Because you only live once…
Archive for September, 2010
UnWorkaholic Direction
Sep 10th
I want to take some time today to let everyone one know some behind the scenes information about where I am taking this blog.
In my last post, I wrote about the 4 Steps to Change Your Life. I’m going to change a few things about the blog to better align with those 4 steps.
I am currently working on an e-book series about Controlling Your Life. This series is meant be a step by step guide to auditing your life and learning methods that will let you track and control various areas of your life. Each of these books are based off of methods that I use in my own life to better control my money, time, projects, and more.
I will also be starting to offer consulting for people who need help is various steps of the process. You will see a page about this very soon. I love the idea of being able to help people on their own unWorkaholic journey.
I also want to be able to provide resources that you can use on your journey through life. This will include a resource directory as well as products of my own creation.
And of course, I will be updating the site regularly with more awesome content!
Lastly, I want to keep you updated on my own personal journey. I am currently working on two different internet based projects and I hope to keep everyone here up to date as I progress in each of them towards a steady income. The first is this blog and the other is an internet marketing company that I am starting. Currently neither of these projects are making any regular money, but I hope to change that very soon. I hope that you will see my updates as examples of how the unWork lifestyle is created and maintained.
Are there any other features that you’d like to see added to this site? What are you struggling with the most?
4 Steps to Live the Life You Desire
Sep 9th
You look around one day and say to yourself, “This is not the life that I want to be living!” You have made up your mind to change your life and are ready to start your journey towards a better life. Great! Congrats on that first step. But where do you go now? What do you actually do to create the life that you want to live.
There are 4 main steps that you will need to go through to change your life. Each of these has many sub-steps and may take some time, but master each of these and you will gain the life you desire.
1. Control Your Life
If you don’t control your life, you won’t have the ability to change it. Doing things like tracking your money, managing your time, and mastering your projects can allow you the flexibility to make changes in each of these areas. Being able to say “Here I am and this is my status on each area of my life” is an amazing feeling.
Some people may struggle with this step while others find it fairly straight forward and easy. One person may try and try to master their lives while others are probably already doing it. But wherever you fall, having some systems in place to track your life and control your life will lead to a easier time as you begin to make other changes.
2. Design Your Life
This step can be really fun. This is where you take time to dream. How do you really want to live your life? Do you want to travel? focus on a hobby? volunteer? Are there any dreams that you had as a child that you would want to pursue?
Designing your life so that it reaches its full potential (a process also referred to as Lifestyle Design), can give you a goal. The life that you want is where you are headed towards. Then sooner that you can bring aspects of that life into reality, the better life you will live.
3. Fund Your Life
This is where a lot of people get stuck. You have this life that you want to live, but it takes money that you don’t have. The goal here is to figure out how to fund that life without spending all of your time doing so.
There are various ways that you can do this. You can start an online business. You can create a product based company. You can work at a regular job, but only for part of the time. The key is finding a way to make the money that you needs while following your passions and interests. That’s what UnWork is all about.
4. Live Your Life
This last step is the best. Once you succeed at changing your life, go out and do all of those things that you planned on doing. Have an adventure. Do something different. Find ways to keep your life interesting and fun.
It’s your life. Do something with it.
Reflective Living – Thinking like a Blogger
Sep 7th
One change that I have noticed in myself since deciding to blog is that I am living more reflectively. I look for hidden lessons in everything that I do. I am forever asking myself the question ‘What can I learn from this activity?’
I started doing this as a way to generate blog posts. Life is something like this: Go to a ball game? Link it to Lifestyle Design. Go fishing? Link it to Lifestyle Design. Have a boring day at work? Link it to Lifestyle Design. The more I look, the more I can find little lessons in life.
And its not just me. Look at any regularly updated blog and you can find articles where the writer did something interesting but not directly related to their topic, but they were able to extract a lesson from the activity and write about it anyway.
Living Reflectively
For the next week, pretend that you are a blogger (or be a blogger if you are one), and try to find a blog post in everything that you do. Ask yourself these questions:
- Why am I doing this?
- What can this teach me?
- How can this relate to (insert topic of choice)?
You don’t have to actually write the entries unless you want to, but just try to come up with a title and short outline. The more you do this, the more that you will start finding the little lessons that are hidden in life. This is an easy way to teach yourself to be more reflective.
What lessons were you able to learn from everyday activities today?
Work Meditation
Sep 4th
I learned about a new technique that I have been trying out with some success. It is similar to some of the techniques that I have used in the past, but I like the way that this technique is frame. It is called Work Meditation.
So you have probably either done or know of regular meditation where you sit down, close your eyes, and try to completely clear your mind of all thoughts. (A task that can be rather hard.) I have tried this kind of meditation before and haven’t been all that successful with it yet. But the basic idea behind this is to train your mind to be controlled – not have it control you.
But what if you could meditate 8 hours a day, that would help you learn to be even more focused, right? Yep. And that is exactly what this technique is all about. Here is what you do:
1. Pick a task that you have to do.
2. Choose how long you want to work on it.
3. Then work on it non-stop for that period of time.
4. Each time a distraction comes up or a random thought appears, just acknowledge that it was there and dismiss it, just like in mediation.
This may sound easy, but there are a lot of distractions that can come up. The phone may ring. You need to just ignore it. A co-worker may try to ask you something. You need to tell them to come back. You may think of an important errand to run. You need to get it out of your head as soon as you can, either my jotting a note down and just forgetting about it. You have to stay focused for the amount of time that you are doing your meditation for.
Tips for Work Meditation:
- Prepare for each session by closing down all other open applications (including email) and addressing some common issues you may have, such as plugging in the laptop so your battery doesn’t die on you.
- Have a notepad handy in case you need to jot something down really quick to get it out of your head.
- Set a timer. That way you don’t have to worry about the time. You just work till the timer goes off.
If you try this technique, I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments. I learned about this technique here.
Controlling your Life
Sep 2nd
One of the biggest struggles that people have in starting their own Lifestyle Design Business is having the financial and time freedom to do so. Most people only have a vague idea about where their money and times goes. How much do you really spend on coffee?
Without the ability to control your time, money, and responsibilities, changing your life for the better might be a struggle. You can’t quit your job because you don’t have enough savings to cover you while you start a business. You can’t work on your business because you have too many other obligations in your life. You can’t find important items because you have too much stuff cluttering your space.
All of these things fall under the category of life control. You must first master yourself before you master the world. In order to really be able to follow your UnWork, you must first control yourself and your life.
I believe Life Control is a big issue for a lot of people that want to follow their UnWork. For this reason, I am going to make Life Control one of the topics of this blog, along with specific UnWork information. You will begin to see more info on this topic as time goes on.
I’d love to hear from you any thoughts on Life Control and its necessity when trying to find and follow your UnWork with a lifestyle design business.
