To Curate a Life

Curating Life to Make It Extraordinary 

Why Curate Life?

I founded A Carefully Curated Life, CCL because I want to share a life philosophy with living every day in the ordinary, extra-ordinary way. That is to say, by curating (dreaming, exploring, planning, and intentionally selecting) your home and life as you wish to live your life, our lives become extraordinary. 

But how do you do that? Like many women, I was looking for more. Yet I knew what I didn’t want in my life.

• Above all I do not want to surf the web looking at happy people trying to figure out why my life isn’t as exciting.
• Taking a job just to work until I retire.
• Meanwhile living in a house that doesn’t fit us anymore.

Additionally, I kept asking myself these questions:

• Do I know who I am? 
• Know what I like?
• I asked myself, “Is there more to life?”

Where curating life begins – dreaming, exploring, planning and intentionally selecting

Dreaming

What do you dream about? Everyone has dreams. At first, we put them aside for various reasons, yet only sometimes revisit them. Other times, we feel that our life will not allow us to live these dreams. I have been in both of these situations. Then I realized I didn’t have to let my dreams go away. I could create and curate a life of these dreams; I just needed to stop thinking it was an all-or-nothing proposition. Stay with me as I explain.

I dream about:

• Living in a beautiful and inspiring home and garden
• Artistic endeavors
• Being centered, loving, healthy, and full of grace
• Creating memories, enjoying the seasons, and exploring life
• Being in a community with meaningful relationships

I took these dreams and started diving into them while journaling to help me further see what I wanted. Journal prompts and dreaming-on-paper tips are shared in our private Facebook group, the weekly newsletter, the Carefully Curated Life monthly eBook, and through our Membership. What do you dream about? Specifically, what are your thoughts about how you wish you were living? These can lead you to dreams that need exploring. If you need help to start this process, join our private Facebook group to meet others curating their lives.

Exploring

How do we begin exploring when we have commitments? By asking questions and then exploring ideas that follow while living our lives. We start taking daily action to uncover our heart’s desires. Slowly, the knowledge of what we love and enjoy grows into love for this one life. We move into curating life. It was going down a path to create my home and garden, enjoy the seasons, cultivate friends/family, and find myself again. I know all that sounds good, but how? By leaning into these ideas:

• Loving the ordinary every day – meaning enjoying big and little moments daily. I created my monthly Loving the Ordinary Lists to help me explore seasonal inspiration.
• Exploring interests, location (I call this being a Tourist in my Hometown), and meeting people with common interests.
• Feeling into what home and life mean personally, not what the current trend dictates. I used my journal to help capture all these thoughts.

Planning

Finding the ordinary joys in life and building on them is done through planning. Creating rich routines, memorable traditions, places of comfort, and a place to “BE” does not happen by coincidence but with planning. We want a life that is individualized to ourselves, and yet we fear it may not be welcoming to the world. Remember, the ‘world’ is also trying to live their lives as fully as they wish. Living our dream life will require taking what we find when exploring and planning how to bring it into our lives.

I am passionate about taking control of one’s life, creating a home, eating healthy seasonal foods, moving the body, expressing one’s style through home, garden, fashion, and trying to take care of oneself. By using our talents and interests to create, gather together, and help others. We can build our days and weeks into the life we’ve dreamed of. This is why I am passionate about everyday life being quality – elevating everyday enjoyment. And you can be, too. Start curating your one life, and plan how you wish to live in the small moments. These small moments built on each other become our lives. When planning, break down your explored dreams into easy, doable steps by lifting the ordinary to extraordinary daily. If you need help or want to work in a community, join our Carefully Curated Life Seasonal Membership.

Intentionally selecting

When curating life, we take the plans from our explored dreams and live them out. Create an environment that empowers you to be your strongest, Beautiful Self by celebrating every day by loving the ordinary daily. Then, as you’re living your life, decide, intentionally select, what is working and what is not working for you, your family, and your home. Once you add something, test it to see if it fits how you want to live. You can take something away that is not working. Or add to what is already working. Remember you are creating your Carefully Curated Life; select what comes in and what goes out.

Where to start curating life?

• Start by dreaming about the life you want and what you don’t want, and live with some questions about living your best life.
• Explore the ideas and interests that come from your dreams.
• Make a plan to add some of your explorations into your life. Add some of the exciting ideas that make you smile inside and out.
• Intentionally select every aspect of your life to be sure it fits how you wish to live. Selecting includes taking out what no longer serves you.

This life philosophy of living every day in the ordinary, extra-ordinary way leads us to a life we love. By curating (dreaming, exploring, planning, and intentionally selecting) your thoughts, interests, home, and community, you live your one life, an extraordinary life. By curating our days and houses, we can achieve our dreams.  In short, our everyday life shapes our future. And as life evolves, so does our curating. We allow ourselves to become the Curator of our own lives.