Your Big Life Projects

We all have projects in life. Some are small—like doing the weekly laundry this coming Sunday; others are big—like finally getting that tattoo you have been debating for the past one year. Or, if you are an appearance-anxious boomer, getting that twin-chin united by facial surgery. Life projects are significant goals and major events that we strive to bring to fruition. Thus, not all projects in life are life projects; only those which will have a major impact on our lives, with which we remain obsessed for considerable time, which currently occupy our minds constantly, whose completion we look forward to, and which entail considerable investment of time, money, and physical energy. Thus, weekend laundry does not qualify, but the twin-chin project certainly does.

Here are some others that would qualify. To graduate; to find a job; to remodel your home; to travel to Asia; to learn how to play guitar; to learn to tango; to learn to speak the French language fluently; to lose 15 pounds of body weight; to read all the books mentioned in this book (e.g., Tom Sandage’s A History of World in Six Glasses); to get an eternal date (sign up on e-harmony.com); to get a spouse; to adopt a child from a third world poor family; to start your own blog; to digitize all your photos.

Each of these projects reflects your lifestyle and entails significant consumption. Each also brings, when completed, immense satisfaction to the person striving toward that goal. These projects have a finite duration: one month, one year, five years. (Their accomplishment might take as little as a week, but, to qualify as a life project, the total time of our obsession with them has to be much longer, say, at least a month). Life projects are important to give meaning to life. Without them, life remains dreary and purposeless. Most people have three or four life projects at any stage in their lives.

Now consider this. Over and above these life projects, which have a finite duration and which differ from person to person, there is one overarching and perpetual life project we all have. It begins very early in life and it never ends. It is, and here comes our big proposition, to build and implement our lifestyles.

We spend considerable amount of time, money, and energy to choose and constantly flesh out our lifestyles. We go to the marketplace to collect the ingredients that will help us assemble a lifestyle. Then we constantly, day in day out, keep embellishing and adapting it. Every consumer, everyone of us, has this BIG LIFE PROJECT. With no exceptions. Yes, even monks have it!

Yes, as marketers we need to know what your current life projects are. Then if we can relate our offerings to your life projects, we will have brought you important and significant value. But even more importantly, we need to study your BIG LIFE PROJECT—your constant endeavor to live your lifestyles. We need to map, in other words, your lifestyles, your psychographics.

Source: MyCBBook (Chapter 6)