aying

Cognitive Bias 1: Your degree determines your career.
Redefinition: 3/4 of college graduates end up working in jobs unrelated to their major.

Cognitive Bias 2: Achieving success will make you happy.
Redefinition: True happiness comes from designing a meaningful life.

Cognitive Bias 3: It's too late.
Redefinition: It's never too late to design a life you love.

Cognitive Bias 4: I should already know my destination.
Redefinition: You can only know how to reach your destination once you understand your current position.

Cognitive Bias 5: I should know my goals moving forward.
Redefinition: I can't always know my goals, but I can be clear about whether my direction is correct.

Cognitive Bias 6: I'm stuck.
Redefinition: I can never be stuck because I always come up with plenty of ideas.

Cognitive Bias 7: I must find the right idea.
Redefinition: I need many ideas so I can explore as many opportunities for my future as possible.

Cognitive Bias 8: I need to find the best way to live and then make a plan to achieve it.
Redefinition: There are countless wonderful lives (and plans) waiting for me; I can choose freely and create my own path.

Cognitive Bias 9: If I research all the data about the plan, I will definitely succeed.
Redefinition: I should prototype and discover the problems within the optional plans.

Cognitive Bias 10: When job hunting, focus first on your own needs.
Redefinition: You should focus on the needs of the hiring manager—who wants to find the right person.

Cognitive Bias 11: My ideal job is waiting for me.
Redefinition: You need to actively seek and recreate your ideal job.

Cognitive Bias 12: Networking is just a group of hypocritical people.
Redefinition: Networking is simply for consulting directions.

Cognitive Bias 13: I'm looking for a job.
Redefinition: I'm looking for a multitude of job opportunities.

Cognitive Bias 14: To be happy, I must make the right choices.
Redefinition: There are no right choices—only good choices.

Cognitive Bias 15: Happiness is having everything.
Redefinition: Happiness is about letting go.

Cognitive Bias 16: We judge our lives by results.
Redefinition: Life is a process, not a result.

Cognitive Bias 17: Life is a finite game with winners and losers.
Redefinition: Life is an infinite game with no winners or losers.

Cognitive Bias 18: This is my life; I can design it independently.
Redefinition: To live my life, I need to collaborate with others.

Cognitive Bias 19: I have completed my life design; the hard part is done, and everything will go smoothly from now on.
Redefinition: Life design is never-ending—life is an interesting and continuous design project, and I am always moving forward, never stopping.

Five Basic Mindsets of Design Thinking:
Curiosity
Practice
Redefinition
Focus
Deep Collaboration

I. Analyze and Assess Your Current Life#

"Health/Work/Love/Entertainment" Dashboard

II. Create a Compass for Life#

Creating a compass for life requires two things: work perspective and life perspective.

Reflect on Work Perspective

• Why work? What is the purpose of work?
• What does work mean?
• What is the relationship between work and the individual, others, and society?
• What constitutes a good job or a so-called valuable job?
• What is the relationship between work and money?
• What is the relationship between a person's experiences, growth, sense of achievement, and work?

Reflect on Life Perspective

• Why am I here?
• What is the meaning or purpose of life?
• What is the relationship between individuals and others?
• Where is the intersection of family, country, and the surrounding world?
• What is good? What is evil?
• Is there a higher power? For example, God or other supernatural entities? If so, how would this affect your life?
• What roles do happiness, sadness, fairness, unfairness, love, peace, and conflict play in life?

Answer the Following Questions

• Are there complementary aspects in your views on life and work?
• What conflicts exist between these two views?
• Does one perspective promote the other? How does this happen?

III. Find Your Path (Fun Will Guide You to the Right Job)#

The "Good Times Log" should include two elements:

• Activity records (record activities that fully engage you and energize you)
• Reflection (which activities brought you benefits? What were those benefits?)
• Aim for at least twice a week.

The Magic of the AEIOU Method
The AEIOU method consists of five sets of questions. You can use these five sets of questions when reflecting on your activity log.

