SuccessfulMindset

Have you ever thought about how different life often turns out from what we thought it was going to when we were kids?  Ever wondered why there seems to be a small percentage of people that live the life they want to, and then there’s just pretty much everyone else?

Ever wonder why that is?

Here’s what I’ve come to understand.  Most of us, as children, have big dreams and goals for what life is going to be like - we’re going to save the world by being doctors, lawyers, teachers, astronauts, soldiers, policeman, firefighters, business people, etc, etc, etc.  And somewhere along the line in the growing-up process we decide we’re actually going to become the profession we always dreamed about (or something else simply out of not having any specific passion or goal…often times guided by the high-school guidance counselor based on some test scores we got back at one point).  So, we’re off to college to get the degree we need to succeed in our chosen profession…

Once we get to college and have chosen our major, the process continues as we’re told which classes to take in order to graduate with said degree so we can go on to get that high-paying job.  And once we make it into the working world, while it can be exciting at first, it doesn’t take long for “the grind” to set in, and before you know it, 23 years, 5 companies, and 12 jobs later, we’re not quite where we thought were going to end up.  Bills, stress, little free time, often times not very many genuine friends…what happened?  Where did all the dreams and passions go?  What about the trips we were going to take and family we were going to raise?  What about all the things on the “someday” list?  Seems like “someday” woulda been here by now, but…

And here is what I think the difference is: Choosing a Profession vs Choosing a Lifestyle.

Most of us have dozens of dreams and goals in our early years, only to find that later in life very few, if any of them, have been accomplished.  The reason for this is that money is required to turn dreams into reality (in most cases) - and most of us in our professions make just enough to get by (and barely, if you look at the statistics) and not enough to fund the rest of our dreams…and so slowly but surely, they start to die.

The answer, then, is instead of picking a profession, pick a lifestyle and begin to take forward action towards achieving that lifestyle!  It’s all a matter of what questions you answer.

Here’s what I mean by that: since early childhood we’ve all been asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  And we all answered it and became something - our current profession, which has us where we are today.  So the better question to answer is, “How do you want to live?”  The answer to that is every dream you ever had!

But to get from here to there, from Point A to Point B, we need the proper vehicle.  Once you answer the question of how do you want to live, the follow-on question is “How long do you want to take to get there, and how much work do you want to do in the process?”  The answer to that question will determine what vehicle you ultimately choose.

There are many, many vehicles to choose from - and through the course of this blog we’ll talk about a lot of the different options available to create lifestlye…but they’ll all come down to the thought-process of creating residual income, since that’s the only way to leverage your time enough to create lifestyle.

How we think and what we do with our time make all the difference in the world…and I’m excited to continue posting about those topics here at successful-mindset.com in the future.

To your success,
Steve