I Hate My Job!

I had an interesting conversation with a friend this morning. She said to me, “I hate my job. I wish I could do what you did and quit”.

My response to her was, “plan for it and make it happen.” I have a feeling there are a lot of people who are in my friends shoes. I know for myself – I felt stuck. I made good money in Corporate America, but I was not at all passionate about what I was doing. I had a lot of fear of giving it up (you know the acronym of fear – future events appearing real) – I felt stuck and miserable, but I made a plan. My friend said to me, “I just don’t know where to start…”. So I shared with her my plan of attack. I hope this can help other people who may also feel stuck.

1. Get clarity on what you want (see one of my previous blog posts to get you started — https://adventuretowardfreedom.wordpress.com/2015/07/20/how-to-get-everything-you-want/). For me – I want FREEDOM. Freedom to do what I want, when and where. My long-term goal is to create a nice passive income stream with commercial real estate. As I get closer to retirement, I also want to understand and manage my IRA funds, so I got started a Stock training program. Many people are able to take baby steps – start a part-time business or get the education they need while keeping their job for a period of time.

2. SAVE – make sure you have at least 3 months of living expenses saved. This may sound like a lot, but if you get creative, there are a lot of ways to easily get here.

Budget – know what you are spending today – and see where you can save. Eating out is a big one – can you cut this one in half or more?

• Reduce expenses – here are some suggestions — negotiate with your Internet, cable, phone companies, chances are you can greatly reduce your expenses here. Can you cut out your morning Starbuck? How about your seasonal clothes expenditure? If you want it bad enough – you’ll find a way.
• Purge/de-clutter – this one is huge. For one, it’s amazing what will happen in your life when you make space for new. If you have a lot of clutter – you are blocking the flow in your life. I started purging and set a monetary goal of what I’d like to make selling unused/unneeded items in our house (after 11 years – there was a LOT!). My neighborhood has a Facebook “Swap” page – check it out, these are great. I’d simply take a picture of the item for sale, post it on the Facebook Swap page with a price, and someone would buy it and come to my door to pick it up. It is amazing what I made doing this. It wasn’t the big items that sold easily – it was the little $5-$25 items – those items at first glance you might think no one would want, you’d be surprised. At the very least donate items – you can use the deduction on your income taxes.
• Make extra money – try this exercise – do a mind map of ALL the things you can think of to make extra money. Don’t sensor – just list them. You’ll be surprised when you’re finished of all the different options you have.

• Sell your car – if you have a car payment, sell your car and buy a used car you can afford so you don’t have a car payment. I love Dave Ramsey – if you can’t afford to buy an item (and I don’t mean with payments) – you can’t afford it. Rearrange your lifestyle to one you can afford.

3. Create a transition plan – This is the fun part. Determine when you want to “jump” and work backwards from there – what needs to happen so you CAN JUMP? I’m very fortunate to have a wonderful partner to support me. We sat down and got clear on the minimum amount of income I’d need to generate while we are working toward our long-term goals. One of the ways that we decided to generate additional income was through “Vacation Rental” with our home. Sites like Homeaway.com, VRBO.com and FlipKey.com are blowing up. Recent statistics show 47% of leisure travelers are interested in staying in a vacation home. We did some work on our house to get ready for vacation rental and the response has been overwhelming. We’ve actually had to turn away more interested renters than what we’ve accepted. Check out Playa del Dragon – we’re currently looking for SnowBird renters November 2015 – February, 2016. http://www.vrbo.com/730229.

When I did my transition plan I also asked myself a question, “what’s the worse thing that can happen?” The answer – I’ll have to get another job. I can live with that. I’d love to hear from others – what do you want to do and how are you going to get there?

Don’t be afraid to JUMP and enjoy the journey!

How To Get EVERYTHING You Want!

Almost 10 years ago, the book and movie The Secret was an overnight success. The Secret is based on the Law of Attraction and claims that positive thinking can create life-changing results. Whether we realize it or not – we have all been using The Law of Attraction to get what we have in our lives today.

In a recent Blog Post (Halfway), I mentioned the system that I use to design my ideal life. I want to share that with you today.

Step 1 – Get clarity on where you are NOW.

We are going to take a quick inventory on the important areas of your life. With this, we can establish a baseline, with no judgment.

We’re going to start with “The Wheel of Life”. Take a couple of moments and rank your wheel of life. For each of the 8 categories in the below wheel (you can change categories to priorities that are important for you), determine how happy you are with that area in your life. The center of the circle represents – 0, not happy at all – the outer circle represents 10 – this area of my life could not get any better. Imagine a scale from 0 to 10 on each line. Draw a line for each category depending on how you would rank from 0 through 10. Now look at your wheel, if this was a wheel on a car, how well would your car travel?

Step 2 – Get clarity on where you want to go

Now we are going to write the story of your future. Here are the rules, you are going to write about all the things you want and love – sky’s the limit. You cannot let your limiting beliefs or thoughts come into play (you know the chatter – I’d love to have that but there is no way as I don’t have a degree, I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough, I don’t know the right people, live in the right place, etc. etc.).

We’re going to do a 1-3-5 Year Plan. Start with 5 Years and start writing Your Ideal Life – using all the categories from your Wheel of Life – NO LIMITATIONS. WHAT DO YOU WANT?

