Is Lifebook Worth It? My Honest & In-Depth Review (2023)

Tina Fey by Tina Fey | February 8, 2023, 7:52 am

(This review contains affiliate links which means any purchases may earn us a commission — at no extra cost to you. However, it’s an honest review about my personal experience with Lifebook).

You’ve decided that now is the time to:

a) Get your life in order

b) Finally make those dreams come true

c) Create a more balanced, happy and successful life

And maybe you’re wondering if Lifebook by Mindvalley can help? That was me not too long ago.

This honest and in-depth Lifebook review will share with you my personal experience with this course.

Spoiler alert: Lifebook wasn’t exactly life changing for me, but I’m glad I took the course. Let’s dive into what it’s really about and the pros and cons to see if its worth it for you.

What is Lifebook?

YouTube video

Lifebook is a 6-week goal-setting course available on Mindvalley where you’ll be guided step-by-step through creating your own 100-page “Lifebook”.

The idea behind Lifebook is that you’ll start off thinking about your life right now, so you can figure out what you really want. Then you’ll use that information to create a new and improved future for yourself.

In other words, it’s your game plan to a better life.

You’ll be learning how to take action on your goals, and how to manage your time effectively. In addition, you’ll learn how to deal with obstacles that could stand in your way.

In order to tackle different areas of your life, the program is broken down into 12 different categories that together make up a “successful” life.

  • Health and fitness
  • Intellectual
  • Emotional
  • Character
  • Spiritual
  • Love Relationship
  • Parenting
  • Social
  • Career
  • Financial
  • Quality of Life
  • Life Vision

If it’s starting to sound complicated, the good news is that it’s not.

It’s broken down into different sections which all follow a fairly simple formula. That means it’s quite an easy and effective strategy to work through.

Expect to put in about 3-6 hours of work a week into creating your Lifebook. With the total program taking anywhere from 18-36 hours over the 6 weeks.

Why I decided to do Lifebook

I first heard about Lifebook from my friend Matt who had done it himself. He said he loved it so much that he was graduating to the Lifebook Mastery program (which I’ll talk about a little bit more later).

Obviously, you don’t know my friend Matt, but let’s just say I was pretty surprised at his enthusiasm.

Because like me, he has been guilty in the past of all the best intentions but very little follow through.

When I asked him what he liked best about it, he told me that it helped him get his life in order.

So, I thought to myself that if my equally flaky friend found the motivation to see it through, then maybe it could help me too.

I’d say generally I’ve got a pretty good life.

There wasn’t anything particularly “wrong”, but there was plenty of room for improvement.

Procrastination, overwhelm and a general feeling of being stuck were common themes in my life that always pop up.

I wanted what we all want — you know, get fitter, build a better career, find a relationship that will last, etc.

But despite occasional waves of enthusiasm to make some positive changes, I never really came up with a good enough plan to make it happen.

Why I’m writing this review

I don’t know about you, but personally, when I go looking for reviews I want to hear from normal people who have real-life experience with what the product or service.

I want to know whether or not they think it was worth their money.

I want to know what they got out of it.

And I want to know all the bits they didn’t like, as well as the bits they did.

That’s why I decided to write this review.

Because I know like me there are a lot of people out there who want the whole truth. Not something so obviously advertorial.

What is Mindvalley?

Mindvalley is an online learning platform that’s designed to help you grow and develop as a person.

If that sounds vague it’s because it’s not your typical learning platoform.

It’s more about alternative development that helps you discover a happier, healthier, and more meaningful life.

You’ll find over 50+ programs on a variety of topics. Some are pretty “out there” and some are way more practical.

For example, you can learn how to sleep better, how to use kettlebell training for better fitness, how to master public speaking and ways to bolster your memory.

But you can also discover how to “call in the one”, learn about astral projection, and extrasensory perception (including the Silva Ultramind Method)

The programs fall into a variety of different categories including career, mind, soul, entrepreneurship, relationships, body, and more.

If you like the sound of Lifebook, I would also recommend checking out other Mindvalley programs. Chances are you will find others that could be a good fit for you too.

How much does Lifebook cost?

Before diving into the program, its pros and cons, and my own results in more detail — let’s cut to the chase.

How much is Lifebook?

Because personally when researching something, I find myself scrolling through pages of info when one of the first things I want to know is how much it costs.

Lifebook is $500 to sign up for.

But there’s a BIG twist. One that was admittedly the biggest contributing factor for why I eventually bit the bullet and signed up.

If you:

  • Do the program in full
  • Complete all the necessary work for your Lifebook
  • Then apply for a refund

…It’s FREE.

The $500 is classed as an “accountability deposit” and not a fee per se.

It’s specifically designed for people like me. Because I’ll level with you, I need an incentive, or I’ll just end up quitting.

