Do you know where you are going?
All of us, I’m sure, have felt aimless, confused, and unmotivated. There are times when I just want to sit in front of the TV and do nothing. A lot of the time it’s not that I don’t want to do anything, it’s because I don’t know what to do. Escaping this self-imposed exile can be difficult, but not impossible.
The first, and most important step, is to want to do something and be willing to act on it, even just a little bit at a time.
1. Find one goal
To begin, decide what your goal is. Don’t try to do too much at one time. Decide a single, realistic, doable goal. If you have too much on your plate, you will lose energy and become frustrated. Choose one goal and focus only on that goal.
2. What’s your “why”
Find your “why.” Your “why” is the reason you need to accomplish your goal. If your reason is strong enough, it will inspire you.
For example, my “why” for moving my income online is so I can work from anywhere. I think about how great it would be to take my work with me on vacation. I know that sounds strange to most people, but think about this: why are your vacations so short? Usually it’s because you only have so much money for your vacation and you have to go back to work!
What happens if you decide to go on a 3 month vacation to Europe? If I have my job with me, I can rent an apartment in Paris, see the sites during the day while America sleeps, and work in the evening when America wakes up. I don’t have to go home when I run out of money, because I’m earning money to live on every day.
That’s my “why!” It excites me. Find your reason and get excited about it. Dream it. No, do more than dream. Want it. Desire it! Be driven to have it! If your “why” doesn’t drive you to accomplish your goal, then your dream isn’t big enough. Dream bigger.
3. Build on the dream
You can build anticipation by setting a date to make it happen. Get excited about that date and try to make it the most important date in your life.
Post your goal somewhere where you can see it every day. Print it in big letters. Maybe even put pictures below it like a vision board. Think about your goal every time you see it. Dream about. Stay focused on it
4. Commit to doing it by being accountable to others
Being accountable to others means making your goal public. Let everyone know what your goal is. Talk about it often. Give them updates on your progress. Discuss it with new colleagues or friends. Keep in on your mind as often as possible. If you’ve read “the Secret,” you’ll see the wisdom of this.
When you seem to lose motivation for your goal (which is normal), your friends, family and colleagues can help bolster your motivation and keep you on track. They may even have suggestions or ways of helping you accomplish it.
5. Be persistent
Whatever happens, don’t give up on your dreams. Don’t give up on what you want, even if you are losing steam or feeling like it’s not worth it. Slumps in motivation are normal. The path of motivation is like a hilly road. There are ups, there are downs, and sometimes there are detours. But stick with it.
6. Remind yourself daily
Read about your goal to keep it fresh in your mind. If you want to travel, read about places you want to visit. Read about the history. Read comments from others who have been there. Write out your itinerary of where you want to go and what you want to see. Don’t write your plan for IF you go, write your plan for WHEN you go. Make it definite and make is solid.
7. Think about the positive
Concentrate on the benefits of your dream, not the difficulties. Acknowledge to your self, that yes, it may be difficult, but how will you feel when you make your dream come true. Don’t let negative thoughts, or negative people, affect your dream. Dream stealers are everywhere. Don’t listen to them. They simply don’t understand how important your dream is, or they want to stop you from accomplishing your dream because it reminds them of how unhappy they are.
Concentrate only on the positive aspects of your desire.
photo credit: GiuliagasMost of us lead very busy lives. We’ve filled our time with work, play, education and waste.
I know what it means to be busy. I have a full-time job as a probation officer. I carry a full load at night school for a masters program. And I am trying to develop a blog and freelance writing career. Not to mention my wife wants my attention as well.
As busy as I am, I really have no one to blame but myself. I chose to work for the income and security it provides. I chose to go to school for the future income and desire for self-employment. I chose to write and create a blog for my own personal satisfaction.
And when I finally have a chance to relax, I usually choose to sit in front of the television. Ok, at least I’ve cut back on that one. The point I am making is we have all made choices to do activities that fill our available time.
Do we need self-improvement?
Each of us is growing day by day. We gradually become a new person, little by little. Some people have had great insight in our growth and learned lessons that the rest of us find very valuable. Many of them have written a book to pass on these lessons to those who need to learn them. Authors like Steven Covey
and Anthony Robbins come to mind as examples.
(I’m going to assume you see the value in a self-improvement and want to read one. The following suggestions can be used for any self-improvement technique for which you want to find time to do.)
