You don’t need me to tell you that the past couple of years have been.. different.
This awful pandemic has blighted lives, and the aftershocks will be felt far into the future. But for many, the lockdowns and working from home also offered a chance to reassess, to realise what’s really important. And to consider the shape we’d like our lives to take, moving forward.
Many of us have discovered the quiet joys of gardening, baking bread, long walks, DIY, hobbies old and new. And perhaps realised that we don’t need all of the things we were spending money on before.
People who thought they hated the office have come to long for that human connection, and realise how much they miss workplace gossip, banter and those everyday interactions with workmates. Others have loved having uninterrupted time to focus.
Most parents have come to appreciate teachers far more. While also enjoying having the time to cook a messy meal with their children, to sit and read or make something with them.
We’ve all learned more about ourselves.
Many of us now want to make changes. And with the economy contracting, whole industries being disrupted and jobs disappearing, others will have change forced upon them.
Either way, you have more control than you think. We’ve been conditioned to get a job, launch a business, or find some other way of earning money – and fit the rest of our lives around that.
But what if we turn that upside down? What if we start by designing a life we’d love – and then consider how to fund it?
So what would your ideal life look like?
What would you do if money was somehow not an issue? How would you live?
As a journalist, I’ve interviewed Lottery winners, and once they’ve gone on the dream holidays, bought the new car, the new house, the toys and the gadgets, this is a question they all need to face: what will they do with their days?
So: imagine you have all the money you’ll ever need. Give yourself a big Lottery win. Then also give yourself all the skills, talent, confidence and contacts you could want. Imagine you’ve had all the rest and recuperation you need. You’ve bought the shiny toys, looked after your family and friends. Now think about the life you’d like to create.
Dream big! Don’t let reality get in your way, for now.
- Who will you hang out with?
- Where will you live?
- What are you wearing?
- How will you spend your time?
- Create your ideal workspace.
- Design your dream home.
- Who lives/works there with you?
- What help and support do you have? (Assistant? Manager? Chef? Housekeeper? Personal trainer? Driver?)
- What kind of projects are you working on?
- What are you creating?
- What do you own, that really enriches your life?
- How do you take care of your health?
- How do you connect with your community?
- How do you contribute to the world?
Describe a day in this life, in detail.
When do you get up? Who do you wake up with? What’s your morning routine? How do you spend your day? If you’re working, how much? What do you eat for lunch? When and how do you exercise? What do you do with the rest of your time? What do you do for fun? What’s a great evening look like?
Let this sit for a day or two, then come back to it. Draw out themes. What do you really want?
Once you take away the expensive toys, what most people dream of is time and space. To take care of themselves. To connect with loved ones. To be more creative. To contribute. A place of their own to live. A studio, study or workshop where they have everything they need to do the projects they want.
Now comes the fun bit.
Brainstorm ways of getting at least some of this now. No idea too outrageous, impossible, weird, lateral! Also consider what even the most basic version of that dream life might look like.
If you can’t afford a personal chef to create healthy meals for you, for instance. But you could learn 14 quick, healthy recipes and rotate them – and book a recurring supermarket delivery to bring all the necessary ingredients to you. Which might free up the time/bandwidth you need to get on with your creative project – without living on junk food.
A writer who dreams of sitting in cafes in Paris finishing her novel might go in to work an hour early, order coffee and a croissant in a café near the office – and write, every day. Then do the same after work if possible, with a glass of wine. Even a concentrated couple of hours in a café at weekends would progress that writing more than doing nothing at all.
A busy working mum who dreamed of a personal trainer coming to her home gym for a daily workout might start with a 20-minute online workout at home, or arrange childcare for a weekly meeting with a personal trainer in the park, or classes at a local gym.
Now, see what you can create.
I did this exercise several times over the years, dreaming of a beach house somewhere exotic. The location varied, but there were always morning walks along the beach, and an afternoon swim.
Then one day I realised that although I love the sea, and my husband dreamed of being able to see the horizon and the sky… actually neither of us are great in hot climates.
But it was perfectly possible to move from our home in east London to the Kent coast, 60 miles away.
I now walk along the beach most mornings. In the summer, I swim in the sea. In the winter, I go to the local pool a couple of times a week and because I work from home, I can choose a time when it’s blissfully empty.
