Monday, March 14, 2011

Forging Ahead: No Looking Back

It’s Monday, of course you feel lethargic. Of course your officemates annoy you more today than on Fridays when they can kiss your butt goodbye for the weekend. It’s Monday, let’s all collectively sigh at the fact that you loathe where you are right now. Of course you don’t want to work, because you really want to live your dream.

Are people really living their dreams? On a Monday no less? I’m afraid so. I’m afraid that most people do in fact lie about living their dreams each day, but a small percentage actually are earning a living by doing what they love. You know the ones, always posting pictures of their exploits on Faceboook, you want to unfriend them out of envy, but that’d be too obvious. So you curse their existence in your mind, and respond with a ho-hum “that’ll be a fun trip” when the latest travel exploit gets brought up at that dinner party you didn’t want to go to in fear of seeing them in the first place. A small percentage of those people are really as happy as they seem.

What did they do to get there? Is there a way to really escape the doldrums of the normal life that has you reading this post right now? Yes dear reader, there is.

The older I get the humbler I get. I thought things were going really well ten years ago, now I wonder what disastrous stressful situation will rear it’s ugly face next. Am I going to get robbed at knifepoint? Business sued? Audited? All three?! Ah, the joys of being a disgruntled business owner. I’ve had your run-of-the-mill highs and lows in life, but for some reason the lows sting more with age. Without risk there can be no reward, with risk there will always be failure. The catch 22 of starting businesses is that, no matter how hard you try, some will not work out.

With the above in mind, that dreamers are living it up and failures arise regularly, I’ve curated a few ideas aimed at helping you mitigate the risk, and inherit the dream lifestyle that has your friends silently cursing your existence and unfriending you on Facebook in droves. These are after all the signs that you’ve really made it.

Forging Ahead By-

Setting easier to reach goals
Borrowing time not money
Giving credit to friends and family
Dancing when frustrated
Working from home
Visualizing success
Vocalizing plans
Ignoring pessimists
Reading lots
Spending little
Dreaming big

I could write in detail about each bullet above, but it’s Monday, and I don’t want to take up the time that might otherwise get spent dreaming of doing something you love for a living.

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