The tool, that helped me the most – aside from my homeopath, who has been by my side for the past 18 years, and who helped me so much to peel off layer after layer! As well as my spiritual coach, who was there for me every time I needed her – was Lifebook.
After hearing myself say the words „this is not the life I signed up for“ in late spring 2020, I spent the summer of 2020 searching for something that could help me. My panic attacks were at their all time high and I was more than desperate.
Of course the pandemic didn’t help my situation. More than the virus, I started to fear the speed with which our rights disappeared, while at the same time more and more people around me seemed to believe into all sorts of weird assumptions and accusations. I couldn’t relate to either side. I forced myself to read the news several times a day, using various sources, so I could make my own judgements, and wouldn’t get sucked in by any of the fear-spreading sides. The judgement and hate that erupted by the autumn were close to unbearable for me.
Finally, I found Mindvalley, which helped me so much with their free resources on YouTube, masterclasses and Facebook. I watched a lot of the various masterclasses, which ALL helped me! Be it on emotions, spirituality, business, getting organised. They were inspiring, gave me knowledge and ultimately hope. I didn’t have the money to join Mindvalley straightaway. It took two years before I finally could. Their free resources were incredibly helpful for me though.
Through Mindvalley I found Lifebook in December 2020 and watched the masterclass. I knew instantely that joining the programme was my biggest hope to get out of my desperately dark mind and I convinced my husband – who is neither into self-development, nor did he enjoy the Mindvalley masterclasses I forced him to watch with me, to join Lifebook. It was a big committment for us because you had to pay a deposit of $500 to join the programme, which was A LOT of money for us! But if you completed the programme within the six weeks it was running, you could ask for a refund. All they wanted was that you complete it.
So what is Lifebook?
And why did it help me? In Lifebook you look at 12 categories and ask yourself what you want in each one of them. Jon, who developed Lifebook as a tool for himself, to get through his own problems, identified that in order to live a happy and thriving life, you need all these 12 categories.
And I totally agree. I had always only focused, and failed in, one category: career. The other ones were unconscious by-products in my life.
The 12 categories in Lifebook (and Lifebook is not the only tool to work with categories to envision your future, but I found Lifebook first, before I discovered other tools too J) are as follows:
- Health and Fitness
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Character
- Spiritual
- Love relationship
- Family
- Social Life
- Finances
- Career
- Quality of Life
- Life Vision
The first five categories are like your foundation. They focus on yourself. Categories six, seven and eight are your relationships, while finances for most people are a result of their career, and quality of life essentially a combination of all categories. The last category, your life vision is your north star, your dream life, where it all comes together.
In each category you ask yourself four questions: what do I think is possible for me? Where would I like to get to, what is my vision in this category? Why do I want that vision to be true for me? And what do I have to do in order to achieve what I want? These four questions are powerful!
In doing this for all twelve categories you are diving deep! Like really deep! And if you take the time to do so, you will figure out what you want. In case you don’t know what you want. And I didn’t know. Not only do you figure out what you want though, you will find a path that makes your overall life vision possible too. Maybe not in every detail from the start but it will eventually emerge! It’s an amazing programme and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I am not an affiliate by the way. I just love it because it changed my life. It took me out of my darkness and back into happiness. It enabled me to do so. Because I knew I was unhappy, but I didn’t know what exactly I wanted changing in my life, let alone what I wanted from life! I think the thought, that I have potentially full control over my life was radically new to me! Of course I knew I had a lot of influence, afterall I am an adult in a free, democratic country. But I didn’t really understand that I am literally the owner of my life and that I can shape it the way I want it. Worse actually, that my life as it was, was essentially a result of my (poor) past decisions. Of course it wasn’t just poor past decisions that had me got to where I was. Fate had also struck a few times. However, I had handed over a lot of power to no-one in particular. I simply had not used my creation possibilities and power. Life happened to me, by chance in most cases. Some things were good, others were not. Some things I don’t have control over, but a lot of things I do have way more control over then I had ever considered before. And I had given that power away. To no-one in particular. I just hadn’t used it.
