Design Your Intentional Life

Health is a great gift. Optimizing health is ideal - it helps you feel better, live longer and enjoy your life. Ultimately your health -as good as it is, is a means to an end. Not one of us will live forever, and no matter how you live, your health will decline. Health is a resource or currency that you have, and the question is how will you use your health to fulfill the purpose of your life? 

This article will help you discover Your WHY. Why do you want to have a healthier life? It is likely different for everyone. This is a personal discovery. Choosing the why for your health that is in alignment with the desires for your life makes this much more sustainable. 

First, let’s zoom out. What areas of life currency do you have, and what do you want to use your currency to build? 

Understanding your life currency

Everyone has the gift of a few different types of currency: health, time, unique personal gifts and money. Like our fingerprints, each person’s resources are unique. 

Think about the game Settlers of Catan: in this game having a balanced distribution of resources is helpful for building cities and eventually winning the game. Resources like brick, wood, wheat and sheep can be used, and traded in alignment with your strategy in the game: to create roads, settlements and cities which will help you win the game. 

Unlike Settlers of Catan, your life is not a competition against others. However, accumulating and using your life currency (health, wealth, time and your unique gifts) is essential in creating a life that is meaningful for you.

Where are your levels of “Life Currency”? Where do you have the most abundance of, and what is the most scarce? Although this book is focused on helping you improve your health, it is helpful for you to understand what currency you have, and where your difficulties are before making an intentional strategy. 

Resource Audit

In the Emergency Department where I work, nurses and doctors develop a skill of triaging the sickest patients first who need life-saving treatment. This is a triage exercise. 

Of these resources, which limits your ability to achieve what you want to accomplish now? What about in the future? Let’s dive into each and explore where you stand, and what the future might look like. 

Where do you stand? 

Health: Do you have the energy to accomplish what you want to in your life? Do you feel good? Are you on a trajectory where you still have the health you need to have a meaningful life in your later years? 

Wealth: Do you have the money to meet your needs and provide for your family? Is your future secure? 

Time: Do you have the time to prioritize your relationships? To savor the world around you? Are you in a place where creating more time would improve your happiness? 

Personal Gifts/Passions: Have you identified your personal gifts and passions? Are you prioritizing them to create or make a difference? Are you on track to keep doing this throughout your life? 

Using Your Currency Meaningfully: 

The goal for you here is in 2 parts:

1. Help you find ways to improve or rebalance your time, wealth, health and personal gifts so you can have the right  resources to build the life you want. 

2. Make a plan to use the life currency in the most meaningful ways. 

This is to help you do the best you can with what you have. It is going to help you think about your life strategy more clearly in order to make changes as needed so your behavior aligns with your desired outcomes.

Desired outcomes are what you want at the end of your life. This is the ‘WHY’ of your health.  To remember these outcomes, consider the LIFE pillars: 

Regardless of what you choose, your currency will get spent. Your money might get passed on, spent by someone else, or given to organizations. Your time and health and unique gifts will be used or wasted in a relatively short amount of time. Will you choose to spend your gifts of currency in the most meaningful ways? The LIFE pillars detail the most meaningful ways to spend life’s currency. 

Living Well: This about living your life designed from patterns of peace and happiness.

Impact: Using your unique gifts and passions to make the world around you a better place.

Family/Friends: How are the quality of your relationships? 

Evolution: Who are you becoming?

To live the most meaningful life, use your life currency to focus on the LIFE pillars. What can you do today to align your actions with what you want out of life?