How to Define What an Extraordinary Life Actually Means (to you)

Because you can't build a life on borrowed definitions | Blueprint Deep Dive #3

May 28, 2025

Before we begin:

I’m not an expert. I’m not a life coach.
I’m just someone walking this road, barefoot, imperfect but paying close attention. I share what’s real for me in the hope that something sparks for you too.
A flicker of truth. A shift in direction. A moment that makes you think.

This isn’t a feel-good post. It might poke at your comfort. It might hold up a mirror. If that’s too much, feel free to tap out.

But if you feel deep down inside you that there’s more to life, then let’s dive in.

This life is all there is and, whether you have 90 years left or just one, the worst thing you could do is sleepwalk through it.

The solution?

Slow down and allow yourself to define what an extraordinary life actually means to you.

Because you can’t build a life that fits you on borrowed definitions.

In today’s deep dive, we explore how you can reclaim clarity about your values, beliefs and identity so you can finally define what an extraordinary life means to you.

having walked this path for a while I dare you to paint life in your own colours, because a life without colour is rarely what we’re truly reaching for.

Without your own palette, your values, beliefs, and sense of self, you might be moving fast, but you’re still painting someone else’s picture. And that’s how you end up lost in a life that doesn’t feel like yours.

Most People Don’t Design Their Life

They download it.

They follow what’s trending.

They admire who’s thriving.

They scroll, absorb, and copy.

And if we’re being honest, we do it too.

The sad truth is that it’s not even a choice anymore. We are being bombarded with things the algorithm wants us to know, believe, read, buy, wear, drink.

And before we know it, we live a life we didn’t actually choose.

Without defining what an extraordinary life actually means for you, you’ll end up living a life that doesn’t feel like yours. And that, more than failure, more than struggle, is the deepest kind of misery I know.

So where do you begin?

The answer is simple: Inside.

You start by getting radically honest about who you are and what you value. Because once you do, the noise begins to filter itself. You stop chasing what’s shiny and start noticing what’s true.

And that’s when your version of extraordinary finally starts to take shape.

The trouble is that we live in times where choices are infinite but clarity is rare. In his book, Stolen Focus, Johann Hari highlights how sustained distraction doesn’t just fragment our attention, it erodes our identity:

“If you’re spending your life being constantly distracted, you can't figure out who you are. You don’t have space to reflect and define yourself. You become a patchwork of reactions.”

I see this in my son sometimes. At 14, he’s already absorbing an endless stream of opinions and expectations. Sometimes I see the confusion hit mid-sentence, like he’s caught between who he is and who the feed tells him to be.

Because we don’t just lose time to distraction, we lose definition. We become less intentional, more absorbed. And slowly, we forget how to choose for ourselves.

Humans were never wired to be constantly wired.
We need silence not just to rest, but to remember who we are.

More options were supposed to liberate us. But instead, they overwhelmed us. And when overwhelmed, we stop choosing with intention. And next, we start copying. We download what looks right, instead of discovering what feels true.

Does anyone remember the grey walls trend? It really circled the world that one.

At one point, it felt like every home, no matter the country, climate, or character of the person living in it, was painted in that same muted tone. It was chic. Timeless. “Safe.” Until it wasn’t.

But grey didn’t work for everyone, did it?! Yet so many people did it anyway, because it was safer to blend in.

Before grey, there was a long standing trend to paint the walls magnolia, especially in the UK in parts of Europe.

Entire neighbourhoods were coated in varying shades of the same creamy beige tone. It was the “default setting” before grey took the throne.

That’s how easy it is to download taste. To follow the well-lit path even when it doesn’t light you up.

Because when you’re overloaded with options, you lose clarity.

Think about it! We have all the information we need to build an extraordinary life.

Still, more and more people are drifting away stuck in overthinking, procrastination and decision paralysis.

The real work isn’t about finding the perfect choice, it’s about knowing yourself well enough to know what matters. Because when you don’t, you simply default to what’s marketed.

You stop designing. You start downloading.

The extraordinary life you secretly crave can’t be downloaded. It has to be defined, designed, and defended.