• Physical Environment – Where do you want to live in five years? What does your house look like, how is it decorated, how does it make you feel? Do you have a view? How does it make you fell?
• Friends & Family – Who are you spending time with? What activities are you doing? What are the sights, smells, sounds, and feelings? What are the characteristics about these people that you like? Do these relationships lift you up or bring you down?
• Money & Career — How much money do you have and what are you doing in your career? What contributions are you making? How it is touching/impacting your life? What is your “WHY” for making money and building wealth? Keep digging, keep asking WHY. A good friend of mine recently shared a saying I love, “Your WHY will make you CRY”. When you get clear on your WHY – you’ll be able to move mountains.
• Health – How is your health? What are you doing to take great care of yourself?
• Significant Other, Romance – what is your perfect relationships? How are you spending times together? Are you taking trips? What special things do you do for each other?
• Spirituality/Personal Growth – what are you doing to grow YOU? How are you filling your soul? Are you investing in your personal growth?
• Fun/Recreation –What are you doing for fun? Is it travel? Is it a hobby? What makes your heart sing?

Don’t sell yourself short – take some time with this process. After you’ve finished your 5 Year Plan, start on the 3 Year Plan. What needs to happen by Year 3 to make sure you’re on track for your 5 Year Plan. Then your 1 Year Plan – what needs to happen in 1 Year to be on track?

Most people don’t achieve what they want because they lack the clarity. Get crystal clear on what you want and it is amazing how the Universe steps up to help you achieve it.

Step 3 – Feel as though you already have it

There are a couple of things you can do for this step.

• Vision Board – Get a poster board and find pictures/sayings/words in magazines of all the things that you want. Paste these images onto your board and hang it in a place you’ll see it every day. Crystal clarity – turn your vision into something you can see.
• Visualization – Spend a few minutes each day in silent meditation. This is a great time to clear your mind, practice breathing and visualize all the things that you want. See yourself living and having your hearts desire, feel the excitement, gratitude, pride, happiness. If you’re busy – spend just 3 minutes each day.

Step 4 – Take action – baby steps every day

For your 1-year plan, start breaking the categories down into bite-size pieces of things you can do. When we look at the big picture – it can be overwhelming. I don’t know about you – but when I focus on everything to get to the end result – I get stuck. So we’re going to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Create realistic, easy things you can do everyday to get to your goals.

About 8 years ago I created a vision board that had a picture of a woman, sitting by this beautiful, serene pool. I no longer have that board – but I can see it still – the picture was in the bottom, right corner. She was reading a book. I was always drawn to that picture and just thought that “space” was heaven – so relaxing and inviting. At that time our backyard was filled with cedar trees – we really didn’t have a back yard; we had a forest. We knew we wanted our house to feel like a retreat, but at that time we didn’t have any clarity. The interesting thing when I created that vision board – the thought of putting a swimming pool in our backyard hadn’t even crossed my mind.

A year later, we decided to do some remodeling work on our house – and started thinking about a pool. It was all so effortless and just came together with ease. We had the vision, finding pictures to help us get clarity and our amazing construction team was able to put it together.

WHAT DO YOU WANT? For me, the only thing ever standing in my way is MYSELF.  Happy creating – I’d love to hear your creation stories!

Halfway

Today is July 2^nd, day 183 out of 365 for the year 2015. We are at the halfway point for this year – are you on track for your goals? Did you know that only 8% of people achieve their New Years resolutions? Why is that?

I have a theory – I think it’s “lack of clarity” and/or “lack of a big enough WHY”.

We all have the wonderful ability to manifest. Think back to a time when you were able to get exactly what you wanted. How did it happen?

In 1994 I was working for Yellow Freight System (a job I loved) in Overland Park, KS. They were moving my department to a new Inside Sales Center in Austin, TX. I was offered the opportunity to move and lead my department. It was a great honor and a great opportunity. But I had lived in the Kansas City area my entire life, all my friends and family were there and I’d never been to Texas. I looked at the map – and saw the abundance of Lakes in the area (at that time my biggest passion was water skiing), so I decided why not, what do I have to lose. With the excitement of the move – I made 3 goals, I wanted:

1. A house near the Lake
2. A brand new inboard ski boat
3. A hot tub

These were great goals for a 31 year old to have, and boy was I excited. Oh, I forgot to mention, I was most certainly on a tight budget. I told my Real Estate agent what I was looking for, and what my price range was (I think he thought I was crazy). He kept taking me to boring houses in the suburbs that were not even close to a Lake, and telling me there was just nothing available by the Lake in my price range. I kept driving out to the Lake “looking” (remember, 20 years ago the Internet wasn’t what it is today). I stumbled upon an area that reminded me of the cute cottages I used to vacation in when I was a kid at Lake of the Ozarks – I was in love! And I found a cottage for sale in my price range. I immediately called my Realtor to be able to see inside. He tried to talk me out of buying that house, but it was love at first sight – and it was 2 blocks from the Lake and a boat launch. I bought the house in November 1994 and still have it today (and I must say it’s appreciated nicely).

The hot tub was next – it was easy – I found a nice used hot tub that was just perfect. Lastly was the ski boat – all of my friends in Missouri had Ski Nautiques, so naturally that’s what I wanted. I couldn’t find anything in the price range I needed, but I didn’t give up. I’d met with all the boat dealerships in Austin; they all knew exactly what I was looking for. In the spring of 1995 I got a call from Boat Town, they had a brand new 1994 MasterCraft they had bought from a foreclosed dealership – it was beautiful, and in my price range and I jumped on it. Within 6 months I had accomplished my goals and was having a wonderful time living in Austin. And the best part – it was all so easy!

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was practicing the Laws of Manifestation.

• Clear vision
• Visualizing daily with feeling
• Massive action
• Open to what the Universe brought to me

I needed this reminder today, so I thought I’d share. I’m sitting, getting clarity on what I want to accomplish for the rest of 2015 and beyond. In a future post, I’ll share the method that I now use.

We’re at the halfway mark for 2015, lots of time to make dreams come true. On December 31^st, what do you want to be able to look back and say, “Yes, I did that!”?