Three Ways To Start Designing Your Dream Life

Two years ago, I quit my corporate job in New York City to circumnavigate the world by staying in the homes of strangers with whom I shared a human connection. I had enough savings to keep me afloat for six months and a vague idea of what I would do once I returned from my journey (at the time, I thought I’d just go back to corporate).

One year ago, I was still traveling and decided that I wouldn’t return to corporate. Although I had no idea how to run a business or what type of work I could do to support myself, I made it my mission to design a life of financial, location, and time freedom.

Fast-forward to today, and I have built a six-figure online coaching business that allows me to set my own schedule, travel full-time, spend my days pursuing my passions, and serve clients who inspire me.

The past couple of years have taught me that life can change rapidly and that we have a say over those changes. Most of us grew up being told how to live our lives and not asking why, but it doesn’t have to be that way. People who made up this game called life were no smarter than us: we have the power to walk away from the “rules” and make our own.

Life design—that is, the process of becoming your best self and creating a lifestyle that is tailored to your preferences, passions, and dreams—is completely achievable for those who are willing to put in the work.

GET ACCESS TO MY FREE MASTERCLASS

How to Create an Audience of Highly Engaged Buyers Through Irresistible Storytelling

Get Instant Access Now

I share three key principles that will get you started on designing a life that you’re proud of:

1. Prioritize Your Mindset

So much of what you can or cannot do is directly correlated with your belief that it’s possible. More often than not, the only obstacle standing in the way of what you want is YOU.

Prioritizing your mindset and unblocking your limiting beliefs is absolutely essential to life design. Your reality is determined by the stories that you tell yourself—by shifting your internal narrative, you’ve done much of the legwork towards getting closer to your goals.

For example, the only obstacle that was in my way of making $2K versus five-figure months was my outdated beliefs around money. I used to think that money was difficult to come by and had to be earned with sweat and tears. After spending a month in a business mastermind delving deep into and dismantling those beliefs, money came flowing into my life with ease. Within 30 days, I earned $10,000. My skills had not changed and my strategy had only slightly shifted, but changing my beliefs around money made all the difference moving forward.

While working through your fears and tackling your beliefs requires a significant amount of self-awareness, mindfulness, and internal work, the results are worth it. Change your mindset (what I refer to as your “story”), and you will very quickly change your external world. You are more capable and ready than you think.

Your reality is determined by the stories that you tell yourself—by shifting your internal narrative, you’ve already done the legwork towards getting closer to your goals

2. Invest In Mentorship

When it came to entrepreneurship and getting my life together, I used to think I could do it all. Sure, you can figure some of it out on your own, but it takes way more time, resources, and energy than if you work with someone who has been through the process and knows what they’re doing.

Most of us need someone to hold us accountable for our dreams—a project manager, per say—and support us through our desired life changes. Seek mentorship in all aspects of your life that you seek to develop: business, personal growth, wellbeing, etc. Working with talented people will help you quickly tailor your life to fit your needs, improve your skills, build your network, and bypass rookie mistakes.

For example, one of my goals was to design a dream job that I really loved and monetize it as quickly possible. I didn’t know anything about online business, so I sought mentorship from people who I admired and are experts in the field. As a result, I scaled to six figures in less than a year without sacrificing what I valued most (time, flexibility, and impact).

Accountability is key to life design: to accelerate your development, surround yourself with brilliant people who are passionate and good at what you want to do.

Decide on what you want, get crystal clear on what that looks like, and create a detailed plan that will get you there.RICCARDO ORIZIO PHOTOGRAPHY

3. Create A Plan And Take Action

You can have the right mindset and people helping you, but it won’t matter if you’re not implementing what you learn. Decide on what you want, get crystal clear on what that looks like, and create a detailed plan that will get you there.

To get started, there is a method I call “dream tracking.” First, write down your big dreams. Second, create a vision board to visualize what you want to see manifest in your life in the next 12 months. Then, break your dreams down into sizeable monthly goals, your goals into high-level strategies, and those strategies into tactics that you can move through every week.

For example, one of my big dreams is to scale to a seven-figure passive income business that positively impacts the lives of others within the next five years. This past year, my vision board goals were: scale to six figures, travel the world full-time, work with a maximum of seven private clients at a time, and still have plenty of time and mind space to dedicate to creative projects. My goals include: making five-figure months, creating at least one passive income product per quarter, and visiting a new country every month. These goals can be further refined into how much I choose to charge for my packages, whether I launch a course or a book as a product, and where and when I’m booking tickets to a certain location. I continue to break down my goals until they are bite-size tasks that I check off every week.

Using this method, I went from being completely clueless about how I’d achieve my dream to having a step-by-step plan that I could follow every week. As a result, I’m much closer to my dream today than I was a year ago.

When all of these life design principles are aligned, you can do anything. This is how you can move your seemingly far-fetched dreams from a place of imagination into one of reality. Let go of your fears, seek the right support system, and become an active participant in your life, and watch it transform faster than you could possibly imagine.

Originally published on: Forbes