NuNomad Location Independent Living, Lifestyle Design, Independent Travel

With all the hubbub about “lifestyle design” these days it would seem that suddenly everyone and their long lost aunt is striving to live the next version of Tim Ferriss’ life, downsizing, creating a source of mobile income and taking off to the far reaches of the world where they can sit back and call themselves the “new rich”.  If you read this blog, you may be a person who also aspires to do this – or maybe, like me and my family, you already are living it out (although you can bet I’ve never used the term “new rich” in reference to myself!).

But have you ever asked yourself why you have the idea of this particular lifestyle in mind? I mean, how do you know that it’s really for you or whether you might in fact, come precariously close to being a lemming? More importantly, are you sure that carrying all your worldly possessions from one place to another while you maintain your income source is going to create greater happiness for you?

If you’ve ever designed a home, a garden, a piece of clothing or anything for your personal use for that matter, you will know that understanding your own needs is key in creating a design that you’ll be happy with in the long term.  And doing that is not easy.  I mean, we hear stories all the time about how happily married couples often end up divorced after trying to design and build their dream home.  Why is that?  It’s hard enough to design something to suit your own needs – harder yet to create something to suit the needs of more than one person.

“Designing a lifestyle” is no different.  In fact, it’s bigger than any of the examples above.  I mean, your lifestyle encompasses everything about you, where you live, how you live, what you do, what you eat, etc., etc.  It’s a monumental task to take on, and honestly, an ever changing one.  To base your lifestyle design on what you read about someone else or on an old childhood fantasy is an almost certain road to an unhappy result.  And for those of us with nomadic dreams it’s important to note that researchers in happiness have found that people traveling on vacations are in fact less happy and more stressed than when they are at home!

So, what can you do in order to design a life that is going to really suit your innermost needs and lead to greater happiness?  Thankfully there is a lot of information on positive psychology and happiness that can be put to use to create a blue print for your life that will have good chances of sending you off in the right direction.

What Brings Happiness?

It’s a question most of us ask in our lifetime and a question most of us answer incorrectly.  Have you ever spent time daydreaming scenarios like “If I won the lottery….”, or “If I had the perfect body…” , “If I got this dream job….”.  Our dreams usually convince us that if… we would be happy.  Funny thing is, research shows otherwise.  When studies have been done to see which life events result in more or less happiness results have shown that very few things in life change our levels of happiness in the long term.  It’s as if we are each living with a base level of happiness and no matter what happens we return to that level eventually.  Really!  Lottery winners are found to return to their original levels shortly after winning the lottery and even victims of accidents resulting in paralysis eventually return to their original levels of happiness. If you don’t believe it or if you’d like to know more, this video from a past TED conference gives a great description of the process. (Thanks to Sid Savara for turning me on to this video on his blog)

Too Many Choices – the Kiss of Death

In addition to the great information given by Dan Gilbert in the video above, let’s add in something else we know about choices and happiness.  Barry Schwartz, a researcher out of Swarthmore College, has shown that when we are given many choices we actually are less happy with our eventual decision.  Not unlike the students in the photography study cited by Gilbert, Schwartz explains how our modern industrialized societies which offer us endless choices in everything from products to career paths have actually decreased our levels of happiness and even led to higher rates of depression and suicide.

A quick walk to the nearest store for toilet paper is enough to prove the point.  Fragrance, no fragrance? One ply or two? Mega or super?  The list of choices goes on and on.  What results, as Schwartz points out, is paralysis.  It takes so much energy to make these choices at each turn of our lives that we become mentally paralyzed and unable to act in an efficient way.  Worse yet, after we make the choice we feel less satisfied with what we have than we would have felt without so many choices.  And, if our choice turns out to be a poor one we blame ourselves, resulting in depressive thoughts.

Put It Together

So, let’s put it together.  If you are reading this you are most likely from an industrialized country with access to many choices.  As human beings we tend to believe that actually having things (such as lottery winnings) will lead to greater happiness than just simulating the experience through thoughts, imagination or vicarious experience.  In addition, we’re great devourers of anything “self help”.

Apply these conditions to the new movement of ‘lifestyle design”.  As another iteration of the long line of self help subjects out there, lifestyle design encourages us not only to make the most of our lives in our current setting, but actually shatters the former boundaries of geography and encourages us to put no limits as to where we could live out the life of our dreams.  In other words it addresses a population that is already melancholic from its overabundance of choices and multiplies the choice pool dramatically.

It’s no wonder so many people, myself included, get completely ramped up on the idea and then absolutely paralyzed upon trying to make it happen.  The possibilities are so endless, how could you ever decide?  I’ve found Schwartz’ effect to be true this year as we have traveled.  After having done a lot of research about where I’d like to spend a year with our children and having landed on the amazingly beautiful island of Florianopolis, Brazil, followed by the culturally rich atmosphere of Oaxaca, Mexico, I’ve found myself having to fight a constant mental barrage of thoughts like, “yes, it’s beautiful, but I’d like more to do”, or “yes, there’s a lot to do but the pollution is high”, “what if we could find a place with cultural offerings, good weather, low pollution, safety….”.  The list goes on and on.  What Schwartz predicted was right.  With a multitude of choices it is easy to constantly feel you haven’t quite got exactly the right one.

What to Do?

So, is lifestyle design a sure fire way to unhappiness?  Not at all.  I never feel so alive as when I’m living nomadically.  What can you do to prevent the constant melancholy predicted by Schwartz or the erred search for Shangrila predicted by Gilbert?  Here are some ideas for designing a life that will truly lead to greater happiness:

1.  Understand first that happiness is not something to be pursued.  Happiness comes when we least realize it and is always experienced in the present.  Don’t look toward your future for happiness. Learn to experience it in your present.

2.  Use your Signature Strengths.  Long time researcher in happiness and acknowledged father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, has identified 24 signature strengths that are found in all humans.  Seligman proposes that happiness occurs when you are engaged in activities in which you are using your top strengths.  You can take a 30 minute quiz to learn what your signature strengths are by taking the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.  Scroll down the center column until you see the name for this test.  Pay attention to your top 5 strengths and ask yourself, “How can I design a lifestyle that will allow me to use these strengths as often as possible?”

3.  Go with the Flow.  Another renowned researcher, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly (pronounced “cheeks sent me high”) found that when people are engaged in activities that use their strengths they achieve a state of “flow”.  This is a state of happiness, feeling at one with the universe, and at times even experiencing euphoria when performing certain activities.  By maximizing instances of flow you can maximize your experiences of happiness.

4.  Narrow Your Choices. After identifying your strengths and activities that will lead to flow states for yourself create a list of these activities and make them priority one when choosing your lifestyle activities and destinations.  Do you achieve flow when hiking through nature?  Narrow your destination search to only places where nature will be easily accessed.  Perhaps your top signature strength is Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence and you achieve flow while painting.  Focus only on destinations with art classes that interest you.  By narrowing your choices you will help prevent the process Schwartz identified.

5.  Be Grateful Martin Seligman has found that people who engage in a Gratitude exersize each night at bedtime increase their levels of happiness.  Take a few moments each night to acknowledge 3 things for which you are grateful from that day.  Better yet, keep a notebook at hand and write them down.  You’ll be amazed what it can do!

Photo by: janusz l