Are You Engineering Your Life Or Letting It Happen To You?

I am an engineer. I grew up in a family of engineers, building with Legos and electrical sets, and got my undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering. So, yes, I have been around the engineering block. 

You're An Engineer...Yes, You!

When I would meet people and they'd find out that I was an engineer, the first response I'd normally get was, "Wow, you must be really smart. How do you think like that?"

This always struck me as a strange response, because the truth is that we are ALL engineers, actually.

Just as an electrical engineer creates a gadget, you create your career. You create your relationships. You create your body, by regulating the inputs in (food) and the outputs out (exercise). We only have neat technologies because an engineer somewhere sat down and engineered them. The same is true of any area of your life. If you have an area of your life that is rocking out and going great, consider that you have done a top-notch job of engineering it.

If you have an area of your life that isn't going as well, consider that it's because you aren't engineering it.

When I first realized that life WAS engineering, I had to laugh at myself. Here I was, this finely-trained engineer who could build any electrical circuit she wanted, or engineer yeast cells to glow green, but I wasn't engineering losing the 20 pounds that I knew would make me happy. I wasn't engineering a great relationship with my boss. I was single and wasn't engineering finding the love of my life.

Imagine what the world would be like if an electrical engineer spoke about electrical systems the way that I spoke about my life. That engineer would say things like, "I wonder if the right components will come together today to make the device?"

That sounds nutty, doesn't it? After all, the job of the engineer is to figure out how to build the device. The parts don't just jump onto the circuit board.

Sure, there are challenges in building a cool new device. But engineers thrive on solving difficult challenges. Consider that you could thrive on solving difficult challenges in your life, too.

My challenge to you, my readers, is to pick an area of your life where you want to engineer a better technology. What challenges do you need to solve? What do you need to do to step up and be the engineer?