Life-sculpting: Malleability is your life's positive change superpower

You have to create your life. You have to carve it, like a sculpture.

– William Shatner

Want to know three words that, if you really took them to heart and started living by them each and every day, would change everything?

Of course you do (and if you don’t, stop reading now!)

The words are…

Life is malleable.

I know, that may not feel particularly earth-shattering, or even inspiring, but there is massive potential for something better in that simple idea.

And much of that massive potential – most, even – is way closer at hand than the wholesale change we often think of when we decide it’s time to change our lives for the better.

Malleability time-scales

Part of the power of life malleability is that it actually happens on numerous time scales. There is always something we can be doing on one time scale or another to shape and sculpt the life we live.

Short-term

What can you do right now to change your experience (e.g., take ten slow, deep breaths, go for a brisk walk around the block, call a friend)?

Medium-term

What can you do in the next year to shape and sculpt your life? This might include things like picking up a new habit, starting a new hobby, spending more time with people who inspire you, learning a new professional skill, etc.

Long-term

How can you shape and sculpt your life over the next five-plus years? This could be planning a career change, or moving locations, or any other major life-altering decisions you might make.

Life-sculpting

On top of the full range of time scales, a big part of what makes it so powerful is the wide range of ways we can sculpt and shape it. For example:

Circumstances

This is what we’re typically thinking when we’re dissatisfied with something and want to make a change. It could be a new job, more time with this person and less with that person, where you live, etc. Basically anything about how you would describe your life belongs in this category.

Story

The story you tell about anything affects how you experience it. When you change the story you’re telling, you change the experience. (I wrote more about the power of your story to change your experience here.)

Focus

What you focus on paints the picture you experience. When you shift the focus of your awareness and attention (e.g., by starting a gratitude practice), you give your brain different inputs, and the picture those inputs paints shifts. (I wrote more about the power of your focus to change your experience here.)

Neural pathways

Your brain loves the path of least resistance. When something becomes a habit, or second nature, what’s really happening is that you have developed neural pathways in your brain that make that the well-trod, easily-traveled path. And fortunately, your brain evolved to create new neural pathways (and new easily-traveled paths).

Physical state

How you feel physically has an enormous impact on how you experience life. Elements of your physical state, like health, fitness, and energy, are all areas where you can make life-experience-shifting changes.

Habits and practices

Much of what happens in your day-to-day life happens on autopilot. The habits and practices we do automatically, without giving it much thought or even effort, shape our actions, our experiences, and our outcomes.

Try this: Take a look at your life through the lens of malleability. Where are the opportunities you see to shape and sculpt it?

Take each of the examples given above of ways you can shape and sculpt (circumstances, story, etc.) and look at each of them through the lens of the three different time scales.

What can you do in the moment that helps shift your experience in a positive direction?

What changes, habits, etc. can you set in motion over the course of the next year?

What long-term changes can you start working towards today?

The more areas of malleable possibility you are aware of, and the more you factor in multiple time scales, the more ability you have to sculpt and shape the life you want to live.