Hi everybody. Here is the first of many articles focusing on living the life you dream about. I spend a lot of time thinking about financial freedom, but not until I used that energy to actually work toward my goal am I actually able to realize it. I know money doesn’t buy happiness, but it allows you the freedom of time. What is it that you wish for when all is at it’s end? Time. But financial freedom is only one piece to the puzzle. True happiness comes with a healthy home life filled with love and the joy (and pain) of parenthood. This is the beginning of my journey to time and happiness. I have been through a lot of different experiences throughout my life, and for some reason seem to always learn things the hard way. While it is unfortunate for me, I’m going to try to make it a benefit for you, by sharing with you my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned throughout those experiences. Some of the topics you will find in subsequent articles are:
- Self improvement / self awareness
- Handling your finances
- Getting your education
- Employment / Entrepreneurship
- Family life
Self improvement / Self awareness
I think the beginning of anything new has to start within yourself. If you cannot change yourself, how can you expect to change your life? A good man (or woman) knows his strengths, but a great man understands his weaknesses. It’s not easy to seriously evaluate yourself and face the characteristics about yourself that you are not too fond of. If you can work at it though, it can become an exercise that you grow to enjoy over time. There is always a way to improve yourself and when you start to make improvements in your personality, you will start to see positive changes follow within your life.
Handling your finances
Basic money management skills are crucial to make it in today’s society, and it is amazing to me how people lack the fundamental skills to make smart financial decisions. It is mind blowing how improvements in your financial situation can bring a lot of stress relief to your day to day life. I have been through just about all of the possible financial situations you can be in including struggling to pay the bills living check to check, to making good money but having to manage a lot of debt, to overcoming my debt and building a nice nest egg. All of those experiences have helped shaped my financial knowledge, and give me an opportunity to help others by letting them learn from my mistakes.
Getting your education
College is the new high school. All over the world young people are stockpiling their educational process in an attempt to distinguish themselves from the crowd in a ultra-competitive job market. It seems that the graduate degree is the new tool of choice for getting in the door for those without much experience, and for reaching new heights in their careers for those who have been working a while. Is all that schooling worth it? What does a degree really do for you? How should you finance it? There are a million questions, and we’ll explore all of them during future articles.
Employment / Entrepreneurship
Jobs can be a main cause of stress in everyone’s life. I have been through a lot of different employment scenarios, and in some form or another, the job has caused me stress. When I graduated from college, I ended up working at a temporary company doing data entry for $9.50/hour…and I had a computer science degree! Slowly I moved my way up the ranks after learning some hard lessons on the importance of being able to market yourself. I was able to get to a job with great benefits and great pay, but the amount of work and stress at the office took its toll on myself, my family, and our life at home. So…what’s the answer? It depends, but for me, I believe it is entrepreneurship. Currently I am in that early stage of starting my own business when everything is risky and you really don’t know what to expect next. We’ll be able to go through my whole history of job-related experiences to see how my hardships can help you get to where you want to go.
Family life
As unfortunate as it sounds, a lot of times we overlook the importance of family in our day to day lives. It’s human nature as ambitious individuals that we focus on those things that we wish to improve upon and leave the things we are comfortable with in the background. For logical matters, that makes perfect sense. But when it comes to love and family, the right answer is rarely logical. Initially I hadn’t planned on including family issues within this website, as I didn’t feel that it was necessarily relevant to the other topics. However, after thinking about it more I realized that the main goal of this website is to help people live the lives they always dreamed about…by talking about my own experiences in trying to do the same. A big part of what makes our lives great is the love and devotion we get from our families. That being said, I’m excited to be able to share that aspect of my life with you as well.
People approach goals differently. Some like to focus on the big long-term dream and spend less time worrying about their current environment, and others focus on short term goals. There is no one right way to do it, as every style can be effective in it’s own way. The most important point to remember is that you should choose whatever option gives you the greatest motivation to stick to it. The biggest obstacle to achieving our dreams is ourselves. Think about all the great ideas you had and wished you would’ve acted on. The problem isn’t the opportunity, the problem is having the boldness to act on the opportunity, and having the endurance to see it through.
These first steps are the boldness, and over time I hope to display that endurance leading by example. Thanks for your time.
