Purpose | Tool List | Tool Guide | Life Stories | Full List
Part 1: Purpose and Key Question
Discover Inner Vision
Purpose: Gain profound self-awareness by reflecting on your core values, passions, and long-term priorities. This stage helps you uncover what truly matters and identifies the key drivers of meaning and fulfillment in your life and career.
Key Question: Who am I, and what brings purpose, meaning, and joy to my life?
AI Empowerment: Leverage AI-powered tools to deeply analyze your values, passions, and priorities, helping you more accurately reflect on your true material and emotional needs.
Part 2: Tool List
- A – Aspirations Mapping: Visualize and categorize your personal, professional, and social goals to uncover aspirations and areas for growth.
- B – Back to the Future: Imagine your ideal future and identify the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
- C – Challenge Statement: Transforming uncertainties into actionable “How to” questions for clarity and growth (Execution Guidelines)
- G – Growth Journaling: Reflect on your experiences, track progress, and uncover patterns to understand what works and what doesn’t.
- I – Iceberg for Life System: Explore visible and hidden motivations to uncover the deeper drivers of your decisions.
- Q – Questions for Self-Reflection: Ask open-ended questions to unlock deeper insights into your desires, challenges, and motivations.
- S – Self-Empathy Interviews: Empathize with your own needs and emotions to surface deeper insights about what matters most.
- V – Value Map: Chart your core values and assess how your current life aligns with them to identify areas for realignment.
Part 3: Tool Guide
Aspirations Mapping
- What: Aspirations Mapping is a human-centered tool in the Discover Stage of Design Thinking for Life Design. It helps you visualize and categorize your personal, professional, and social goals. By organizing these aspirations, you can identify patterns, prioritize your focus, and better understand areas for growth. This exercise connects with your emotions and in-depth needs by encouraging self-empathy and exploration. It allows you to clearly articulate what you value most and uncover opportunities to shift your life toward greater alignment with your dreams.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, Aspirations Mapping is essential for gaining clarity about what truly matters to you. It helps you uncover emotional connections between your goals and your deeper needs, forming the foundation for meaningful life design. By mapping your aspirations, you can ensure your efforts are aligned with your values, enabling you to focus on what brings fulfillment and purpose. This tool fosters intentionality, balance, and growth by helping you define a clear vision of your future.
- Tip: Use sticky notes or a mind-mapping tool to group your aspirations into categories and rearrange them to reflect your priorities. This hands-on, visual approach helps you see connections and areas for improvement more effectively.
- AI-Empowerment: AI-powered tools can analyze your aspirations, detect patterns, and suggest prioritization based on your values and goals, streamlining the visualization process. Machine learning can identify hidden connections between personal, professional, and social goals to ensure alignment.
Back to the Future
- What: Back to the Future is a visualization exercise in the Discover Stage that encourages you to imagine your ideal future. By reflecting on where you want to be in 5, 10, or 20 years, you can identify the gap between your current state and the future you desire. This tool connects deeply with your emotions and in-depth needs, helping you uncover what truly excites and motivates you. It fosters a sense of curiosity and exploration, which is central to the purpose of the Discover Stage in Design Thinking for Life Design.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, Back to the Future is vital for clarifying your long-term aspirations and priorities. By envisioning your future self, you uncover insights about your values and desires, helping you design a life that feels meaningful and aligned with your personal goals. This human-centered approach makes it possible to connect with the emotional drivers behind your vision, empowering you to plan intentional steps toward closing the gap between your present and future.
- Tip: After visualizing your ideal life, write a detailed description or create a vision board to capture the emotions and key elements of that future. Use this as a guide to reflect on and refine your current decisions.
- AI-Empowerment: AI visualization tools can generate detailed, interactive future scenarios based on your inputs, helping you explore long-term outcomes more vividly. Predictive analytics can identify gaps between your current state and ideal future, offering personalized recommendations.
