by Ralph
on October 12, 2011
You life up to now doesn’t define you
The first step in lifestyle design is belief. You have to be convinced beyond doubt that you can design your perfect lifestyle and then make it happen. This is probably the most difficult step of them all, particularly if you have spent 20 years or more letting someone else define your lifestyle. I f you ever had dreams of a perfect lifestyle they have probably been buried and forgotten. It is hard at midlife or beyond to let yourself hope and dream. You have settled for a life of limitations and dependence. You have forgotten the power that the dreams of your youth possessed. You have discounted your youthful enthusiasm and optimism. You probably don’t know anyone who is even thinking about taking charge of their life.
Don’t give up on yourself!
If this is you, then read on. There are other people like you who still have the dream of changing their life. More important there are people who are making it happen. Age is not an issue. Education is not an issue. Personality is not an issue. All that really matters is that you believe that it can happen for you. At this point you don’t even need to have a detailed plan for your life. This will come later so long as you believe that you can.
What if?
But maybe you are wracked with doubt. You believe that the price tag that your boss has placed on you is correct. You don’t think that you have anything else to give and that your value is limited. If you have enough belief to read this post, then you have enough belief to start the adventure. Start by asking yourself ‘what if?’ to any question you have and then telling yourself ‘why not?’ If you start down a challenging path doesn’t each hill you climb make you stronger? Then just decide to start.
Change your thinking.
Start your adventure by training your mind to think differently. Start a reading program to change your thinking. The book I recommend first is The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz . Get a copy and start to believe you can.
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by Ralph
on October 12, 2011
Image by alexdecarvalho via Flickr
It has become pretty dull around the old Carlson household in spite of the occasional trip to San Francisco. The days move in a regular pattern and you can almost set the clock from what is going on around here.
What s outrageous about that?
I don’t feel the exhilaration when I get up each day the way I did a few months back. Have I lost the excitement? Did I take a wrong turn? Am I doomed to live a boring, regimented lifestyle from now on? Is this the best I can do?
I hope not!
I don’t know if I have answers to all those questions, important as they are. Down deep I always questioned my ability to step out of ordinary and into extraordinary but I stepped up to the plate anyway. Maybe I would strike out. Maybe I would get a walk. Maybe I’d hit a home run. At least I would be off the bench. Picking up that analogy, right now I would say that I’m still at bat. And maybe that’s why there seems to be a routine. I’ve been watching life move by. I’ve been working my plan like an ‘at bat’. I still haven’t connected with the right pitch to get me on base. I’ve let the bad pitches go and I’ve hit a lot of fouls. I know the right pitch is coming and I know what to do with it when it comes. Meanwhile there is a routine until I get on base.
Putting it all together.
That’s not a perfect analogy but it comes close. I’ve been at this stage in my plan for too long. Partly I needed to learn more and become better with my technical skills but a part of me is afraid to move on and face the next set of challenges. A coach to hold me accountable helped me push on and I know that I am very close to moving on.
So how is that outrageous?
So where do I get off calling my lifestyle outrageous? Outrageous is not necessarily in the daily activities. Outrageous is in the goals. It’s what Hugh MacLeod calls an Evil Plan. Hugh puts it this way,
“Everybody needs an Evil Plan. Everybody needs that crazy, out-there idea that allows them to actually start doing something they love, doing something that matters. Everybody need an Evil Plan that gets them the hell out of the rat race, away from lousy bosses, away from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate. Life is short.”
So my evil plan is to build a business on the web that allows my wife and I to travel at will, spending months away from home doing whatever catches our fancy. We have a comfortable lifestyle but travel requires more income. Hence the business effort. Meanwhile, my wife has caught this outrageous lifestyle thinking and keeps churning out new ideas for filling the few years we have left. Right now there is a creative tension between the necessary routine to put in all the work required to move my Evil Plan forward and the outrageous reward from moving on to the next stage of the plan. Life isn’t all fun and outrageous results depend on hard work to present themselves. So for now, it’s a little dull around the Carlson household. But look out because all that boring routine is dedicated to making my Evil Plan a reality.
As Hugh says, “Everybody needs an Evil Plan.” So today’s question is, “What’s your Evil Plan?”
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