Eric Walker

I can never pass up an interesting book and TCK Publishing reached out to me a while back to take a read through a book they had called Design Your Future: 3 Simple Steps to Stop Drifting and Start Living by Dominick Quartuccio.

Besides the title of this book, I had not heard of Dominick Quartuccio or this concept of drifting that he does do a great job of laying out at the beginning of the book. You will quickly find out in short drifting is just following along the status quo or coasting through life accepting everything that is happening.

“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.”

F.M. Alexander

As someone who has written about habits before and not long ago had a very addicting habit that added up to a lot of miles being run, I was very interested in seeing what the author had to say. Not too far into the book he hits you with some quick questions like "Are you feeling bored? Restless? Trapped?" and if your answers are yes then the solution is that It's Time to Take Back Control of Your Life.

In a nutshell, that is what the book is really based on. The nice thing about this book, in my opinion, is that it is short and very consumable. However, not too short that he doesn't add some examples throughout each topic. However, It is really broken down into 4 parts which have simple enough concepts:

Awakening

Being aware as you cannot change what you are not aware of. Uncover the habits that are operating in your blind spots. Once your habits are brought out into light you can inspect them and disrupt them.

Disrupting

Disrupting is the process of interrupting your perpetual patterns and breaking the stimulus and response cycle. When you do this, you get immediate and profound feedback on why you do what you do, and how these habits may be serving or oppressing you.

Designing

The first two parts of the book are pretty straightforward as he talks about how to pretty much break down your current habits and thinking in order to get to the designing part. In the designing chapter he talks a lot about Ultimate authority and how to set compelling goals. This is where he talks about creating new habits that empower your future.

Ultimate authority means taking responsibility for the fact that your life is the sum total of every decision you’ve ever made from the day you were born up until this very moment. This means you get to take credit for the many successes you’ve had. It also means the shit parts of your life are on you too.

Sustaining

The part of the book I think makes the most sense. Obviously, if you have completed the above topics then you have to figure out a way to keep moving forward.

The Awakening, Disrupting and Designing (ADD) Cycle we have just walked through in this book is a process that should be repeated and not a one-time exercise.

The above statement by the author was a great strategic point to make towards the end of the book for a reminder about sustaining. There are a lot of things we do in life thinking if we just do it once all is good. However, in reality, we need to continue to work on things no matter if it is trying to rid ourselves of excess possessions, weight, or anything else. Each day is a new day that you really have to tackle the problem again. The advantage you have as you build up the consecutive days is that it becomes a habit and less you might have to think about in the future.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, I enjoyed the book and if anything it made me think about various things I do and maybe things I have been thinking about changing or doing in my life but haven’t taken that next step. I really did enjoy that the book was a quick read as I could see myself flipping through the pages again at some point in time as it gives off a measure of motivation too.

If you think the book would be interesting to you, it can be found on Amazon or through the publisher’s website (TCK Publishing).