Challenge Statement
- What: A Challenge Statement is a tool in the Discover Stage that transforms uncertainties or obstacles into actionable “How to” questions. For example, “I feel stuck in my career” can be reframed as “How might I design a career that aligns with my values and passions?” This tool is human-centered as it shifts the focus from problems to solutions, connecting with your emotions and in-depth needs. The Discover Stage emphasizes exploration and clarity, and this tool helps you uncover opportunities for growth by turning challenges into creative possibilities.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, the Challenge Statement is crucial for reframing your thinking and focusing on solutions rather than obstacles. It fosters a growth mindset by encouraging the exploration of new ideas and pathways. This tool aligns with the principles of Design Thinking by promoting empathy for yourself and addressing the deeper emotional needs tied to your challenges. It helps you articulate actionable starting points, making it easier to move forward with intention and clarity.
- Tip: Write multiple “How might I…” statements for one challenge to explore different perspectives and uncover creative solutions that address both practical and emotional needs.
- AI-Empowerment: AI-driven language models can help reframe challenges into meaningful “How might I” questions, offering creative and diverse solution pathways. Natural language processing (NLP) ensures emotional and contextual relevance in reframing your obstacles.
Growth Journaling
- What: Growth Journaling is a reflective practice in the Discover Stage that allows you to document your thoughts, feelings, and experiences over time. It’s a tool for tracking progress, identifying patterns, and reflecting on what works and what doesn’t. This helps you connect with your emotions and uncover deeper insights about your aspirations and challenges. The Discover Stage emphasizes self-empathy and exploration, and journaling provides a structured way to explore your inner world and align your actions with your in-depth needs.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, Growth Journaling fosters self-awareness and personal growth by encouraging you to reflect on your journey. It allows you to identify recurring themes, uncover hidden opportunities, and evaluate how your actions align with your values. This human-centered tool connects with your emotions, creating a feedback loop that supports intentional life design. By reflecting on your progress, you can iterate and refine your goals, ensuring they remain meaningful and relevant to your life.
- Tip: Dedicate 10 minutes each day to journaling, using prompts like “What did I learn today?” and “What emotions am I experiencing?” to make the process more focused and impactful.
- AI-Empowerment: AI journaling apps can analyze entries to identify recurring themes, emotional patterns, and areas for growth, providing deeper insights. Automated prompts and feedback systems keep the journaling process consistent and focused on self-reflection.
Iceberg for Life System
- What: The Iceberg for Life System is a reflective framework in the Discover Stage that explores both visible and hidden motivations behind your decisions. The visible “tip of the iceberg” represents surface-level actions, while the deeper layers reveal underlying beliefs, values, fears, and emotions. This tool helps you connect with your in-depth needs and uncover the root causes of your behaviors. The Discover Stage emphasizes self-empathy and exploration, and this tool provides clarity on the deeper drivers that shape your life.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, the Iceberg for Life System is essential for understanding the motivations and emotions beneath your actions. By addressing these hidden layers, you can uncover the values and beliefs that align with your authentic self. This human-centered approach fosters self-awareness and intentionality, helping you identify areas for growth and make choices that resonate with your deeper needs. It provides a holistic perspective on your life, empowering you to design a more meaningful and aligned path forward.
- Tip: Create a visual iceberg diagram and write down visible actions at the top and deeper motivations, fears, or values at the bottom to uncover connections and areas for self-improvement.
- AI-Empowerment: AI tools can help uncover hidden beliefs and values by analyzing your visible actions and decision-making patterns through behavioral data. Visualization software can create dynamic iceberg diagrams, highlighting connections between surface actions and deeper motivations.
Questions for Self-Reflection
- What: Questions for Self-Reflection are open-ended prompts used in the Discover Stage to help you explore your desires, challenges, and motivations. They encourage introspection, allowing you to connect with your emotions and uncover deeper insights about what truly matters to you. The Discover Stage emphasizes self-awareness and exploration, and this tool helps you articulate your needs and aspirations, forming the basis for meaningful life design.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, self-reflection is a cornerstone of understanding your in-depth needs and values. By asking the right questions, you gain clarity on your priorities, uncover hidden patterns, and identify areas for growth. This human-centered tool allows you to explore your emotions and motivations, helping you design a life that aligns with your authentic self. It fosters curiosity and intentionality, ensuring that your life design process is both meaningful and actionable.
