Ways to Live the Life You Were Meant to – Living the Dream

Get Motivated

If you want to live the life you were meant to you have to get motivated to make it happen. It’s not a option. Your ideal life won’t just fall into your life and nobody will just hand it over to you. If you want to live it, you’re going to have to fight for it and in order to win, you’re going to have to be motivated.
Now before we go any further, I want to say that I get a little on-edge when people talk about motivation. Motivational talks always seem to be intertwined with the idea of self-help. While I get the idea of self help niche, I don’t consider myself a self-help guy. Just the words “self-help” bring up images in my mind of people standing up at conferences, getting in circles, patting each other on the back, complete with a lot of rah rah rah’s and “you can do it” speeches.
The reason I think it makes me uneasy because a lot of motivation talk centers around just that. Talk. Everybody talks and talks and talks and it only leads to actual action a small percentage of the time. Most of the people just head home and don’t do anything different. Motivational talk is needed…sometimes, but I think motivational action is more necessary.

Be Your Own Boss

If you’ve ever listened to a famous entrepreneur (think Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc), they frequently say that they didn’t really know what they were doing when they started out. They just knew that they had a need to do something, so they started working and figured out along the way what was right and wrong, what needed to be tweaked, and what had to be completely thrown away or added in.
You can, and should, be the same. You can take charge, be your own boss, and have the power to grab opportunities.
If you’ve been dreaming of something bigger and better, you don’t have to know exactly how you’re going to get there. You just have to have some idea of your goal.

living the dream

Identify your dreams

One of the biggest challenges is being able to identify your dreams.  You’ve been so conditioned as to what your dreams are supposed to be, that it can take some time to actually develop what your dreams are.  This is ok.  They’re your dreams and your life.  Think of what you like to do.  Allow yourself to think about what gets you excited and what you’re passionate about.  Write these thoughts down.  Let them run wild.  Barring all barriers what would you do?  Where would you go?  Who would you interact with?  Nothing is too crazy.  There was a time when those who thought the world wasn’t flat were considered blasphemous, flight was deemed madness, radio waves insanity, and a horseless carriage impossible. (Horseless carriages are called cars nowadays).  Although it would be nice, you don’t need to come up with the next greatest invention.  You just need to identify your dreams so you can live them when you’re awake.

Making your dreams reality

If everyone’s dream is different, then everyone’s path there should be different to. Don’t get stuck on a path because you have already started to go down it.  You only live once.  Do not continue down a path you know is not right for you, just because of the blind assumption that “it’s the right thing to do”.  It might be the safe thing to do and the most practical thing to do, but not the right thing to do.  When you’re sitting on your death bed, do you really want to say you led a practical and safe life?!  You didn’t take any risks, you didn’t follow your dreams, but you made it through life; you got by. I know I know, you have spent years studying and working in a certain field.  You’ve spent incredible amounts of money getting this degree and have thousands of dollars in student loans to pay back.  However, each day you continue down the path doing something you don’t like, is another day of not living your dream.  More money, more time, more resources spent furthering a career, path or dream that isn’t yours.

 Community is the key

Regardless of your goals or how you frame your world, there is one skill that will boost your success like none other. Lifestyle designer or corporate mogul. Young, old or anywhere in between. Regardless of your set of demographics, if you want to sell products or services, become celebrity famous, or just build a custom tailored group of friends, you need to know how to build community.
You won’t be able to live the life you were meant to if you isolate yourself!

Finding the Company that Lets You Be You

First I’m going to be upfront and say that none of these things are easy to do.  I’m in the fortunate position to be able to take a risk here or there because I don’t have a family or kids. That being said what this really comes down to is understanding your own values. Often there’s a big disconnect between how we choose jobs and our values and hopefully this will give you some insight into making career choices that lead you where you want to go.