• Activity: What exactly are you doing? Is it a structured activity or an unstructured one? Are you a leader in the team or a participant in the meeting?
• Environment: The environment we are in can significantly impact our mental state. The feelings you have on a football field are different from those in a church. When participating in an activity, pay attention to your environment. What kind of environment is it? What feelings does it evoke?
• Interaction: What kind of interaction do you have with people or machines? Is this interaction familiar or unfamiliar to you? Is it formal or informal?
• Object: Are you interacting with objects or equipment? Is it an iPad, smartphone, hockey stick, or sailboat? Do these things give you a sense of engagement?
• User: Are there other people involved in the activity? What roles do they play? Do they have a positive or negative impact on the activity?

Review Your Peak Experiences
Take some time to recall past peak experiences related to work and record them in the "Good Times Log." Reflect on these activities carefully and see what you discover.

IV. Break Free from Constraints#

Open Your Mind, Reject Self-Limitation
As a life designer, you need to accept the following two viewpoints:

1. Only with enough good ideas can you choose better ones.
2. Never choose the first solution for any problem.

First Brainstorming Technique: Create a Mind Map
The process of creating a mind map includes three steps:

1. Select a theme.
2. Create the mind map.
3. Make secondary connections and create concepts (connect concepts and establish a concept-mixing pattern).

Identify "Anchor Problems" That Cannot Disappear on Their Own
"Anchor problems" are real issues that are just difficult to solve; they are actionable—but because we have been stuck on them for too long, they feel insurmountable. (This is why anchor problems need to be redefined. These problems require us to expand our thinking and seek new solutions, such as prototyping.)
However, "gravity problems" are not real problems; they are situations you cannot change. There are no solutions for "gravity problems." You can only redirect.

Draw Mind Maps Based on Your Good Times Log

• Review your "Good Times Log" and focus on activities that fully engage you, energize you, and provide flow experiences.
• Select three activities that allow you to be fully engaged, energized, and provide flow experiences, then create three mind maps, one for each activity.
• Study the peripheral factors of each mind map, select three factors that immediately catch your attention, and write a job description for each factor.
• Create a role for each job description and sketch a rough drawing.

V. Create Your "Odyssey Plan"#

Imagine Multiple Possibilities for Life
Please imagine and write down three versions of your life plan for the next five years. We call this method the "Odyssey Plan."
Each "Odyssey Plan" should be Plan A, as it represents your true desires and is potentially achievable. The "Odyssey Plan" is a sketch of potential possibilities that can stimulate your imagination, help you choose a direction, and initiate prototyping to propel your life forward.

• First Option—What you are currently doing. Your first plan should focus on your existing ideas—it may be an extension of your current life or a good idea that has been brewing in your mind for a long time.
• Second Option—If you suddenly cannot continue with your current job (the first option), then the second option is what you want to do.
• Third Option—What you want to do or the life you want to live, without considering money and image.

Odyssey Plan Details

• 1. An intuitive/illustrative timeline that includes personal, non-work-related matters. For example, do you want to get married? Do you want to participate in training and then win a fitness competition? Do you hope to learn to bend spoons with your mind?
• 2. Give each plan a six-word title that describes the core content of the plan.
• 3. Pose two to three questions for each plan. Excellent designers test ideas through questioning to discover new thoughts. In each timeline, you can explore various possibilities and learn more about yourself and the world around you. What do you want to test and explore in these three life plans?
• 4. Fill out the "Dashboard" to evaluate the following:
     • Resources (Do you have objective resources? For example, time, money, connections—these are essential for realizing your plans.)
     • Enjoyment (What is your attitude toward these three plans? Urgent, lacking enthusiasm, or full of passion?)
     • Confidence (Do you believe you will achieve the plan, or are you uncertain?)
     • Consistency (Do these plans make sense? Are they consistent with your work and life perspectives?)
     • Potential Considerations:
     • Geography—Where do you live?
     • What experiences will you gain?
     • If you choose one of the plans, what impact will it have on you?
     • What will your life look like? What kind of person do you want to become? In what industry or company do you want to work?
     • Other Considerations:
     • Besides career and money, pay attention to other matters. Career and money can play a decisive role in your direction for the next few years, but there are still other key factors that need your attention.
     • Any of the above factors could serve as a starting point for your life plan in the coming years. If you find yourself stuck, try drawing a mind map based on the design factors listed above. Don’t overthink this exercise, and don’t skip it.