When I started thinking about what I thought was possible for me in each category, what my vision was, why I wanted what I wanted and how I could achieve it, I realised two things: I have an incredible power over what I can make happen in my life, if I know what I want!! And secondly, there is a unique path for all I want, my path. That I could have it all. Something I had thought impossible before, as I had always looked to others to learn how they were doing it. And I never felt I wanted what they had , or that I wouldn’t be able to pull off what they had pulled off. Looking at what others are doing and how they are doing it, can be useful. But it’s an incredibly poor choice to try and live someone else’s life. It takes all your power away and chances are high that it will neither come easy to you, nor will it make you happy, let alone fulfill you. Yet, it’s in essence exactly what I did. I didn’t look at anyone in particular. I did what most people do. I tried to find a job that would gurantee as much safety as possible. I tried to find a place to settle down and keep that in shape for the rest of my life. But it felt so boring, I didn’t do a good job at it, and it drained my life force. Every now and then something exciting would happen, that justified that I was in the right place. But I wasn’t. I was miles away from my right place. Not necessarily physically but inside me.
This was NOT the life I had signed up for! But what was the life I had signed up for? I had no idea and I can honestly say I had never thought about what I wanted in great detail. No one had ever said I could. If anything, I had been taught to be grateful for what I had. And it’s not that I had a bad life. Not at all! I had a beautiful childhood, I think a normal troublesome time as a teenager, some degree of success, lots of friends, a supportive family, the opportunity to travel and finally I met my wonderful husband and we had our amazing children.
But still, a lot of things felt „off“. I had little self-esteem, particularly when it came to my career options, where I played particularly small, and a lack of understanding of what I was good at. While at the same time a clear understanding of what I was not good at… A fairly common mix I think... But it cost me a lot of energy to NOT know what I wanted or was capable of, as I always felt I had more to offer. And that life had more to offer!!! But what? I have no idea why I wasn’t able to work it out, but I wasn’t. With the help of Lifebook however, I finally didn’t look outside of me for help or inspiration anymore. With the guidance that Jon offers in the twelve Lifebook videos, I finally looked inside. And there it was. Everything I had looked for. Everything I wanted. So many answers. And my dream life.
![Quote: I finally looked inside](https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=440x10000:format=png/path/s5381dfefcfcefebe/image/ic42c7a02b577088c/version/1686290466/image.png)
By going through the categories I uncovered my life step by step. It wasn’t an easy process. You ask tough questions and have to go deep, past things you didn’t want to see again! But it is worth it!!!
The categories
Health and fitness is the first category, and for good reason as I knew too well by now. I was so ill from my Colitis Ulcerosa, my dark thoughts, my four pregnancies and no exercise or healthy eating habits, my anxiety disorder - it all had left me in a terrible state. I was/ am overweight, couldn’t even walk for one km without having to sit and rest my pelvic floor. I was constantly in a state of stress and overwhelm. Sugar was the fuel my body ran on…. If it ran. I had very little energy.
I had never even thought of „intellectual“ as a category or theme to think about! What did I want to learn or think about in my life? I have always liked learning new things! Especially since I left school, when I could finally choose the topics I wanted to learn, the ones I am actually interested in! But I had never thought about taking that to the possible and, for me, beautiful extreme and consciously study whatever I am interested in! So fun!
Oh the third category…. Emotions. This was a tough category for me and the one I had to dive the deepest into. Jon opened my eyes when he said in the video for the emotional category, that emotions can kind of be created like recipes. That we can create our emotions. That there are patterns of what makes us happy and what triggers us to feel awful, angry, fearful etc. I thought a lot about this. For the first time I consciously considered, which emotions I liked and which ones I didn’t like, and why. I followed his advice and thought about what makes me feel good and why. And equally, what made me feel bad and why.
We all know the famous saying „Do more of what you like“ but I could never relate to it. I always thought „nice idea, but I have to take care of things“. When I took a deep dive into this category however, I realised that this was actually possible! And I saw an extention to this quote once, which I think explains it even better: "Do more of what makes your soul happy".
I created a list of the things that make me happy and a list of what put me in a bad emotional state, and intentionally started to do more of what makes me happy and figured out ways to reduce being subject to the situations that caused bad emotions. The later in particular required me to change a lot! And I took some hard and radical decisions, including handing in my notice at work. Not immediately of course, but I worked out a plan as to how we could transition and took the scary step of stepping into the unknown. I have never looked back. It was an incredibly good decision for me.