We were lucky. We had a house to sell.
But even then, it wasn’t entirely seamless. Moving our son’s school was much harder than we’d expected. There was an exhausting transition period when we were travelling back to London for work far more than we’d wanted.
We actually managed to replicate a life that was very much like the one we’d left behind in London: working long hours, juggling home and childcare, rarely seeing each other, let alone the sea and sky.
So we went back to why we’d moved in the first place, and readjusted to get closer to our ideal life. That meant me working more online, my husband doing more work locally. We earned less at first, but we saved on petrol, train fares, endless coffees and takeaways, and all the other hidden costs of working flat-out. And we were much happier.
You don’t have to be rich to live a life you love.
A writer client had a very similar dream of living somewhere beautiful, with time and space to write. She didn’t have a house to sell, or even substantial savings. Yet she recently spent a blissful five months in a stylish Italian villa, writing on the terrace all day, and going on long early morning and evening walks with the dogs she’d always wanted.
How? She joined a pet-sitting site, gave up her rented flat in the UK and looked after a couple’s dogs while they went away on an extended work trip.
Before that she was in California, for a three-month stay near the beach in Santa Monica, looking after another dog and a cat. In the meantime she’s on the final draft of her novel, and she has built a new side-income as a copywriter.
And you don’t have to retire, to travel the world.
Another client dreamed of increasing her income dramatically so that she could afford to retire early and travel the world. Instead, she became a digital nomad, living in different locations for a few months at a time while running her online business.
By choosing places that are cheaper to live than the UK, she’s also managed to reduce her work hours and have time to invest in her health and fitness. As a newly divorced woman in middle age, the main thing she needed to do was change the stories she’d been telling herself.
“I thought this was just for young, single hipsters. But as I’ve travelled around I’ve met a lot of people my age, running location-independent businesses.”
Dream big, start smaller
Then there’s William Thomson, who I met in my new home town of Deal and wrote about for the Telegraph, as part of a feature on digital nomads. He dreamed of sailing round Britain, but he and his brilliant partner Naomi were expecting their first child at the time, and they couldn’t afford a boat.
Instead, they bought a cheap second-hand van and lovingly converted it into a camper, and drove around the coast of the UK then Europe with their new baby, their dog, and a laptop so that William could continue his design business.
Their journeys led to a series of books about the sea and tides, and all kinds of interesting new income ideas. They now have two children. An active life centred around their love of the sea. And, of course, a boat.
It’s fine to start small.
If this all sounds terrifying, it needn’t be. Small changes can add up to enormous new freedoms. In the current climate, many employers are much more open to discussing new ways of working.
If you want to work at home permanently, either full-time or a couple of days a week, or take a pay cut in exchange for working fewer hours, now might be the perfect time to propose that. (Remember to emphasise the benefits for them, not just for you!)
I’ve also worked with plenty of clients who say they have no time or money to do the things they really want to do. But there’s always a way, if you’re willing to explore and experiment.
It starts with dreaming big, designing the life you want – and setting priorities around that. And then making little changes, to get you closer to the life you want. Over time, they’ll make a huge difference.
What you’re aiming for, eventually, is creating work that supports your lifestyle and fits within it. Not trying to squeeze the life you want into the gaps around work.
Want to learn more?
If you’re ready to start thinking about designing a business that supports the life you want, you might find my free 10-day course useful. Sign up here for Freelance Foundations: the Secrets of Successful Creatives.
If you’re interested in the idea of traveling the world and living well without needing to spend a fortune, Rolf Potts has recently updated his influential book Vagabonding.
The somewhat deceptive title of The Four-Hour Work Week has been a cross Tim Ferriss has had to bear ever since, but it’s still the classic book on lifestyle design.
Finally, for feisty women looking to make a life they love and a business online, Ash Ambirge’s book The Middle Finger Project is rude, hilarious and brilliant. A mix of inspirational memoir, manifesto for the modern woman and how-to manual for creating and growing a digital business, it will have you laughing out loud while launching your website.
[All of the book links above take you to Amazon, and if you buy I get a tiny fee to help with the running costs of this site. If you choose to use a library or buy from your local independent bookshop instead – more power to you!]
What do you think?