Share Your Life Plan
The most interesting and effective way to complete the life design process is to form a team of 3 to 6 members, including yourself.

VI. Prototyping#

Learn to Ask Questions
Building is thinking
Prototyping is primarily about asking meaningful questions, exposing our deep preferences and assumptions, rapidly iterating feedback, and providing momentum for the life path we want to try.
Our philosophy is to prototype anything that interests you.
Prototyping does not mean conducting thought experiments in your mind; it must be a real-life experience. Valuable data only exists in the real world, and the best way to prototype is to actively participate in the field that interests you to gather the information you need.
Therefore, prototyping includes asking challenging questions, creating experiences, forming hypotheses, failing quickly, and moving forward through failure, quietly approaching your future.

Conduct Prototyping Conversations—Life Design Interviews
Life design interviews are very simple; they involve understanding others' experiences.
In the interview, you should seek to understand:

• How did they start doing what they are currently doing?
• How did they acquire the relevant skills for their profession?
• What would happen if you pursued their current career?

Prototyping Experience
Brainstorming
Think about what your questions are. What else do you want to learn through prototyping experiences?
The ultimate goal of brainstorming is to find ideas that can be prototyped and tried out in real life.
Brainstorming Rules:
1. Quantity over quality.
2. Do not immediately judge or modify others' ideas.
3. Innovate based on others' ideas.
4. Encourage everyone to share bold and crazy ideas.
In life design, brainstorming consists of four steps:

• Step 1: Pose a suitable question (open-ended, not too broad, and does not include solutions).
• Step 2: Warm-up.
• Step 3: Generate ideas.
• Step 4: Name and plan the results (ideas proposed by group members can be categorized by theme or category and given names, then designed according to the initial focus question).

Prototyping and Experience

• Review your three "Odyssey Plans" and pose questions for each plan.
• List a prototyping conversation design table to help you answer the above questions.
• List a prototyping experience checklist to help you answer the above questions.
• If you find yourself stuck and have gathered a great brainstorming group, holding a brainstorming meeting can provide various possible solutions. (Can't find a team? Then try mind mapping.)
• Actively seek people for life design interviews and participate in experiences to create your prototyping experience.

VII. Secrets to Successful Job Hunting#

Understand the Implications Beyond Job Descriptions
Insider Information on Online Recruitment:

1. Job descriptions online are often not written by hiring managers or those who truly understand the job.
2. Job descriptions rarely outline the conditions needed for successfully obtaining the job.

The Primary Principle of Job Hunting is "Fit"
Here are some small suggestions to help you find satisfactory jobs more effectively online:
Suggestion 1: Rewrite your resume using the same vocabulary as in the job description.
Suggestion 2: If you possess the skills mentioned in the job description, include them in your resume, using the same vocabulary.
Suggestion 3: Highlight the key skills mentioned in the job description in your resume.
Suggestion 4: If you get an interview opportunity, make sure to bring a clean, updated resume.

Give Up "Super Jobs" Early
In a well-functioning labor market, a job posting should not last more than 4 weeks (at most 6 weeks).
Based on our experience, if more than 8 people have suffered through the interview process and the company has not yet made a decision, this recruitment process may have failed. This also indicates that the company is not a good place to work, and you should leave as soon as possible.

Deceptive "Ghost" Recruitment
Candidates already selected, formal recruitment.

