Learnings from teaching the “Designing Your Life” course at Stanford
In 2021, I had the opportunity to work as the Adjunct Lecturer for the Designing Your Life course at Stanford. After a year of lockdown, this was a welcome invitation to reflect and design my life alongside 50 Stanford undergrads. Even though I was teaching the course, I learned a lot from the exercises, frameworks, and ideas that challenged my existing beliefs and mindsets; which ultimately led me to take a new role at a startup, and subsequently a solo backpacking trip in South America. Below are some of my top takeaways from the course.
Understanding yourself
To design your life, you must first understand yourself, your needs, and your pain points. You can start this reflection by answering questions about your identity, work view, and worldview. I recommend taking some time to reflect and write down your answers to the questions below:
- Identity — What are your values? What is your life story so far?
- Workview — What you do, why you work, what is it for?
- Worldview —What do you believe in, what is your faith, why are you here, what is your view of the world?
