Newsflash: If you had to think about the answer to this question for more than 1.3 seconds, you need to reconsider your mentality around money and life.
Your dream life should not be predicated on how much money you might have, or being rich.
Let me clarify.
In the past I’ve written about how money actually can buy happiness, but this refers to being able to afford experiences or being able to use that money to do good. This doesn’t revolve around the desire to purchase materialistic things.
Money is an important part of life. But, achieving a certain level of wealth isn’t a prerequisite for living out your dream life.
A PLANNING EXERCISE WITH TONY ROBBINS
Entrepreneur, best-selling author, and philanthropist, Tony Robbins brings attendees of his “Date With Destiny” conference through an exercise where they envision their wildest dreams, and then plan out how to obtain them.
People will say things like, “I want fly on a private jet and own my own Caribbean island.” He’ll ask them how much they think they’ll need to accomplish their dreams, and they’ll shout out numbers like $100 million!
Then he helps them break down ways for them to accomplish these things, showing them that most are closer to reality than they might think.
For example, instead of buying a private island, you can rent them out for a period of time for a fraction of the cost. The same for private jets.
These things still aren’t cheap, but they end up being infinitely cheaper than needing to amass $100 million.
The reason I bring up this exercise that Tony does with attendees is to highlight two things.
- Most people think about their dream life in terms of “what would I do if I had X amount of money.” It’s all predicated on being rich. It’s the same reason why people buy lotto tickets and talk about how if they won they would walk away from their jobs, travel the world, etc.
- There is a saying that “A goal without a plan is just a dream.” Stop dreaming and start planning! You should think about what you want to do with your life and then work backwards to figure out what it will take to achieve that. Only when you put things down on paper and really start to plan them out will you understand what it will actually take to see them come to fruition.
The same exercise Tony implements can be done for any dream you may have.
LESSONS FROM MY TRAVELS
You don’t have to desire your own a private island or fly on private jets. Much more common dreams include things like travel the world.
I’ve met a lot of people during my travels doing some pretty cool things, and all on a shoe-string budget.
I know international teachers who have traveled to over 100 countries, and they make a lot less than friends back home. They’ve made it a priority to travel and experience new cultures, so they spend a lot of their time on figuring out the most affordable ways to do so.
When I tell people back in the U.S. about what some of these people are doing, the typical response is “I wish I could do that.”
YOU CAN DO THAT! And it’s more attainable than you think.
YOUR DREAMS ARE YOURS, ALONE
The main point is that your dream is yours, alone. It can be as big and grand as you want it to be, or it can be something that has nothing to do at all with grandiose desires. Maybe you “just” want to be able to spend more time with family.
We get so caught up in the “lifestyles of the rich and famous,” or trying to “keep up with the Joneses” that we start to believe that those are the only dreams that are worth striving for. But too many people are chasing dreams that aren’t theirs, with price-tags that they don’t truly want to work for.
You can live out any dream you want, and you don’t have to be rich to do it. Just make sure that the dream is something that’s worth chasing, and that it’s one you’ll be happy to make sacrifices for.
Capably Yours,
Jared