"False Positives" and "False Negatives" in Well-Known Companies
If a company mistakenly believes a candidate is outstanding when they are actually quite average, this is a "false positive."
"False negative"—wrongly believing that a truly excellent candidate is not strong.
If you want to work for a well-known company, it's best to connect with someone inside the company and use prototyping conversations—personal connections can be immensely helpful.

Make Work More Perfect

VIII. Good Jobs Are Designed#

Leverage Your Network
"Networking" is more of a verb than a noun; we want you to ask for directions, not to "use" your network, but to join it.
The existence of a network is to support people in the field to complete their work, and it is the only pathway into the hidden job market.

You Are Looking for Job Opportunities, Not Jobs
When you shift your mindset to seek job opportunities rather than jobs, you become more genuine, energetic, resilient, and happier.
The main content of prototyping conversations and experiences is to face all possibilities with an open mind and a strong sense of curiosity.

IX. Actively Choose Happiness#

In life design, choosing to be happy means you must choose happiness.

Four Steps of Choice

The key to Step 3 is to make wise decisions using multiple perceptual methods, rather than relying solely on cognitive judgment.
To make multiple perceptual methods work together, you need to cultivate and refine your emotional/intuitive/spiritual perceptual methods and awareness. The most common methods are personal practice activities, such as journaling, praying, or meditating, combined with physical practices like yoga or tai chi.

Avoid Overthinking and Learn to Let Go

X. You Can Be Immune to Failure#

In life design, understanding the meaning of failure and how to achieve "failure immunity" is crucial.

Do Not Judge Life Success or Failure by Results

• The first level of failure immunity—take action, fail quickly, and recognize that the value of failure lies in eliminating troubles (of course, you can also quickly learn from failure and improve).
• Another level of failure immunity is called "major failure immunity." "Designing life itself is a kind of life, as life is a process, not a result."

Grow Until Death

Failure Reconstruction Exercise
Failure reconstruction is a process that transforms raw materials (failure) into a qualitative leap (success). This exercise is simple and consists of three steps:

• 1. Record your experiences of failure.
• 2. Categorize the failures.
     The first category of failure is caused by low-level mistakes, i.e., failures resulting from errors you generally would not make.
The second category of failure is due to personal weaknesses.
The third category of failure is failures that contain growth opportunities; these are failures that could have been avoided or can be avoided in the future. The causes of these failures are identifiable, and there are remedies. We should focus on this category of failure rather than the other two, as even if we spend a lot of time on the first two categories, there won't be much improvement.
• 3. Identify failures that contain growth opportunities.

Practice Redefining Failure

1. Use the table above to review the past week (or month or year) and record the failures you encountered.
2. Categorize the failures according to low-level mistakes, weaknesses, and growth opportunities.
3. Identify failures that contain growth opportunities.
4. Do this exercise 1-2 times a month to develop a habit of learning from failures and gaining growth.

XI. Create a Team#

Identify Your Team Members

• Supporters. Supporters are reliable and trustworthy people; anyone who cares about you can be called a supporter.
• Participants. They will actively participate in your life design, especially in matters related to work, entertainment, and prototyping.
• Family and Friends. Family and friends include your family members and relatives, as well as your closest friends. These people are most likely to be directly affected by your life design, regardless of whether they participate in it; they are the most influential people in your life.
• Team. Team members are those who can share the details of your life design with you and meet regularly to keep track of your life design.
• A healthy team should consist of 2 to 6 people, including yourself. The ideal number for this team is 3 to 5 people.

Team Roles and Rules

1. Respect.
2. Confidentiality.
3. Active participation (no retreat).
4. Generative (constructive, no questioning, no judgment).

Find a Life Mentor
If you can find someone who can provide you with beneficial guidance and help you maintain a clear mind and stable attitude, then you have a tremendous asset—that is the role of a mentor.

Actively Organize Community Activities

• Shared purpose.
• Regular meetings.
• Shared positions.
• Understanding and being understood.