Decisions that Inspire or Sabotage your Ideal Life
There is no doubt that all of us need to have money to lead lifestyles of our choice. And yet, most of us get so caught up with making money and becoming wealthy that we forget to ‘live.’
Instead, we realize that our work and profession own us, and we have forgotten who we are. It’s like we have become slaves to our businesses and occupations because we end up working for our business and not making our business work for us.
Therefore, it is imperative that your work-life is aligned with your personal dreams so that there is a seamless connection between the two creating a wholesome, meaningful life for you and your loved ones. Here are some pointers to help you see if your life decisions are inspiring or sabotaging your ideal life.
Define your dreams and lifestyle – Get clear about what you want from life. Many of us complain that we are not getting what we want from our lives. Sadly, most of us don’t even know what we want. We all have vague ideas of being rich or traveling the world or other things that have no clarity.
One of the first things we did before making changes to our lifestyle was to sit down and reflect on what we actually wanted. For instance, we were clear that we didn’t want to struggle with cold, snowy winters anymore. We were keen on traveling and living life on the road.
One way of getting clarity on what you want is to see your current life with new eyes. What are the things that you really don’t like about it and what are the things that are important to you? For example, together we realized that spending time together 24*7 was very important to us. We did not want to be separated by jobs or any other demands or responsibilities.
Similarly, make sure you know what kind of lifestyle you want in the future and that you are absolutely clear about it. Once you see this aspect of your new lifestyle, then the rest of the path is easy. You simply need to find ways that will take you to and keep you on your path to your desired destination.
Build a business appropriate for your lifestyle – Before moving permanently into our Motorhome, Ruby had a full-time corporate job and both us managed two traditional businesses which required us to be at a particular place and time always. These business models got in the way of what we wanted to do in the future.
So, we did some research and found options that were more aligned with the nomadic kind of lifestyle that we were envisioning. That’s when we realized that online businesses have immense potential. We took the plunge and started watching videos and webinars regarding online e-commerce businesses and started a new business with the online model a couple of years ago. Today, this little business has grown reasonably well, and most importantly, it aligns with our new nomadic lifestyle as we are not tied to a particular place as earlier.
Create the right mindset – Psychology experts speak of two kinds of mindsets, namely fixed and growth mindsets. Fixed mindset individuals are those who believe that their talents and skills are fixed, and they cannot better themselves in any way. People with growth mindsets believe that they can change, learn, and acquire anything to improve their lives.
We realized that the best way to live our dreams is to build a growth mindset. Both of us work hard at learning new things, even the seemingly difficult ones like advanced technology that is more skewed toward the young generation. Well, through our journey of learning, we realized that the only things that were stopping or limiting our progress were our own minds.
If we are ready to accept new things and open to learning new ideas, then nothing can really stop us from living the lifestyle we want. So, for example, when we started with the idea of creating inspirational videos to upload on YouTube, we didn’t even know how to operate a video camera.
Today, both of us are getting better at video creating! And we can do this because we believed in our ability to learn new things and are open to new ideas. Therefore, it makes sense to start any venture in your life with the right mindset and with the intention to learn and overcome obstacles that come your way.
It’s not magic to know your dreams – It is not always easy to crystallize what your dreams and desires are. It takes time and effort to understand your true desires and needs. Some of the tips that helped us connect with our dreams are here. Do feel free to try out some or all of them in your life too:
Assess your hobbies– Ask yourself what your hobbies and talents are. Find answers to the following questions:
● What activities do you enjoy doing so much that you have no idea of the passage of time?
● Do you enjoy writing?
● Are you an artist like Ruby, who loves stained glass work?
● Do you love working on programming and coding?
The thing about assessing your hobbies is to ask yourself which activity you like so much that you are even willing to work for free. This answer could, perhaps, be the closest to your true life desire. Create a business that you do not want to take a vacation from.
Identify and get rid of elements with the potential to create obstacles in your new lifestyle – Here again, we would like to talk about the decision of selling our house. It was a beautiful home that we had been living in for years. It was the home that we planned to retire in. It was where our stained glass studio was located, and a lot of memories were attached to it. Selling the house was not an easy decision.
And yet, it had to be done because keeping the house was a financial as well as a physical strain. Maintenance costs and efforts even when the house would be empty for the six months that we planned to live in our Motorhome in warmer climates had to be considered. So, after quick, objective-thinking, we realized that keeping the house could obstruct the joy of living our new lifestyle instead of adding value to it. It would become the place that would pull us back to “check” on to make sure everything was ok. We both decided that we did not need the additional expenses or distraction. Therefore the decision to sell the house became easy for us.
This is just one example, even though it was a big one. Like this, every element in your life needs scrutiny as to whether its value inspires or sabotages your new lifestyle.
It’s going to take time and effort to find your dreams, and then discover the path to living your dreams. Yet, living your lifestyle need not be a long process. With some diligent effort and hard work, you can make it happen sooner than you think.
Our book, New Habits – New Wealth, has more information to help with this process.
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