You’re saving to start your independent life. Isn’t that worth it? If you have a family, explain to them why it is important to start living a simpler life. If you have debts, find a way to put them off or pay them off. Saving money is easy, just spend less than you earn.
How To Earn More
If you want to earn more money, put more work in. Instead of writing five articles a day, write fifteen. Instead of waiting to start your logo business, have the cards made and start handing them out. You’ll be surprised how a little effort can yield big results.
Take at least a couple of hours a week to focus on your freedom. Make it happen now in however small a way. The longer you wait, the less likely it is to happen. Maybe it means spending less time at the gym or not reading that novel you were planning on, but we’re not talking about fun times alone, we’re talking about building your passion income! Isn’t it worth it to miss the big game on television so that you can have your freedom sooner rather than later?
How To Spend Less
Spending less is the hard part for lots of people. Americans in particular are very wasteful spenders. Don’t be offended. I’m American and it took me a long time to get my spending under control too.
The way I did it was to create a book in which I wrote down every cent I spent for three months. At the end of each week I would add up what I spent my money on. I was amazed to find that rent was not my biggest expense. Instead it was totally non-essential items that cost between $1 and $15 but in a month added up to nearly twice my rent. Coffee from Starbucks, a Sunday Matinee, a bag of chips, candy, and tons of other little things. I was really amazed. I was also ashamed. I started to watch where I spent my money so I wouldn’t have to write it down in the book. I was tempted to even lie to myself about it and not write things down.
Don’t do that. Be honest about your extra meals, gadgets, and extravagances. Don’t buy on whims. Do you really need that new coffee mug? Write everything down. You will probably be as surprised and ashamed as I was. It adds up to way more money than you think.
So once you are doing that, you can decide what not to spend money on and what to spend money on. It gives you the chance to choose, if you have never done this, you aren’t choosing with knowledge, you are like Gollum groping for his precious ring in the dark.
Do you want to liberate yourself? Or would you rather have a latte?
Making It Happen
I was lucky. I found my first freelancing gigs within hours of deciding to do this. My passive income streams took months to yield any results. As to small business, I guess you know how I feel about that but eventually, I set one up.
The point is that you shouldn’t expect things to happen for you right away. Maybe you will get lucky like I did, but from what I have seen on the internet and heard other folks say, it often takes people months to find their first clients.
Be patient. If you still have your full time gig, just work steadily and don’t give up. I know you can do it. Take the time to make it happen. Tell your family and friends what you are doing. If they don’t support you, consider getting rid of them. Really. If the people you love don’t support you following your passion then they don’t really love you. Uh-oh, first I told you to get rid of your job, now it’s your friends and family!
Wake up early, go to bed late, skip the golf course on weekends, and work during your lunch hour. You are doing this for yourself and if you aren’t worth it to you, then chances are you won’t succeed. One of the greatest things you can do in this life is work hard to achieve your dreams.
It will be hard. I’m certain. There will be times you just want to quit and take that horrid old job back again, but don’t do it. Focus Danial-San! Wax On, Wax Off. That ultimate goal of walking out of the office forever is waiting for you. All you need to do is keep going.
If that won’t do it then you need to pull out the big guns. Start reading blogs, books, or websites about people who have succeeded. People like Dave Navarro, Seth Godin, Steve Pavlina, Leo Babauta, Tim Ferris, Darren Rouse, John Chow, and Naomi Dunford. Or you can just go visit my website at Vagobond.com and see what a great time I’m having. Seriously, when you look into the things I’ve gone through to get here, you’ll understand that you aren’t alone in dealing with things.
Living The Dream
You can live the dream. There are tens of thousands of people who have given up being miserable and started doing what makes them happy. The only reason there aren’t billions yet is because the governments of the world don’t want people to realize they can do it. Governments get money from big corporations and big corporations survive from wage slaves. They need you, you don’t need them.
You have earned the right to make your dreams come true. .
Pick a bus, get on it, and head to the destination of your choice. You won’t regret it. Finding your passion income means finding the ways to make your dreams come true. Don’t just dream the dream. Live the dream. You want it, now you know how to get it too.
Stop spending, start saving, quit your job, follow your passion, and do what you love. As they say, the rest will surely follow. All there is to it, is to do it.
ROUGH LIVING TO SMOOTH LIVING
The following is the introduction to Smooth Living: Beyond the Life of a Vagabond. I published the original Rough Living back in 2003. Now, in 2013, I’ve written a followup because I’ve completely changed my life. I want to share a little bit from the beginning of Smooth Living. Once you’ve learned the lessons of Rough Living, you’ll be ready for the Smooth Life. In fact, you’ll deserve it.
There are two types of people in the world. Feelers and doers. Feelers do what they feel like doing (and don’t do what they don’t feel like doing). Doers do what needs to be done. In giving in to the road, I was a classic feeler. It wasn’t that I felt like being on the road so much as I didn’t feel like doing the work I would have needed to do if I had resisted that call to the road.
I don’t regret my choices. I regret my submissive attitude of powerlessness. I made a negative choice (based on what I didn’t want to do) rather than a positive choice (based on what I did want or need to do.) I chose rough living. Finding a way to live that didn’t require me to do anything because I didn’t need anything. You have to work hard to live that way. That’s the joke. You put a lot of energy in and you get enough out to survive. It’s inefficient.
I’m not saying working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 20 years is a better solution. I’m not sure that solution would have worked for me had I tried it. You need a direction to go in. Let’s face it, your odds of getting anywhere are zero if you can’t choose a direction to step off in.
Smooth living requires you to understand what it is you want out of life. The desire to remain alive isn’t enough, you must have something to head towards. Otherwise, you’re trusting your entire life to blind luck. It might work out beautifully for you, but it might end in disaster.
I look back at the list of essentials I wrote about in Rough Living — essentials like sturdy boots, a knife, and a lighter — and the only possession I still consider to be essential is proper ID. Everything else is optional (of course you can’t walk around nude, so it is good to have some clothing.)