Origins Of The Freedom Design Project

My name is Krysta Foyston, and the ideas behind the Freedom Design Project grew out of a lifetime of exploration. Through travel, work, spirituality, and the many unexpected turns life can take. I didn’t arrive at this framework through theory alone. It emerged gradually through lived experience and the realization that most people never consciously design their lives.

 My childhood was unconventional. 

Both my parents were free spirits, each in their own way. My father worked as a hunting guide and gold miner, while my mother, the first professional woman farrier in Western Canada, made the bold decision to leave city life behind and move with two children, a dog, and horses to a remote valley 3 hours from the nearest town.  It's thanks to her courage that I grew up in the remote Tatlayoko Valley in British Columbia, surrounded by mountains, horses, and long stretches of wilderness. This shaped me into the person I am today, and instilled in me a life-long love for adventure and learning.

Over the years my path took many different directions. I’ve worked as a ranch hand, camp cook, medic in the oilfield and on wildfires, galloped racehorses, trained and sold horses, worked as a financial advisor, and taken on a variety of other roles along the way. These experiences exposed me to the many different ways people structure their lives, and of how easily those structures form without conscious intention.

A series of difficult experiences eventually forced me to step back and reconsider the direction my own life was taking. Illness, financial challenges, and a serious car accident created a moment of clarity about what truly mattered.  I realized that many of the things I had assumed were stable, career paths, financial structures, even relationships,  were far more fragile than they appeared. More importantly, I began to see how much of my life had been shaped by expectations rather than conscious design.

That realization led to a simple but powerful question:

What if we approached our lives with the same level of intention that we apply to other important projects?

Over time, that question evolved into the framework now called the Freedom Design Project, a process for stepping off the known path and consciously designing a life aligned with your highest self.

Through writing, conversation, and platforms such as The Phosphenes Podcast, The Freedom Design Project, and the Never Stop Exploring Letters,  the goal is to explore how people can move beyond the traditional definitions of success and build lives that reflect who they truly are.

If these ideas resonate with you, you're invited to explore further.