I used to be about new years resolutions but what I learned about resolutions is that they are so easy to give up on. I now live by goals, and these all start with having a vision for your life. The sad part is that we do not always create the time to work on our visions or even dream up the type of life we would like to live. It takes something within you to really figure out that there is a better life out there for you. When this happens, the world better watch out. There is a nagging voice that starts to get louder as it starts to ask valid questions, such as IS this all there is? Im I okay with spending the rest of my life living in mediocrity? When the questions get uncomfortable the time for intentional living is near.
I started the intentional living journey because I started requiring more for myself and I was not going to settle. I started looking within, and went back to my dreams. Those dreams helped me in formulating goals. I had to ask myself if what I was currently doing would get me to the dreams that I had, dreams such as retire in five years. By gtting honest with myself I knew that I had to change a lot of things and get laser focused by creating goals. I had to go all out on my description of the life I wanted to be living given no limitations. I had to make the vision as grand as possible and then work backwards. It is a lot of work and initially overwhelming because the voice within is ready to talk you out of that vision. With statements such as “that is not realistic”, “there is no way you can achieve that”… you get what I mean. I stayed the course and went ahead and scaled back to the present time. I had to come up with a strategy that would allow me tomove from where I was now to get me to where I wanted to go.
To simplify things I will focus on my retirement goal, In order to retire I would need to hve an income that matches my currenet income and be set with all my financial obligations. Was that realistic on day 0 absolutely not, could it be possible in 5 years time.. potentially but thta would require a whole bunch of creativity and hard work on my part. So then came the audit of my financial situation….scary stuff, lots of debt and poor money management meant I had to take care of my debt situation first and that is where the goals were formulated that were in line with my current situation. Simplistic goals such as pay off credit card debt, pay off cars, increase my savings and start looking at other income generating opportunities. Those goals got me to where I am now. Driving a paid off toyota corrolla and using that money towards the development of an events center in Malawi. I could easily be in a flashy car but it will not help me get to my retirement goal. I had to start somewhere that was not a stretch. Focusing on the bigger vision would have been overwhelming but I knew I had to bring it down a notch.
Most of us think that dream life is not possible but I am here to say it is possiblr and it starts with being intentional.
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