There are hundreds and hundreds of self-improvement books available. While I can’t recommend you try to read ALL of them, you should read a few. Some would say you should read a new book a month. A week if you can fit it in.
That’s the key phrase, if you can fit it in. We are so busy with the things we have chosen, we don’t have time to fit much else in our lives.
So where do make the time?
I’m sure you’ve heard of the rocks and sand philosophy. It goes like this: pretend an empty jar is your available time for the coming week. You have a variety of tasks, some are needs, some are wants. These tasks are represented by rocks, pebbles, and sand. The size of the task represents how much time the task will take and it’s importance to you. Therefore, a larger rock will take much more time and energy than a grain of sand.
When you are planning how you spend your time in the coming week, you have to decide what you really want or need to do and put those rocks in first. Next come the lesser important pebbles, followed by handful of minute sand tasks.
There is always, always, always, a big handful of sand that will be poured in your jar. The sand comes from family, friends, work, etc. It is important to put the things that important to you, the big rocks, in the jar first. Once the sand goes in, you can’t fit anything else in there.
For me, television is the sand that used to fill my jar. Once I finished homework or other house hold chores, I would sit on the couch and start surfing. Now, I’ve cut back on that. My time for blogging is a pebble I’ve forced into the jar to make sure I have time for writing.
Now another pebble, a self-improvement book sits next to the jar and I wonder when I will find the time to read?
Evaluate your time
What do you do with your day? You probably work. That takes up time in your day. You may go to school, you may have friends, a spouse, a significant other, etc. Each of these things take up time, but usually you can find a way to take some back.
For me, I find that I have time at lunch. I work seven minutes from my house, so I can easily slip out, go home and spend 30 minutes reading before fixing a sandwich and heading back. In the evenings, I can stop watching so much television (at least until Heroes comes back! Then I’m glued to the TV for that hour.).
Where can you find time? What do you do that’s just busy time that wouldn’t kill you if you stopped doing it?
Planning
Going back to the big rocks and sand philosophy, once you find something you want to do, whether its read, write, or any other self-improvement activity, those things become you big rocks. When you plan you upcoming week, you have to put the big rocks in first to make sure you take the time to do it.
What’s that? You don’t plan your week ahead of time?
That, my friend, means you have no rocks or pebbles. Your jar is full of sand. You have no control over what is happening to you. Get out a planner, or even just a piece of paper, and start setting aside time for self-improvement. It will be worth it in the end.
I have always had the nasty habit of believing I was too busy to find the time for a vacation. However, over the weekend I found the time to get away to Disneyland. I know it sounds odd for two adults without kids to go to Disneyland, but surprisingly we weren’t the only childless couple there. There were more people there than I thought there would be.
My wife had planned the trip. I was resistant at first. I was busy, I told her. We didn’t have the money, I said. But she insisted. And wouldn’t you know it, there was time to go. There was money for the trip.
As much as I hate to admit it, I still find myself falling back into the old patterns of living on autopilot; thinking only about one day at a time. It’s difficult to break the habit, but it’s a habit I must break if I am to enjoy life.
This weekend got me thinking, how did I get into this predicament where I fail to look beyond today? Why can’t I plan fun times? What makes me think I can’t enjoy life?
It’s not like I don’t believe I can enjoy life. The thought just never come to the surface! That’s living on autopilot: Never even thinking about anything other than getting by day to day. I hate it.
Set aside time for planning.
Many of us are either busy, or believe we are busy. Either way it is important to set aside time to plan. The time can be used to review goals, plan vacations, plan the future, or even just think about what you enjoy.
What would you do if you had the time and money
If you had the time and money, what would you do day to day? Would you continue to work? Would you travel? Would you take up a new hobby or a new cause? This step is one of the most important steps to having a life worth living.
If you are successful in your dreams of living, rather than existing, you will find you have more time on your hands. Or, at least you will find less busy time and more available time. What will you do with that time?
The time you find here is the time you will spend LIVING. If you don’t know what you want to do, how can you truly live? If you fail to find something rewarding and enjoyable in this available time, you risk losing it back to simple existence. You risk filling this time with busy work that ends up becoming your daily routine. Your daily grind. Before you know it, your time is spent.
Remembering to dream
Remember to take the time to dream. Don’t just think about what you could do to fill LIVING time. Think about what you have always wanted to do. Or think about things you never even knew about.
