Designing Your Mindset
Everyday Awareness Can Transform Your Life
“Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
When we hear the term “user experience” (or UX for short), it usually brings to mind websites, apps, or gadgets designed to be smooth and easy to use. But the truth is, the ideas behind UX go far beyond screens — they relate to how we experience life itself.
What if we took the same care and attention that designers put into crafting intuitive experiences and turned that inward? What if we treated our own thoughts, habits, and choices as things we could shape with kindness and clarity?
Let’s explore a few simple principles from the world of design and how they can help us live with more ease, intention, and awareness.
Make Life Less Overwhelming
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
— Hans Hofmann, artist and teacher
In design, there’s a principle called reducing cognitive load. It simply means not to overwhelm people or flood them with too much at once. When a screen is cluttered or confusing, it’s hard to think clearly. Life can feel the same way.
If you’ve ever stood frozen in front of your closet, not knowing what to wear, or stared at your to-do list, not knowing where to start – that’s mental overload.
One way to find delight and peace, on screen and in life, is to simplify. Let go of the need to decide everything in the moment. Create gentle routines. Prepare things ahead of time. Make small choices automatic, so your deeper energy can go toward what truly matters.
Life isn’t just about efficiency — it’s about honoring your mind and nervous system. It’s about recognizing that you are not a machine and you don’t need to hustle to be worthy.
Take One Step at a Time
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Another design principle is called progressive disclosure. Instead of showing everything all at once, a good interface reveals information gradually and only when you need it.
What if we lived this way too? When we focus on the entire mountain — like when learning a new skill, changing careers, or healing a relationship — it’s easy to feel paralyzed. But peace and delight live in the present moment. Just focus on the next step, not the whole path. Today’s small move is often all you need to feel like you’re in a healthy flow.
This idea helps us play patience and teaches us to trust that clarity unfolds over time. Life, like a good design, reveals itself as we go.
Design Around Your Humanity
“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.”
— Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Designers often build in little safety nets — confirmation messages, "undo" buttons, reminders — because they know humans make mistakes. Not because we’re broken, but because we’re human.
You can do this in your own life too.
Do you tend to spiral into social media at night? Try moving the app off your home screen or deleting it for a while.
Want to start walking in the morning? Lay out your shoes the night before.
There is so much power in intention as long as you act on it. Set yourself up for the kind of life your wiser self is asking for. There is a quiet intelligence in gently guiding our selves with care and slowing our learned patters of using negative thoughts to control our selves.
Notice What Brings You Alive
“Your inner knowing is your only true compass.”
— Joy Page
Feedback is essential in design. If you click a button, it should respond. If something’s wrong, the system should tell you. You might not realize it, but in life feedback is always present. But that feedback doesn’t come from pixels and prompts. It comes from your body, your energy, your emotions, and your recurring experiences.
Often, we move too fast to really feel what something is doing to us. We push through social situations that leave us depleted or stick to habits that quietly dull our spirit. But the signs are always there, if we’re willing to notice. We just have to slow down to hear and see it. Take notice of when do you feel drained, or when you feel a sense of flow, where you keep repeating the same painful patterns, and where things feel aligned and effortless. Begin to recognize and tune into your patterns.
Your body is always speaking in its quiet language of tension and ease. A clenched jaw, a racing heart, a stomach in knots — these aren’t nuisances to override. They’re signals from your deeper self, asking you to notice what’s not aligned.
Notice. Adjust. Repeat. This is a sacred loop of curiosity and a rhythm of self awareness — not just a tool for designers. It’s not about control, it’s about kindness and letting your life be a living design that evolves as you do — full of small adjustments that bring you closer to presence and peace.
Feedback is always available. The real magic begins when you listen and respond.
You Are the Designer of Your Life
“Design is the application of intent – the opposite of happenstance, and an antidote to accident.”
— Robert L. Peters, designer and author
Living with awareness is a kind of design. Not in a cold, mechanical sense — but in a deeply human way. Every day we have the chance to refine how we show up, to shift what doesn’t serve us, to soften into being present, and let go of the noise.
You don’t have to figure everything out. You just have to start paying attention — with compassion, with curiosity, and with love.
This is the art of being human. Not being perfect, but present. And in your presence, real transformation begins.