- Tip: Choose one question daily, such as “What excites me most right now?” or “What am I avoiding and why?” Write your answers in a journal to track your growth and evolving priorities.
- AI-Empowerment: AI-powered reflection apps can suggest tailored prompts based on your emotions, goals, and past responses, making the process more personalized. Sentiment analysis can help identify emotional drivers behind your answers, enhancing self-awareness.
Self-Empathy Interviews
- What: Self-Empathy Interviews are a human-centered tool in the Discover Stage that involves having an honest and compassionate conversation with yourself. This exercise allows you to explore your emotions, needs, and priorities without judgment, helping you connect deeply with what truly matters. By practicing self-empathy, you uncover insights into your in-depth needs and gain clarity on the emotions driving your decisions. The Discover Stage focuses on self-awareness and exploration, and this tool fosters understanding and alignment with your authentic self.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, self-empathy is essential for uncovering authentic insights about your motivations and challenges. Self-Empathy Interviews help you connect with your emotions, enabling you to address areas of disconnection or uncertainty. This human-centered tool promotes self-compassion and allows you to focus on designing a life that resonates with your values and aspirations. By understanding your needs on a deeper level, you can make intentional and meaningful choices for growth.
- Tip: Record your self-empathy interview or write it out as a dialogue, and reflect on recurring themes to uncover patterns or areas for growth.
- AI-Empowerment: AI conversational agents can simulate empathetic dialogues, encouraging honest self-reflection without judgment. NLP tools analyze your responses to uncover emotional patterns and provide actionable insights for growth.
Value Map
- What: A Value Map is a tool in the Discover Stage that helps you identify and chart your core values while assessing how your current life aligns with them. By mapping your values, you can uncover areas of disconnection or misalignment and explore ways to realign your actions with your principles. This tool connects with your emotions and in-depth needs, ensuring your life design reflects what matters most. The Discover Stage prioritizes self-awareness and exploration, and this tool provides clarity on how to design a life that aligns with your authentic self intentionally.
- Why: In the Discover Stage, understanding your values is crucial for creating a life that feels meaningful and fulfilling. The Value Map helps you prioritize what truly matters and identify areas where adjustments are needed. This human-centered tool ensures that your life design aligns with your emotional needs and core principles. By reflecting on your values, you create a foundation for growth and intentionality, empowering you to make choices that resonate with your authentic self.
- Tip: Rank your top five values and assess how they are reflected in your daily life. Focus on one misaligned area to improve and create actionable steps toward alignment.
- AI-Empowerment: AI tools can help you identify and rank core values by analyzing your choices, behaviors, and priorities. They provide actionable recommendations for aligning your daily actions with your values, ensuring greater intentionality.
Part 4: Life Design Stories
Design Thinking has been effectively employed worldwide for career development and transition across diverse sectors. Notable figures such as Joe Gebbia in Hospitality, Jane Chan in NGOs, Kiran Sethi in Children’s Education, Paula Davis in Coaching, and Martha Moore in Apparel have leveraged this approach.
Also noteworthy is its prevalent use in Hong Kong for career progression and pivoting among individuals with varied backgrounds. In response to this, we have orchestrated a series of seminars and webinars on “Design Thinking for Life Planning and Transition,” featuring dialogue with 13 distinguished Design Thinkers from Hong Kong.
They are 吳克儉院士、林小湛教授、林偉雄院士、李潔蘭校長、鄧哲平先生、梁智軒博士、葉文謙先生、陳呂令意校長、唐文標律師、尹繼賢博士、林偉強博士、孫美妮女士 及 黎嘉豪先生 (Ordered by sequence of the interviews). We want to express our deepest gratitude to the following guest speakers for their voluntary contributions.
