Designing Your Ideal Lifestyle
The term ‘lifestyle design’ doesn’t appeal to people who aren’t familiar with it. But chances are, you’re already doing it one way or another.
Are you spending you free time doing things you enjoy? Do you choose your friends based on common interests and/or goals? Do you wake up a bit earlier in order to organize your day and get ready for going out without being in a hurry? Do you want more freedom in life and think that starting a business of your own might be the solution?
Well, all of that is lifestyle design. It means living life on your own terms, doing things exactly the way you want.
But anything I mentioned can be done unconsciously too, and without having a clear vision of the ideal lifestyle. It’s worth defining what you truly want, though, before you actually turn it into reality.
Here are some ideas on how to design your ideal lifestyle over time:
1. Monetize your Passion.
Think of the things you’re passionate about and how you can start making money from them.
Go back to your childhood if you have to and bring back the memories of what you enjoyed doing, which made you lose track of time.
Consider the topics you enjoy reading about, the type of conversation you prefer to have with a dear friend, or the thoughts that engage your mind when you have nothing else to do.
All these, when combined, will help you find and clearly identify the one thing you’re good at and love doing. Then, you should do an extensive research and explore all options to see how you can turn it into your career.
2. Do it remotely.
Next, it’s time to not just get rid of the regular job (it’s a huge barrier to designing the lifestyle of your dreams), but of the employee mindset, the fixed working hours, lack of creativity and focus, and the environment that doesn’t help you succeed even more.
Once you start making money doing what you love, you can turn it into your very own home based business. Working online is freedom as you’re the boss of your time, can start new projects whenever you feel like, can diversify your income streams by doing something new, can reject clients that don’t seem like a good fit for you, and can build your personal brand every day.
Working remotely also gives you the chance to either travel the world and still make money from your laptop, or move to your dream location and begin a new chapter there.
3. Organize your day in the most productive and enjoyable way.
Next, you can create the ideal daily routine too.
Decide when you want to wake up and go to bed every day, and go from there.
It’s okay if you’re not a morning person. Now you have the freedom to wake up later, and still do all your work and have time for anything else you feel like doing.
Some freelancers or online entrepreneurs prefer to begin their day in the early hours, dedicate the first few hours to focused work, and thus feel accomplished before noon. Then, they arrange meetings and other things like daily chores or a workout for the second part of the day. The evening is a chance to meet with friends, go out, or just relax at home. Sounds perfect, right?
Designing your ideal lifestyle can become a hobby, actually. There’s always something to optimize. But that’s also what makes it fun.
So, what will you start with?