In March of 2017, I was in a lot of pain and uncertainty. I was moving into a little apartment in Ohio, going through a painful divorce, quitting my corporate job, and just tired of hating everything about my life.
In March of 2018, I just self-published my first book and made enough off of the first week sales to move to a personal retreat in Central Florida.
How did this happen? It happened because I made it happen. I decided to change my life, because no one was going to change it for me. It’s not like I wasn’t working hard before. No, I’ve been doing this “change my life with hard work” thing for over 20 years, one failed hustle, after failed job, after failed marriage, after failed business, after another. But, this run through, something was different. When I sat down to make a plan this time, I was cutting everyone out, burning down everything that obligated me, and starting with me first. As James Altucher likes to say, I chose myself. It’s not that it was selfish, rather it was empirically the best decision to make. Time and again it was proven to me that I had made bad choices in relationships, partners, jobs and associations, and all for the wrong reasons. Sometimes we need to get to the root of what we really want.
In pursuit of what we want (or think we want) we will entangle ourselves into all manners of messes that will take us sometimes years to painfully extract from: lifestyles, business partnerships, marriages, job obligations…the list goes on. We often find ourselves in these situations because the answers to our happiness were believed to be found outside of ourselves, rather than from within.
Please, allow me to explain why this is not the standard spiel about “finding happiness inside of you,” because frankly that is bullshit. It takes a mix of being self-aware about what you really want, and then doing the work to see progress towards it happening outside of you. Happiness is not only progress and reward, it’s those things moving towards what our soul really wants while in an atmosphere that is nurturing to that progress. And guess what? You have to create that atmosphere to find it in the balanced way that we seek. So, you inherently have the problem of starting out without that nurturing atmosphere, without the progress and reward. That space describes my life from the middle of 2016 through 2017.
It’s simply that our life needs to be grounded in what we truly want, NOT in a means to that end. This is the difference between finding fulfillment in something outside of yourself vs finding fulfillment by manifesting yourself through the world around you. This applies specifically if you consider yourself a purpose driven entrepreneur or creator in any way, but also in a general sense to anyone trying to live a valued life.
For me, I wanted to live a life inspired to create, with the all important freedom of time to do the creating. In order to achieve that, I had to start where I was at, not where I wished I was. I downsized my life, gave away thousands of dollars worth of “stuff” and moved into a small apartment. I made way less money, at first, and used my time to develop myself and my idea of a valued life. I stayed away from relationships and defeated the notion that I “needed” a girlfriend/wife to be happy. I set goals: write and publish my first book, grow my business to a national level, and facilitate a move to a place that inspired my life. I reached those goals. All of them, including the move. For me, right now, that place is Florida. I made it a mandatory change that I would eat well, exercise very seriously for my health and well being, and spend more time in a relaxed state rather than a stressed, worried and unhappy state no matter what I had to give up.
And it was hard. Some days, it was incredibly hard. At times, you can’t see the goal, you can’t see progress, you feel like you’re being stupid about unrealistic goals, and there is no one there to support you. You have to support yourself with sheer discipline. When the goal gets blurry, discipline is the only thing you have on that day. Discipline, and a desire to leave the unhappiness of a life that is not value driven. I did it. I am seeing progress and change. The world around me is brightening up. My life is starting to inspire me. Now, incrementally I will move towards the goal while living the valued life along the way. I won’t sacrifice anymore by lying to myself like “I will live this life that I absolutely hate to get to the other side.” Too much damage is accumulated that way. Too much time lost in unentangling ourselves from such messes.
Make the hard decisions to go through the brutal tasks of removing those entanglements today, and you will sooner be on your way to a better, value added life. Find the things you really want to do, what would make you most happy, and start working towards building it from the ground up. Your life should be rewarding, fulfilling, and provide a great marketing backdrop for your personal brand. Your home base should fuel you, recharge you, and most of all it should not consume you away from your dreams. I would be better served living my own life on my terms, and showing the world who I am from the backdrop of my inspiring life where I am not enslaved to things I do not like but rather am able to create and serve others at my leisure.
But, you have to know what you really want, and you have to believe in yourself to keep going and make it happen.
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