LifeDesign has been an important part of my life (both personally and professionally) for many years. It was 1970 when James resigned his job as a college professor and started his own independent consulting firm. Since our youngest child was entering first grade, I joined in his effort to launch this new organization. One of the projects that first year was to develop some material to use with clients—and the project that I worked on was helping to develop a life-planning program that we later called LifeDesign.
The following year we began conducting workshops using this material, but it was not until another year had passed that we got around to actually participating in a workshop rather than leading them. In 1972 we decided to invite a small group of friends to our home for a weekend session to go through the entire LifeDesign process. James and I each worked through the entire workbook independently and shared our individual reflections on our life together.
At the end of the session, we looked at each other and said, "What are we doing in Pittsburgh?" It's not that we disliked Pittsburgh; we had great friends there and enjoyed many things about the city. But our lifestyle did Not reflect our "priorities" as revealed in the work we had just done with the LifeDesign process—which included living in a warm climate near the water with a small-town atmosphere where the kids could ride their bikes to get around.
A couple of months later we embarked with our kids on a journey "down South" to find a place that fit the bill. It wasn't easy or simple, but it was clearly the right thing for us to do at that time in our lives. So the following year we moved and started "living by choice instead of chance"—which is the subtitle of our LifeDesign Workbook.
Many of our friends thought we were crazy, and many of them thought we must have some kind of financial security, and made comments like, "I wish I could do something like that." The truth is that we had no such safeguards; it was just that we were willing to sacrifice in order to improve the quality of our lives and that of our children. It's easy for people to see the risk in taking action while failing to see the sometimes more regrettable risk of Not taking action. In weighing the pros and cons, it was clearly the right decision For Us. This is the key to LifeDesign—that it is a deeply individual, personal process and that the only person who can know or decide how to live your life is You.
Having now "practiced what we preached," we were even more enthusiastic about making the LifeDesign process available to others. During all the years since that time, we have conducted workshops for thousands of people in all walks of life—from church groups to the military at the National Defense University.
Finally, we realized that this process was needed on a much wider basis than was possible through reaching people personally in our workshops, so we painstakingly went through all the material we had used for 30 years to organize a Workbook that could be made available for independent use or in groups—without involving us personally.
My belief in LifeDesign is far deeper and more profound than I can fully express. But I know that it has made (and still makes) a tremendous difference in the quality of my life. And I hope that you will discover this benefit for yourself.
Peggy Vaughan, Co-author
LifeDesign Workbook