Have you ever gone sky diving? Or how about hiking across country? Or even traveling to a foreign land to learn the local art from a master?
Take the time to not only find your own dreams, but learn the dreams of others. Let their dreams inspire your own. You may find someone else dreams of something you never knew existed, but now can’t live without.
I like to write. I can’t say that I am “gifted,” but I like to write more than most of the people I know. Writing is something that I enjoy… when I can get around to it. Writing is something I hate… when I am forced to write.
Many of you, I’m sure, know just what I’m talking about: Sit down and write about something YOU want to write about, and you could go on all day. But sit down to write a report for school, or a freelance assignment for someone else, and suddenly writing becomes a chore.
Recently I’ve wondered, do I want to try to be a full-time freelancer? Full-time freelancing would give me some of the freedom I’ve been seeking. It’s a way to earn money from anywhere, without having to be tied to a specific place.
I own the “Well Fed Writer” books. Commercial freelance writing seems like a lucrative way of earning money writing as well – if it really is all it’s cracked up to be.
This will be a difficult decision to make. I can try full-time freelancing and travel everywhere I’ve always wanted to travel, but possibly have little in the way of insurance or benefits. Or I can stay put in my cushy government job with it’s great benefits, but end up living the clichéd “life of quiet desperation.”
I guess what I look at it like that, the decision becomes a little easier. I need to locate freelancing opportunities.
“Every man dies. Not every man truly lives.” – William Wallace (Mel Gibson) from the movie, Braveheart
.
I read Wallace’s words recently and thought what a true statement that is. Not only did I read them, but they stung because I knew I was one of those men.
And I hated it.
I planned to do just what every self-improvement book/blog says to do: Plan your future, TAKE ACTION, then review and change as needed. I put that on my list of “important things to do.”
It’s been weeks since I planed that. It somehow turned into my “someday” list.
Again, I was stung, like a slap on the face, when I read Starting a New Year with Death over at Pick the Brain.
I had fallen right into the Myth of Someday. I’ll do that ‘Someday.’ I really want to go there ‘Someday.’ ‘Someday’ I tell them how I really feel about them.
But sometimes ‘Someday’ never comes. In the last two years I lost my father and a grandmother (in law). The insurance commercial says, “Life comes at you fast.” So does death.
I’m not going to be one of those people that looks back and sees a mountain of regrets and unfulfilled desires. So after weeks of delay, I have my plan.
Step one: Decide what I want.
That is both the easiest and the hardest step. It’s easy when you finally decide to sit down and evaluate what you want. It’s hard to push everything else out of your mind so it doesn’t get in the way of what you want.
For example, it’s easy for a mountain of bills to affect your decision of what you want. You just want a way to earn more money to pay the bills.
So here’s what I have come up with: I want to go where I want, when I want, and for as long as I want. When I come home, I want a secure home to return to.
Step two: Find out how to become a location independent professional.
I will do research to find jobs I can do from anywhere. By April 1, 2008 I will have decided what method or methods I will use and will have begun putting them into action. Whether it’s working online, freelance writing, whatever. By January 1, 2009, A majority of my income will be online.
Step three: Decide where to travel or live.
I already know my wife wants to live in France. And why not? We spent 10 days there on vacation in 2007. It was a great time. Once we are established there, the rest of Europe will be close at hand.
Step four: Take Action
This is the most important step. Plans without actions are just daydreams. I will begin this plan immediately. I don’t have forever.
From the book, Wanderer, By Sterling Hayden.
“What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade
The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?”
This post begins the series: Journey to Independence. I will add to this series over the coming months to track my progress in becoming location independent.
Leave your comments. What does it means to you to truly live? What advice would you give others on this subject?
If you’ve ever driven long distance on a quiet road, you may know what it means to be “road hypnotized” – that state of being where you are simply driving, with no real awareness of your surroundings. You might be passing a beautiful countryside, but it passes by unnoticed. Your mind is lost in the simple act of driving.
That is how many people go through life.
Many people simply EXIST. They go through their day-to-day routines just as they did the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. You could say many people are “life hypnotized.” They have forgotten the basic truth that life is not a destination, but a journey.
WAKE UP!
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Life should never be an uneventful, boring ride ending in a 6-foot drop in a wooden box. That’s not the way I want my journey to go, and neither should you.
