We work to live, not the other way round.
We’ve got it all wrong with work-life balance. Indeed, even this separation of work and life is relatively new, and a little nonsensical. In the past – and indeed still, in many parts of the world – families would work the land together. Home and work weren’t seen as different worlds, and work changed with the seasons.
Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been trained to see our working lives as one long grind alleviated by occasional holidays. With a possible reward towards the end – but only if we’re careful, and save hard – when we might get to retire, do what we want with our time and actually enjoy life.
Even those of us who are self-employed seem to be skilled at building prisons of our own making, under-charging or working long hours in pursuit of more money, more success, more acclaim, more stuff – without ever stopping to question if we really need or even want more.
It’s time for a reset.
A radical rethink about what we’re working towards, what we’re building our businesses for. We’ve been conditioned to get a job, launch a business, or find some other way of earning money – and then fit the rest of our lives around that.
But what if we turn that paradigm upside down? What if you design a life you love – and then consider how to support that? What if you design your work or your business so it gives you the lifestyle you long for?
We all have more control than we think.
Awful though it was, the pandemic showed how quickly our working lives could be changed and how the impossible – working from home, meeting on Zoom – suddenly became possible.
During the lockdowns, many of us discovered the quiet joys of gardening, baking bread, long walks, DIY, hobbies old and new. And perhaps began to realise that we don’t need all of the things we had spent money on previously.
It gave us a glimpse of how things could be different. And with the challenges the world is now facing, we all need to be open to thinking differently.
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, ordinary people who suddenly came into great fortunes. 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. As you’re in a generous mood, you should also give yourself all the skills, talent, confidence and contacts you might 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.
- 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.
Not a special day. Just a regular Wednesday, perhaps. When do you wake up? What’s your morning routine? When do you work – and for how long? What’s for lunch? Who do you share it with (if anyone)? What do you do after work?
You can write this down if you want to. Make a vision board. Or just sit and daydream.
Then let it all ferment for a day or two. Add to it, if you think of more detail. Then go back to it, dive under the shiny surface and 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 complete 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! Also consider what even the most basic version of that dream life might look like.
Perhaps you can’t afford a personal chef to create healthy meals for you. But you could learn a few 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 work, without living on junk food.
A writer who dreams of sitting in cafés in Paris while 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. Or perhaps do the same after work, with a glass of wine. Even a concentrated couple of hours in a café at weekends would progress that novel more than doing nothing at all.
Get creative, and be willing to think laterally.
For years, whenever I did this exercise, I’d dream of a beach house somewhere exotic. The location varied, but there were always morning walks along the beach, an afternoon swim, evenings spent eating, laughing and listening to music with friends.
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, neither of us are great in hot climates. It was unlikely that our friends would all move with us. And we also wanted to stay fairly close to our ageing parents, so living in another country wasn’t an option.
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 have a great community here, and our London friends often come down to stay.
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 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.
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 to all the places she’d longed to visit. Instead, she became a digital nomad, living in different locations for a few months at a time while running her online business.
By choosing countries where the cost of living is less 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 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 partner 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 with their new baby, their dog, and a laptop so that William could continue his design business.
These journeys led to a series of books about the sea and tides, and all kinds of interesting new income ideas. He now has two children, and an active life centred around his love of the sea.
It’s fine to start small.
If this all sounds terrifying, it needn’t be. You don’t have to leave home, or give up your job. Even small changes can add up to big new freedoms, over time. And since the pandemic, many employers have been 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, it’s a good time to propose that. (Remember to emphasise the benefits for them, not just for you!)
If you’re freelance or run your own business, it’s up to you to decide when you work, what kind of work you take on and who you enjoy working with. You choose how big you grow your team, and put systems and boundaries in place to protect your time, and make it all as easy as possible.
You can design a life you love.
A life where your work fits your lifestyle, instead of restricting it. I’ve helped clients work only 9 or 10 months a year, cut their hours in half while increasing their income, or negotiate long sabbaticals from their jobs to travel, learn, or go deep on a personal project.
I’ve also worked with 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. You’re aiming to create income streams that support your lifestyle. Instead of trying to squeeze the life you want into the gaps around work.
And who wouldn’t want that?
Further resources
If you’re ready to think about designing a business that supports the life you want, you might like my free 10-day course on growing a creative business. If you’re looking for more support, I go far deeper into those ideas in my 10-week group coaching course for creative professionals (writers, artists, musicians, designers, performers, makers..)
If you want to travel the world without spending 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 borne ever since, but it’s still the classic book on lifestyle design.
Jenny Blake’s book Free Time is brilliant on putting systems in place so that you only do what you’re good at in your business, the work you enjoy. Without needing a huge team.
Finally, for feisty women looking to make a life they love, funded by an online business, Ash ambirge’s book The Middle Finger Project is rude, hilarious, moving and useful. 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.
What do you think?