The fourth category character is all about your character. Who are you? What do you stand for? Who do you need to be in order to achieve your dream life? I had never thought of my character and that I could consciously work on it. I knew I wanted to be kind. I knew that I had values that were non-negotiable, such as tolerance, openess and curiosity. But I had never considered that I could learn to be brave, disciplined or organised. Maybe it wouldn’t come as naturally to me as it comes to others, but I could create habits to help me to be braver, more disciplined and organised. Understanding my character, who I am, what I stand for and which parts are under-developed for me to live the life I wanted was more than empowering! Being conscious of knowing who I am and what I stand for made a huge difference! It allowed me to stand up for myself because I finally understood what was important to me, what I wanted to say yes to and what not, and why.
The fifth category is about your spirituality and Jon did an amazing job at explaining this category. As with everything in Lifebook, there is no one-size-fits-all-solution, there is your way and your dream. Looking at spirituality consciously is incredibly supporting. Your spirituality can be your religion or atheism. And anything in-between. There is no wrong or right. Your Lifebook is a document with empty pages for you to fill. In each category you ask yourself the four questions I laid out above and fill your pages. Spirituality was another tough category for me. I had grown up in a science-trusting-over-everything household. My parents had consciously decided to leave church and over the years explained to us why, and for a long time I did consider myself an aetheist, if I had to choose. Until the fateful day I was told my baby wouldn’t live when I was 18 weeks pregnant on 3 June 2014. It started a seven year battle in me in discovering my spirituality and I will write a seperate post about this in the future. After seven years I of battling back and forth, I finally gained clarity. And things took off from there. It’s indeed a very supportive category when you bring consciousness to it.
The first five categories are focusing soley on yourself and who you want or need to be to live the life you desire. Categories six, seven and eight are all about our relationships. And that these are incredibly important categories the Havard Study of Adult Development demonstrated so well. The major finding was that
„Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed. Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. That finding proved true across the board among both the Harvard men and the inner-city participants.“ - Source.
So in category six you look at your love relationship. And while not everything was perfect, this category was strong for me as I have an incredibly lovely and supporting husband! However, diving into this category revealed a lot to me and how much more we could consciously do as a couple to keep the love, admiration and support we have for each other, alive. I think the most important question in this category for me was: am I helping my husband to love me or am I simply expecting him to be the perfect husband for me, while I lowered my standard? Was I still keeping myself attractive for him for example? Did I still give him attention or did I take him for granted? I had to face some very uncomfortable truth here! But the cool thing about Lifebook is that you not only identify the gaps, you also think about and write down what you intend to do about the gap! Which is incredibly enabling!
The seventh category is all about parenting. Be it your own children, the relationship with your parents or whatever you decide or face in this category. After our son’s death I was no longer able to be the mother I had been. I no longer had the energy I had before or the ability to cope with stress. It took little to get me into a totally overwhelmed state. Before I lost Nicholas I had always done things with them. We did a lot of arts and crafts, went to a lot of activities and places. I somehow kept the balls in the air with a certain degree of ease. That ease disappeared over night on 3 June 2014 when I was told at a routine scan that there was something wrong, that there was not enough amniotic fluid. I still tried and did my best. But my best was a whole lot less than it had been before. And I wanted to be the best mum for my kids I could be as they are the most wonderful and precious presents in my life! Lifebook really helped me to get back on track at being the mum I had always wanted to be and had been before.
The last of the relationship categories is your social life. I definitely had never thought about my social life. There was no need. It had just happened. I am a very open person and love meeting new people. I had no trouble in this category, other than that my social life was a bit too busy. Or way too busy. Which I hadn’t really noticed until it disappeared over night with the beginning of the pandemic. It turned out to be a blessing in the end, as I had to face my demons that filled the now empty space with full force and essentially helped me to find Lifebook in my attempt to get away from them.
Once again it was the first time I consciously asked myself how I wanted to spend my time, who I wanted to spend it with and in which way. It seemed arrogant to think like this at first but I quickly realised for myself that this truly was the key to my life. Not so much the people, I liked the people, but the how I wanted to spend my time. I had given away a lot of my time to whoever asked and it had mainly been lovely, but it had stopped me from my ability to build and live my life. Because I was always too busy for what I wanted!
