What is Engineer Your Life?
An Introduction
A few of the eagle eyed among will see that I’ve been experimenting with this idea of Engineer Your Life in some of my blog posts. It seems it has legs, so I’m launching it into a whole new beast of its own. So, what’s the big idea? Let me explain.
What are the aims of Engineer Your Life?
To set out a blueprint of what you can DO starting today
It kindda does what it says on the tin. There’s a lot of content out there on goal setting and personal development and that’s all fine and dandy. Often however, we set about doing them for a couple of days then life gets in the way and slowly but surely those aims are pushed to the back of our minds and eventually forgotten. Engineer Your Life instead sets out a blueprint, a blueprint which you take part in drawing up to help give you tangible actions to about achieving your goals. It’s about engineering your life in such a way it’s easier to encourage the behaviours you’d like to see in yourself and cultivate a mindset for success in life; however you define that success.
Uses basic engineering principles to convey complex ideas in a simpler, more pragmatic way
Don’t worry, I’m not going to get you to do any trigonometry. No, this is more about the deeper underlying principles good engineers use to be creative, solve complex problems and integrate intricate systems. Just instead of a jet engine, what we’re working on here is your life.
To get you to think in a different way about self-improvement
Far too often I’ve noticed books and coaches dedicated only to self-improvement are wishy-washy tomes that, although do sound good while reading, seem to be designed to make you feel good (or the author sound good) than to give you any concrete ideas about how to grab life by the balls and tackle it head-on. I believe there is a more scientific approach to a self-improvement journey that we can take. It’s a systematic approach I’ve used myself and used to help those around me tackle problems in their life.
Ultimately it’s about making you happier, healthier and more successful in whatever you define as success
Maybe this approach doesn’t work for you, and that’s just the nature of being human, we’re all individuals. I do suggest you don’t knock it before you try it. The only way to know what works for you is to earnestly throw yourself into it. Whether your version of success is raising a set of good-natured children or being the best goddamn surfer on Bondi Beach, this new approach will elevate your thinking and your ability to achieve in what you do.
It’s a way of learning for me too.
This is a journey I will take hand-in-hand with my followers. Now, I do have two things in my favour, one is the success I’ve enjoyed in my professional and personal life. The businesses I’ve created from nothing, run and/or sold are evidence enough of my professional ability, and personally I’ve been on an epic fat loss journey, have a healthy relationship with my beautiful fiancée and am generally happy with my approach to life. That’s not to say my life is totally hunky-dory and the sun shines out of my arse, far from it, I still have mountains to climb on my own self-improvement journey, but it does give me a good leg to stand on.
The second is a reasonable level of book knowledge, I’ve read heaps of books on self-improvement, mindset, personal philosophy, gamification, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and of course everything I’ve read and learnt as an engineer. Some books are great, some are so awful I don’t know how they ever became popular. I don’t say these things to puff up my own chest, I hate even mentioning it, more if I were some failed schlub selling you bad ideas that even I don’t use, I imagine very little will be of much use to you. It certainly wouldn’t be that convincing right?
Experience and book knowledge, though, can only get you so far. The first is a form of anecdotal evidence and the former can be somewhat cerebral and is not always practical in the real world. That means, if I want to impart my own little niche of knowledge, if I want to help people then I simply need to get out and do it. To listen and get feedback, find out what’s working for people and what isn’t. I need to create vehicle to do that, to reach people, to help them achieve their goals. Engineer Your Life is that vehicle.
Cool, soo… what’s on the agenda chief?
Right of the bat these are the things I’m going to start effective immediately:
· A Blog Post Every Tuesday — There are a couple I’ve already written (“Why You Need a System”, “Learn to Fail Up or It’ll Bring You Down” and “The Power of Incremental Change”). These blog posts will be on various topics covering some of the ideas behind Engineer Your Life and helping you put together that blueprint.
· Videos and podcasts — so that those of you who prefer to watch or listen have a way to tune in.
· Additional Content on Social Media — with some useful titbits, quotes and personal stories. (You can follow on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram)
· “Friday Formula” Email — Every Friday I will share a simple formula that breaks down into something practical you can implement as part of your blueprint immediately.
Beyond that, looking into the future I will be looking providing more tangible ways for you to engage with me and this approach and I’ve listed some ideas below:
· Coaching — both 1–2–1 & group, so that I can directly help explain some of the concepts, how to implement them in your life and get direct feedback from you.
· Discussion Groups — both live via Webcam and slow time via Facebook Groups. We can get around the campfire, talk about how we’re each building our engines of improvement and share our successes.
· Courses — which are more structured to facilitate learning and to get you started.
· Printable or software templates — for you to use some ideas even more practically.
· A Book or Booklet — may at some point be practical to pull together the blog posts and knowledge gained into an order that is more useful and easier to navigate.
If you spot something on this list you’d be interested in let me know, or if there’s something that’s not on this list you’d think would help me to help you, then comment, send me a DM or get in touch via carrier pigeon.
I’m looking forward to sharing this with all of you as I begin getting out more content next week, it’s been a long time brewing! Don’t miss an update and get extra content by signing up to the mailing list and follow along on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
This article was written by Cameron Readman. If you’d like to know more or receive notifications for future articles, please head over to the Website and subscribe at the bottom of the page!
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