In the first place, success looks different for each person. Secondly, designing your life is personal. Whether you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or solopreneur, your business has to align with the rest of your life–because it’s all personal.
Quite often people fail to think about the way each decision affects how their life will actually look and be, in practice. If you want a particular lifestyle, you must think about how each choice impacts your vision, desires, and goals.
Contents:
Creating Success on Your Own Terms
Regardless of the size of your goal, seeing a plan through to the end and working toward incremental gains, which will eventually lead to the big payoff, can be difficult. In today’s world of instant gratification, it is becoming increasingly difficult for many to persevere in the face of obstacles and failure to achieve their dreams. Without the right combination of attitude, planning, and action, goals are just dreams.
Let’s take a look at seven areas of life that you need to design purposefully in order to achieve success on your terms:
Personal and Spiritual Development
I consider the combination of the two to be the most important area in your life. Everything else hinge on these two factors because they allow you to have a solid foundation on which to build. Also, having your personal and spiritual development in place assures that you’ll be able to create a growth mindset, which allows you to create a mindset for success.
You must make time to work on your spiritual life, your personal growth, and emotional development.
Health and Fitness
Darren Hardy, in his Darren Daily series, speaks about the importance of your daily M.E.D.S. Three of these fall under health and fitness:
M = Mind. Nurture your mind
E = Exercise: Commit to a regular exercise regimen; one you can maintain all year long
D = Diet: Cut out sugar and carbs and avoid processed foods
S – Sleep: Get to bed early so you get to enjoy seven to eight hours of great sleep. This way, when you get up, you are fired up, and ready to go in the mornings.
Your health and fitness levels are important because if you’re unhealthy and not fit in the right way for the life you want to experience, it’ll be hard to do the things you need to, and achieve the success you desire.
For example, you may have enjoyed swimming in the past, and you’d like to resume those activities for exercise and fun. However, because of excessive weight gain and other resulting health factors, you may find that you become breathless quickly, and instead of being fun, swimming now feels like a chore.
Career and Business
What you do for money will have a massive impact on your life. It will affect every single choice you make. It will make the difference between whether you can afford the lifestyle you desire or not, and even whether you can realistically maintain your health or not.
Questions you will want to have clear answers to include:
- Am I ready to be my own boss?
- Have I developed the mindset of an entrepreneur, or do I still have an employee mindset?
- What business model do I want to pursue as an entrepreneur?
- Do I want to continue on my current career path? Will it allow me to achieve my goals and dreams?
Relationships and Social Life
Relationships, at all levels, are important. These will include your significant relationships, such as with your life partner, spouse, or your relationship with your children. Relationships with your vendors and referral partners, as well with your customers, are essential to the existence and growth of your business.
What kind of social life do you envision, and can you afford to have that life? These are all impacted by the rest of your life’s choices.
Finances
Did you choose the right career or business to fund the type of lifestyle you desire? What about time? Do you have enough time left after earning money to do the things that are important to you? Do you have a plan in place to manage your finances?
Many new business owners start spending as the money comes in. They’re often unaware of the need to profit first before they start spending.
In his book, Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine, Mike Michalowicz explains in Chapter 6 how to put in motion the principle of profit first. In fact, he has created a system of putting profits first, and this book should be a must-read for all business owners.
Home and Environment
What type of home do you want to live in? Do you want to live in the city in a condo, a house, or do you want to live in the country? Do you prefer to rent, or do you want to buy? What type of environment do you want?
Your environment is not exclusive to your immediate household, but includes people living in your community and with whom you interact on a regular basis.
Community Involvement
Where do you see yourself in relation to your community? Do you want to be seen as a leader who helps to make decisions which influence the growth of your community? This can be through various types of educational outreach, as well as mentoring others who want to go in the direction that you have skills and knowledge in, which you can share freely. What do you want to have the time and funds to do in your community?
Design Your Life
Now that we have covered seven essential areas, here is your assignment.
- Go through each of these areas and write a summary about how you envision your life in each of these areas.
- Be very specific about what it will cost you in terms of time and resources to achieve the ideal life you’re designing for yourself.
- Do not make assumptions. Look up how much something costs, ask people who have done it how long it takes, and get real information so that you’re not just guessing.
There is no fool-proof system, but the goal is to design a life that you want to live and to the extent that you have a measure of control. At the same time, you want to design a life that is realistic for you to achieve.