You’ve got to start painting life in your own colours.

This post is about adding colour to your life. Add glitter, if you want to.

Get Clear on What You Actually Believe

You can’t build a life that feels like yours if you’re still living by assumptions you never questioned.

Because beliefs are the backbone of your identity. They’re the stories you tell yourself about who you are, how the world works, and what’s possible.
And whether you’re conscious of them or not, they quietly shape everything: how you interpret experiences, how you show up in relationships, what risks you take, and what you believe you’re worthy of.

Start with your worldview. What do you believe about work, success, failure, freedom, love? Not what you’ve been told to believe, but what your life has shown you, and what feels true when everything else is quiet.

Right now, we live in a highly divided world and it’s no coincidence that identity feels shaky.

Take a quick look at politics and you’ll see it: beliefs aren’t built anymore, they’re broadcasted. We retweet. We re-share. More and more human beings are rallying around whatever hysteria is trending that day.

And slowly, without realising, we lose our footing.

That’s what happens when we don’t take time to define our worldview, we adopt someone else’s.

And the scary part? We start acting on beliefs we never consciously chose.

If your foundation is borrowed, your life will always feel misaligned.

A solid foundation is built on clarity, which right now means interrogating your beliefs.

Take the belief that“we’re all doomed”. A big one, and one that’s louder than ever right now. Yes, the world is messy. Yes, there’s pain, injustice, and noise. But interrogate that belief. Ask yourself: Is it useful? Is it mine? Or did I absorb it from headlines and hopelessness?

Because if you believe we’re all doomed, why bother building anything? Why bother dreaming, showing up, loving deeply, or creating beauty?

Interrogating your beliefs isn’t about pretending everything’s fine. It’s about choosing to hope anyway. About choosing to believe that something better is still possible, because if you don’t, what’s left?

Apathy? Numbness? Resignation?

That’s not a life. That’s just surviving.

And you weren’t built just to survive.

So go be brave. Challenge your beliefs. They’re not facts, they’re inherited stories dressed up as truth.

Write new ones. Ones that reflect who you are now, not who you were told to be.

Then go out and gather proof that your new belief can hold. Seek it in small moments, in better days, in people who make you feel seen.

Because once you believe differently, you start living differently. And that’s how real change begins.

Clarify What Actually Matters to You

Once you know how you see the world, the next step is figuring out what matters in your version of it. Your values. They are what makes you feel most alive, grounded, curious, calm.

Here’s how I imagined I uncover my values: sitting in an easy yoga pose, spine tall, breath steady, eyes closed, calmly meditating on a quiet sea shore, kissed by the sun and delighted by the waves.
Calm. Grounded. Reflecting on what keeps me in harmony with myself.

But that’s not how I uncovered my values.

In reality, one of the most powerful and honest ways to uncover my real values was to pay close attention to what pisses me off. Anger and frustration aren’t always flaws, they’re often internal alarm bells saying, “Hey, something you care about is being violated.”

A traffic jams where no one let anyone through? A conversation full of small talk?

Those were some of the moments that signalled something was off.

Your values are already here, within you. You just need to name them.

Start by slowing down when something stings, even slightly.
That moment when a conversation leaves a weird aftertaste.
When you walk away from a meeting feeling smaller.
When you're annoyed and you can't quite name why.

Instead of brushing it off, pause and ask:
What value of mine just got stepped on?

Values aren’t slogans.

They’re your internal non-negotiables.

They filter your time, energy, and attention. And when they’re clear, life stops feeling like a juggling act and starts feeling like alignment.

Most people use values as decorations on a wall. We talk about honesty, kindness, freedom but we very rarely tie these to our choices.

It took me most of my adult life to understand that.

So far, in life, I’ve dealt with my fair share of difficult people. I used to say I was a magnet for them. Now I know I’m just their kryptonite.

They’ve shown up in all kinds of settings: at work, in teams, in subtle power games and louder clashes. People who push, manipulate, undermine, who operate from self-interest and expect others to bend around them.

They weren’t just difficult. They were in direct conflict with what I value most: fairness, respect, integrity.

