If someone handed you $10,000,000 today, would you know exactly what you'd want to do with it to make your life perfect?

It's not just about having a dream job or a successful career; it's about shaping a life that resonates with your deepest desires and values.

This week, let's begin to define your ideal life, step by step. Life design isn't about stumbling upon success; it's about actively creating the life you want.

I hope you benefit from this and as always, thank you for reading 🤍

Also, Happy New Year wherever you are.

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What's Inside:

• 🎨 Life by Design: Shaping Your Future Beyond Career Choices
• 🩺 Medical School Update
• ✏️ Insights - Podcasts, Books, Amazon finds & other cool things

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Why Adult Life Sucks (and how to make it better)

Growing up, the most common question adults and school will ask you is:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?

The problem with that question is it forces you to pick a specific title. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher. It puts you into a box.

That's the problem that a lot of us face: We pick one of these titles from a very select few options when in reality, the number of potential outcomes of your life is endless. Being an influencer or content creator didn’t exist when I was 10, yet here I am.

Let’s pretend I’m not on my way to being a doctor.

When I was growing up, people asked me what I wanted to be when I was older. I would say, doctor. Now that I’m older, in medical school and on hospital placement, I've seen what doctors do in the hospital and I've seen what their lives look like.

I've realised that being a doctor was nice when I was a kid, but now that I'm grown up, I look at what an actual doctor's life looks like day to day. Unfortunately, it doesn't get me anywhere near my ideal life.

• A doctor doesn’t get to work whenever they want to
• A doctor doesn't get to take holidays whenever they want to
• A doctor probably doesn’t have breakfast or dinner with their families that much.
• Other than when they’re off, a doctor doesn’t get to exercise whenever they want to

All of a sudden, what used to be a dream is no longer a dream for me.

I wish that if I could go back in time and be young again, I would take a different approach. I would think about the end in mind and then make my decisions like that.

With my current mindset, I wouldn't have gone down this route of medicine. However, I still love my degree and I am grateful to say that I am studying medicine by choice, not necessity.

There are a lot of students who have a desire to follow a career path, but once they start it, they regret it and wish they could go back in time and change their decision.

The chances of you picking a career early in your life, sticking to it and enjoying it are extremely low. That’s why I think the question is flawed. Instead of asking:

“What do you want to be when you're older?”

We should begin with the end in mind and ask:

“What would you like your life to look like on a day-to-day basis in the future?”

This is all about life design.

I believe this is the best approach to figuring out what you want to do with your life. This is the approach that I take. It forces you to think long-term and about the things that matter. Which is what your daily routine looks like.

People often pick careers for status, money and ego, forgetting how little such things matter in life.

When I think about my ideal life, there are a few things I’d like.

• To take up whenever I want to
• To eat breakfast and dinner with my family every day
• To be able to exercise whenever I want to, rather than fitting it into my schedule

My ideal life would be centred around my family. The work I do needs to first pay the bills, but it needs to have purpose and bring me joy. Who would want a job that makes you dread Monday mornings?

I wouldn't want to do a job where I work with people who I don't like. I want to work with people who I enjoy working with. I want to do purposeful work and I want to have an impact whilst also making a good income.

That means working for a company or someone else probably won’t suit me long-term. When you work for someone else, you lose all control over time and instead are a slave to the work rota. That’s not an ideal life in my opinion.

That means I’m going to have to go down the business route. Even as a medical student, it’s possible, I could open my own clinic or branch out into a business based on my speciality.

You need to define your rich life → The life you would live if you were highly successful and financially free.

This is something I learnt from Ramith Sethi, a finance expert.

Begin with the end in mind. What is the ideal life and the minimum monthly salary you would need to have that life? Most of us think we need millions to be rich but if you sit down and imagine what exactly you would need for your ideal life and add up the costs, it’s less than you think.

This is the ideal way to plan your life. You define the ending point and work your way backwards to now.

What would you like in life that you currently can't afford or get?

For me, an example is that I would love to have a personal chef. I think the idea of cooking is nice, but if I had somebody who cooked me healthy, nutritious meals every day and I didn't have to worry about the cooking, that would be amazing. Good for my health, my time, and it would be like eating in a restaurant all the time.

I have searched the costs of a personal chef so I know what I’m aiming for. I can quantify how far I am from my dream life.

I did the same for my dream car, my dream house and my location.

When you work your way backwards it does 2 things:

• It turns out to be a lot less than you think. It’s not hundreds of millions. It might not even be millions.
• It starts to seem more realistic.

When you start doing these things and you start writing down and planning where you want to be in the future, you start to design your life. You end up with a number and a vision of your ideal life.

This vision is what you should use as a litmus test to choose what to do with your life. The number will direct you to your desired salary, which will guide your decisions.

Working your way backwards is the best method to reach your ideal life.

I think this is a nice topic that should sort of be taught to kids in schools. Instead of asking them what they want to be when they’re older, the kids should be asked about the lifestyle they want to live.

It should be a common practice to design your life so you end up where you want to be on purpose, rather than somewhere else by accident.

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🩺 Medical School Update

2024 is the year to become an academic weapon.

I’m currently on a 140-day studying streak going into my most important academic year so far, with the biggest exam of medical school a few months away. This year I’m going to work harder for this exam than I have for any other previously.

Insha’Allah I’m sure it will be fun to push myself to my limits. I think the best part of these big exams is that once they’re over I can relax. I won’t have any big looming tests and I can fully focus on other areas of life.

I feel like medical school is constantly holding me back in terms of making my best content, so once these are over I will be able to live up to my potential. I haven’t sat an exam in a long time so I’m looking forward to it.

I’m glad I’ve reached a stage where I don’t see exams as stressful and I know how to prepare best.

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✏️Insights

🎙️📚: None

I haven’t read much or listened to many podcasts lately. I’m focusing more on creating than consuming and I think it’s important. The time spent consuming a book or a podcast is better spent taking action. Especially if you have listened to and read many like myself.

🎥 Movie/TV Show: Batman The Dark Knight

Somehow my siblings haven’t seen the Batman trilogy so I’m showing them what real cinema is. If you didn’t know, these are some of the highest IMDB-rated movies of all time. The acting is insane, the storyline is incredible and it never gets old.

🛒 Amazon Finds

Click this link to view my Amazon storefront. Here I share my favourite books, tech and household items purchases. As a minimalist, I am very careful how I spend my money and I ensure that every item brings me some sort of value or utility. I often get asked about the decor in my bedroom - you can find most of it over here.