful, but it’s not realistic, at least not now. Maybe in retirement, but not when you’re in your twenties, fresh out of college and just beginning a 45-year career!

Let me ask you this: why trade the best years of your life working for a company or corporation– that in all likelihood does not give a damn about you or your aspirations– for 20 years of doing whatever you want, wherever you want (i.e. traditional retirement) once you’re past your prime and likely too old to pursue the passions of your younger self? Doesn’t that seem massively backwards? Isn’t there something in the pit of your stomach right now that is telling you that the ‘work for 40 to 45 years and retire at 65‘ system is a waste of the prime years of your life? You probably don’t want to do it, but you feel like you have to, right?

Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't have to defer the gratification of pursuing your ideal lifestyle until you're retired. You can live the life that you've dreamed about, right now.

How? This is where lifestyle design comes in. This concept became part of my vocabulary when I was 14 and I read The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss. It took me years to fully embrace this lifestyle design mindset, but I wouldn’t be where I am today without reading this book. It was truly a crucial turning-point in my path to freedom and re-defining my life. In the book, which I highly recommend to everyone, he puts forth a definition of both the term and the people who pursue it:

"The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD). "

So lifestyle design is first about rejecting the status-quo of waiting to live your ideal lifestyle until you’ve retired from a long career, and accepting that you can live your ideal lifestyle now. Then, it involves creating a “luxury lifestyle,” which frankly I find to be a bit of an unnecessarily frivolous term, but he’s onto something. After all, the Merriam Webster dictionary describes luxury as “a condition of abundance or great ease and comfort,” which if we’re honest with ourselves, is something that we all desire. I prefer the term “ideal lifestyle,” which connotes a condition of contentedness and comfort but can be simple rather than extravagant.

Everyone’s ideal lifestyle is going to look different. That salt-and-sand island life at the beginning of the post is my ideal lifestyle. Others may choose to change the scenery to a cozy cabin on a mountainside with gorgeous sunset views, or an apartment in a city that’s a mere minute’s walk from any type of cuisine imaginable. There are those who enjoy the work they do, and those who would love to escape the grind. Some want to travel, and others want to settle down and become a core part of their hometown community. Your ideal lifestyle might not look anything like mine, but the principles of applying lifestyle design are the same for you and me.

The old currency that was used as a benchmark of wealth was cold, hard cash. With lifestyle design, the primary currencies that make you “rich” are time and mobility. You can live a rich life with little money but a lot of free time to spend as you please. If you shed your obligation to be at a certain place at a certain time every day (aka your job) for 40-60 hours a week, your flexibility will allow you to travel, visit with family, explore your passions, create change in the world, and enjoy more freedom every day.

In short, lifestyle design is choosing how you live your life rather than letting the “American Dream” dictate how you’re going to live it. When you choose to design your lifestyle, you are intentionally creating a set of circumstances that allow you to live the way you want to, now rather than later. Regardless of what your ideal lifestyle looks like, you CAN achieve it. Like anything, this just takes dedication, focus, and a plan. The best time to start making this plan and putting it into action is NOW.