And for the longest time I didn’t know how to respond. My instinct was always to be kind, to stay composed, to understand where they were coming from, even when everything inside me was screaming that something was off.

But that approach was like pouring petrol on a fire.

The kinder I was, the more they pushed. The more I softened, the more they took. They twisted the space I gave them and spilled out the venom life had planted inside them.

I used to question my worth, always asking myself how was I contributing to the situation. Maybe if I can change something, their behaviour will change.

Until one day, when I realised that I was enabling them simply because I hadn’t yet turned my values into choices. I didn’t know how to say: “No. Not here. Not to me.”

And that day marked the day I stopped waiting for others to honour my boundaries and started enforcing them myself.

It felt strange at first, unnatural even. And fair warning: some people won’t like it. As a matter of fact some people will hate it. Some will push back, some will walk away. Let them.

The moment you start setting boundaries, some may say you stop entertaining harmony. But the truth is, you still are. You're just no longer entertaining everyone else's. You're protecting yours.

People who loved the version of me with no boundaries never loved the real me.

Little by little, what once felt awkward, started to feel right. And then it did more than feeling right, it set me free. Free from the suffering, the self-blame, the white nights and the guilt.

Once you know what you stand for and you take action on it, you stop being easy to push, you stop being easy to confuse.

But hey, it doesn’t make life easier but it does make you clearer. And in that clarity, you stop questioning your worth and start protecting your peace.

My experience stands to prove that once you translate your values into choices, everything else floats in alignment.

There’s no time to waste. If you’ve already named your values, perhaps it’s time to put them into action. Ask yourself how well your values are defining your calendar, your boundaries, the things you say yes to, the things you say no to, who you associate yourself with.

Because until they do, your values won’t serve you. They’ll be just background noise.

Design from the Inside Out

In a world where you can be anything, do anything, chase anything, it’s more important than ever to know exactly who you are.

Because without that anchor, you have no filter for the endless stream of opinions, advice, and noise coming at you every single day.

That’s why authenticity is so important. There’s a deep need in this world that we come back to our true selves.

We’re not just overstimulated. We’re over-shaped. Sculpted by algorithms, expectations, highlight reels.
And if you ask me, never in human history have we been so far from our true selves: constantly performing, constantly adjusting, constantly looking outward for what should only come from within.

Coming home to yourself, that’s the real rebellion. And the most important design work you'll ever do.

Nothing changes unless we do, and every plan will fail unless we know exactly what are we optimising for. Without the inner compass, we’ll chase endless goals, running on a treadmill that leads precisely nowhere.

Let today be the day when you start designing your days with intention.

Design to reflect what matters. Audit your commitments. Protect your energy like it’s sacred, because it is.

And remember: just because something works for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s meant for you.

The life design begins when the imitation game ends.

Conclusion

The extraordinary life won’t land in your lap. You have to design it from the inside out.

And it takes a lot of courage but you don’t have to do it all alone.

There’s immense power in togetherness and the least we can do is to lend each other some compassion and some courage.

That’s exactly why I’m creating this space and tools to help you shape your beliefs, clarify your values and become who you are meant to be.

For those of you committed to designing your life from the inside out, I’ll be starting a 30 Day Clarity Challenge in June. You’ll be receiving gentle, guided prompts straight to your inbox to help you reflect in your own time, at your own pace.

Comment ‘I’m in’ if you’re joining and don’t forget to subscribe.

We’re all navigating life’s challenges in our own way. Simply knowing you’re not alone, that someone else is walking the same path barefoot, can change everything.

Made with love, written with soul and shaped by the deep understanding that life isn’t meant to be postponed.

I’ve lived the fog, the overthinking, the trying-to-fit-in.Yet, somewhere along the way, I realised: if you don’t define your life, the world will do it for you. And it will never get it right.

So if you’re ready to stop absorbing and start designing, I’m walking this path too.
And I’ve made it my mission to help people stop postponing their lives.

When you’re start living, I’ll be right here.
With soul, strategy and a whole lot of heart.

-Maria

P.S. If any of this spoke to you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Your voice matters here ❤️