I’m not proud of it, but I also know this about myself too. What can I say, the call of Netflix is far stronger than the call of hard work.

Paying $500 is where you put your money where your mouth is.

But it’s also the carrot that keeps you working your way through the program so you know that you can claim that money back if you want to.

Check out the cheapest price for Lifebook here (any current discount).

How do I get my money back from Lifebook?

You have to meet some criteria to qualify for the refund:

1) You have to do the program when you sign up for it. You can’t change your cohort date.

2) You have to watch all the course videos as they’re released and put together your own personal Lifebook. That involves writing your Premise, Vision, Purpose, and Strategy for each of the 12 categories.

3) You’ve got to submit your Lifebook refund request form by your refund deadline.

The refund can either be in cash — aka, get your money back.

Or you can put the $500 into the Lifebook Graduate Bundle, like my friend Matt did. This includes membership to the follow-on program called Lifebook Mastery.

It’s also worth noting that if you’re really not feeling Lifebook and don’t want to complete the course, there’s also a full money-back guarantee within 15-days of signing up.

Personally, I won’t buy or sign up to anything that doesn’t have a cooling-off period as it seems like a bad sign and some serious pressure selling to me.

Who teaches Lifebook

There are two teachers who run the course, who are also a married couple.

Jon and Missy Butcher are what you’d call serial entrepreneurs, with many fingers in many successful pies.

They’re the sort of couple who have one of those totally enviable lifestyles. Ordinarily that would probably put me off a bit. I’d worry that they have something that I don’t, so it maybe it won’t work for me.

But it wasn’t always this way. They also felt that directionless slump of “now what?”

And it was the Lifebook method that apparently helped them get out of it and create the lives they have today.

They claim they were motivated not by money in creating Lifebook, as their other work provides plenty for them. Instead, they wanted to share their method. Hence why you can do Lifebook for free.

What to expect doing Lifebook

The warm-up: Before the program officially kicks off there’s a few bits of admin to do.

This includes a short assessment form that encourages you to start thinking about where you’re at in life right now.

From this, you’ll be given a “live satisfaction score”. Think of it as a baseline so you can measure your progress and see how things improve.

Other tasks include joining the online support community of fellow Lifebookers. I’m not normally much of a joiner, but to be fair there are a lot of stats around how accountability increases your success.

It’s also nice to share your progress and have people to talk to who are in the same boat and can answer any questions you might have.

You’ll also have access to a welcome video, and a Q&A session.

This will take you a few hours if you do it all. I was being diligent and trying to start as I meant to go on. But I’ll be honest, you could easily skip the videos.

The Lifebook formula: As I mentioned already, the program is broken up into 12 areas of life. You’ll cover two of these a week over the 6 weeks.

The essentials take about 3 hours of work each week, so 18 in total for the full course.

The potential extra time involves things like FAQ videos provided each week, which can vary in length and add on up to a few more hours.

They were all pre-recorded. Sometimes I’d dive into these, but plenty of times I wouldn’t bother. It’s personal preference.

FYI you don’t need to watch the FAQ videos to qualify for the refund, this is extra material.

So generally, I stuck to the essentials as I found around 3 hours a week was manageable — even with my committed Netflix habit.

Each category follows the same structure, which really helped the flow.

After the lesson, you can download a template that helps you write your Lifebook by proving you with a pre-created template to follow.

You’re asked the same 4 questions for each:

  • What are your empowering beliefs about this category?
  • What is your ideal vision?
  • Why do you want this?
  • How will you achieve this?

Don’t worry, this will all make a hell of a lot more sense when you’ve watched the training videos and are getting the guidance to create your Lifebook.

The Butchers also share with you their finished Lifebook and answers so you can get more clear guidance over what sort of things to write.

Who Lifebook is a good fit for

I think Lifebook could be suited to people in quite a few situations, as it’s a good all-around holistic goal-setting program.

It’s best suited to anyone who wants to make changes in their life.

  • Someone who has been feeling stuck and isn’t sure of their next steps.
  • Someone who wants to step away from the rat race and find something more meaningful out of life.
  • Someone who feels like they’ve got no idea what they want to do with their life.
  • Someone who’s looking to create a detailed plan to follow to kickstart change.
  • Someone who knows what they want, but is struggling to figure out how to get there.
  • People who want to create a “vision” for their life.
  • People who like to organize and plan, or even enjoy crafting and creating.

Who won’t like it

Even though it’s a good all-arounder personal development program, that doesn’t mean this course is going to suit everyone.

I’m not sure it’ll be right for you:

If you’re looking for a quick fix, this isn’t the place for you.

It’s going to require a fair amount of time commitment. It’s not just the 18 hours over 6 weeks.