Essentially saying yes to other people‘s needs too often and in return no to my own desires enough, had stopped me from taking time for me and my life. Not that I didn’t have a good time, I did. But I wasn’t truly doing what I wanted. I gave away waaaayyyy too much of my time. Yet, time is the one resource that ticks away regardless of what you do. And I wasn’t doing a lot of the things I wanted to do! I certainly had to change priorities and how I socialise and this was another category I created drastic changes in. I socialise less often now, but when I do, I am present, enjoy it and have the time for it.
Finances. Category number nine. Oh this had been a dark chapter in my life since around abound 2013. I had always considered finances as the result of your income but that’s a very limited view and is not serving you at all! Finances deserve their own category because there is so much more that you can do, other then just earn and spend! To start with you can think about how much your lifestyle would cost you most likely. I had never done this! But by thinking about the life I wanted I realised my financial goals would be achievable, despite my „messing up“ so far. I learned about saving – which of course I knew about, but had no idea how to go about it in a way that served us. If you happen to have trouble in this category, there are lots of books and resources to educate with. Jon's words in the video for this category were so insightful for me! If you prefer starting elsewhere, I can recommend T. Harv Ekers book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (this is an affiliate link). I found the concept really helpful. The most important thing, if you struggle in this category is learning about it and believing that you can improve this.
Additionally, there is of course the important part of increasing your income if necessary or desired. For us this was a necessary step! And me quitting my job and becoming a stay at home mum, so I could heal, was an important part of our attempt to increase our income too. That sounds stupid initially. But we could either stay where we were and possibly increase our income somewhat, or make radical changes that would allow us to earn good money in the future too. Since the latter involved me being happier, healthier and starting a career in alignment with who I am, we went for the latter. But initially it meant more financial strain and uncertainty. We both felt if our dream fails I could always go back and find a job somewhere.
Which brings me to career, or the 10th category. My career chapter remained empty for over a year. I had no idea what I could do, should do or was even good at, let alone wanted to do. All my jobs had been a huge disappointment. I hadn’t enjoyed them and I was disappointed with my lack of performance in all three of them. I hadn’t been able to find any motivation. In none of them. All three had drained my energy, despite them being very different jobs and very different circumstances. Not being able to find motivation had taken a huge toll on my self-esteem and self-worth. I had expected more of myself. I understood that I had been in the wrong places but what was my place and why could I not even fulfill the simplest of jobs well? Why did it have to be such a battle? I couldn’t answer the questions in this category as I had no idea what could be possible for me in this category. So I left it blank with the intention to fill it at a later date.
Category 11 is probably the most fun category! Here you think about the quality of life you would like to have! You answer questions such as what experience would I like to have? How and where do I want to live? How do I want to feel on a daily basis? How do I make that happen? If it hasn’t happened already, it will happen in this category at the latest: you will experience category inter-connectivity! How you want to feel is directly related to your physical and emotional well-being. The ability to experience what you want is also a result of your physical and emotional well-being, but even more so the state of your finances! You need to consider how you spend your time and if you spend it doing what you want to do. For example, a lot of people work long hours and miss out on their family and social life, their intellectual desires or their health. Other people focus too much on their social life and not enough on their career and finances, leading to short-comings in these. Etc. etc. We often focus on only a few categories, neglecting others. Yet all are important for us. Not all can be in our focus all the time, but by knowing what we want in each category they start to support and work for each other. As Jon always says: "a win anywhere, is a win everywhere".
To imagine how you would like to spend your time if money wasn’t an issue was an extremely eye-opening exercise for me and revealed a lot of things that were not going in the direction I wanted them to go! Thankfully, by going deep into each category and having thought about the last question in each category „what do I need to do to get what I want?“ I had a whole long list of what steps needed taking to get closer to the life I want.
Which is essentially what comes together in category 12, your life vision. This is your dream, your big picture, where all the other categories come together and paint this one picture – your painting of your life. With clarity, in all its layers, with all the reasons why you want this life and plenty of next steps for you to take!
Lifebook truly changed my life. It's an empty book or canvas. There is no right or wrong, no ideology, no agenda. It's you, looking at yourself, going inside and asking yourself in 12 categories:
- what do I believe is possible for me?
- what do I want?
- why do I want it?
- how do I get it?
It enabled me. And I will be forever grateful.