Life should be an extraordinary journey, filled with one happy memory after another. The journey should be an exploration of the world around you, never missing a moment, never missing the opportunity to find a new friend or a new experience.
Many of us don’t even realize we are in a rut until it’s too late. In the book, Wanderer, Sterling Hayden writes, “We are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.”
Hayden ends the passage, saying that each of us has a choice: “Bankruptcy of purse, or bankruptcy of life.” Here’s where I disagree with him. I don’t believe a rich, fulfilling life must mean poor in money and security.
I think it’s possible to have both.
What are you waiting for?
Is is possible to live such a life? Absolutely.
- Resolve, TODAY, to enjoy the little things in life.
- Decide what kind of life you want. If you are unsure, use the list of 100 items technique to help decide.
- Seek advice from others who are living the way you want to live.
- Read action manuals to help you along the way. (I suggest The 6-Week Extreme Life Makeover)
- Most importantly, TAKE ACTION! Life doesn’t happen on it’s own. You must make it happen.
To LIFE!
Happiness is a direction, not a place.
- Sydney J. Harris
Where do you find happiness?
For far too long I’ve looked, occasionally finding it, but often lost in the perpetual search.
Like the song, Looking for love in all the wrong places, my search for happiness had me searching for a place, a thing, a possession, an object, a job that would make me happy. Once I found these things, my happiness slowely waned.
I’ve come to realize it was the journey, not the goal, that makes one happy. The wanting of something, and the search to get it can be more fulfilling than having it.
Too many people never search for happiness. They are trapped in the cycle of simple EXISTENCE. The same cycle I have been trapped in for so long.
Far, far, to long I simply went from work to home to work to home, completely missing the point of living: to LIVE. To EXPERIENCE.
I agree with tealtan at Walking Through Glass when he says “…it’s annoying to see people whose PENTULTIMATE GOAL IN LIFE is to lead “as normal a life as possible”.”
Normalcy is not living. Normal is that boring sidewalk that leads, not to where to want to go, but the path that convinces you: This is where you need to be.
To fight normality and find happiness requires you to step off that path. To politely ignore when your friends and family tell you to get back on the path like everyone else. It requires risk! For only those who take risks “… shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
- Carpe Diem – sieze the day. The only thing in life you can be absolutely certain of, is that it will end. Use this day to LIVE.
- Make a list those things you want to accomplish. Then start checking them off. Don’t be afraid to add to it or delete from it when needed, but always strive to have a list of accomplishments that you can look back on one day and say “This was my life”.
- Forget petty differences. You are who you are and so is the guy next to you. Forget the little things that set you apart from him. Hold out your hand, introduce yourself and learn his story. Build a friendship with a great many people.
- Do you have a purpose? If not, find it. (A topic for another post). Do that which you where meant to do.
- Live with the end in mind. No one wants to think about their final journey being a six foot drop in a wooden box. Instead of ignoring it, accept it. We each have only a limited number of hours. How many of them do you want to waste waiting for the end. USE THEM!
To LIFE!
Over the weekend, I saw Tommy Chong & his wife Shelby at a comedy club. They were quite funny! (Chong as in Cheech & Chong.)
At first, I was concerned because it seemed every joke was drug related. But then I thought to myself, of couse, dummy. Chong’s entire career has been as a hippy/druggie. That’s all people know him for. It would be silly for him to try to pass off any other kind of comedy act.
He autographed my ticket for free, but the photo was $10. Oh well. I can live with that.
Photo by guylaine_b
Do something rewarding today.
Today is Blog Action Day. Today is the day where bloggers will promote the environment, in some way.
I’m not an envioronmental junkie (although my sister-in-law is. One day I’ll tell you about her.), but there is a simple and rewarding way to combine our goal of LIVING and doing something for the environment.
Go for a walk.
You heard me correctly. Go for a walk. Leave behind the stress of everything. Take along a trash bag and pick up a few things to make the path look a little better.
Concentrate on being in the moment on your walk. Be mindful of everything around you. Experience the day, the trees, the sun (or rain), everything. Be “in to” what you are doing. In other words, LIVE in the moment.
What makes us happy? Is it money? A thing? A loved one? The answer lies within us. Each of us will have a different answer. The real question, however, is “Is what you are doing, getting you what you want?”
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