For you to see real change, you have to continue with a sustained effort to turn your Lifebook vision into a reality moving forward.

You’re not into self-reflection

Personal development courses always require you to dig deeper below the surface. Lifebook is designed to help you create a vision for your future.

So you need to be able to clearly articulate what you want. If you aren’t a fan of self-reflection yet, then you may struggle to do this.

Life feels pretty sweet already

If you’re already happy with the direction you’re heading then Lifebook may not have much more to add.

Hey, if you feel like it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

My results after doing Lifebook

I’m always envious of those shocking results you see in testimonials.

You know the:

  • I lost 700lbs in 10 minutes.
  • I had $5 in my pocket when I started and now I’m a zillionaire.
  • My soulmate rang my doorbell approximately 20 seconds after I finished the course.

I can even believe that some people get some groundbreaking results pretty quickly.

For me, I’d say that completing Lifebook was more subtle, but still powerful.

I found myself thinking about things differently. And I felt like I was starting to understand why I was where I was in life.

I definitely noticed an improvement in my mindset. Bigger goals started to feel totally doable rather than pie-in-the-sky dreams.

I also committed to my health and started doing something daily to keep fit. This had a knock-on effect on everything from my well-being, to self-esteem and even relationships with others.

I haven’t noticed any dramatic shifts in my life overnight. That said, I am very pleased with the results I got. I think it will be one of those “watch this space” type of results to see the longer-term implications.

But I would recommend Lifebook to anyone who’s looking to take control of their life.

I think out of everything the biggest thing I learned from Lifebook was that I needed to start taking full responsibility for my life.

That meant being honest with myself about what I wanted and making decisions based on that.

This wasn’t easy for me. Because I’m naturally quite lazy. And being honest meant facing up to the work I needed to do.

But I knew that if I didn’t make changes, then I’d end up regretting it later.

The pros and cons of Lifebook

The pros:

  • It’s a great way to kickstart your personal development journey.
  • It helps to give you a clear sense of how you want to live your life.
  • It’s fun to work your way through the program and you feel like you have something tangible by the end — your “Lifebook”.
  • It’s a really holistic goal setting program that takes into account all the varied areas of your life which together make life happy and successful.
  • It’s empowering. It doesn’t tell you how to live your life, it encourages you to shape your own unique version of a good life.
  • You not only get your money back if you don’t like Lifebook (within 15 days) but you can even get your money back if you do like it and finish the course in full.

The cons:

  • Some categories will likely be more interesting and relevant to you than others. For example, parenting isn’t so helpful if you aren’t a parent and don’t want kids.
  • The course does require effort. There are no shortcuts. No magic pills. You’ll need to put in the time and energy to achieve the results you want.
  • It might seem daunting at first to complete a 100-page Lifebook. But once you’ve completed the course, you’ll find it easier to set yourself new goals and stick to them.
  • You still have to find the $500 “deposit” to do Lifebook, even if you do get a refund afterward. That’s not pocket change and in a tough economic climate, most of us don’t exactly have buckets of cash sitting around the house.

What else do you need to know?

Here’s what you get when you sign up to Lifebook:

  • The six-week program involves two lessons a week, where you cover two Lifebook categories. Plus weekly Q&A video calls (which were pre-recorded).
  • Lifebook templates to follow and fill out for each of the 12 life area categories. This is how you actually write your Lifebook.
  • A pre and post-course assessment that helps you measure and keep track of your progress and (hopefully) advancement.
  • Access to the online community or “tribe” of other people who are also following Lifebook at the same time as you. It’s there for support and accountability.
  • Access to Lifebook across all your devices like laptops, tablets, mobile phones, etc.
  • The option to apply for a rebate at the end if you have fulfilled all the requirements. I’d definitely recommend checking out the finer details first if that’s what you are hoping to do.

My verdict: Is Lifebook worth it?

So to sum up, is Lifebook worth it?

For me it was. And I’m guessing for a whole lot of other people out there the answer will also be ‘yes’.

If you’re looking for an effective, comprehensive, actionable, and affordable personal development program, then this is the right program for you.

Ok, $500 isn’t cheap, but if you can scrape the cash together it’s better to think of it as a deposit.

The refund/rebate comes with conditions, but it is legit.

I think it’s fair to say that Lifebook has changed my life. Not because I now have a zillion in the bank, or am about to make a bid to buy Twitter.

But because I have a much clearer vision about what I want. And now I feel much better equipped to tackle the challenges ahead in life.

When I signed up for Lifebook I had no idea what to expect other than what my friend Matt had told me. But I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

In a nutshell, it’s an incredibly high-quality course brought to you by a very well-respected player in the online personal development space (aka Mindvalley) and taught by knowledgeable and inspiring teachers.

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