My mom lives on 5 acres of paradise in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho.
It is surrounded by mountains and farmland and is one of the most peaceful places I like to go visit.
Disclaimer: This is only true when my sisters aren’t there.
I was just there a few days this past week and had a great time playing in the pool and tubing down the Portneuf River.
One of my favorites there is sitting after dark on the giant porch that my stepdad built and having awesome conversations with my family.
I had some time to sit and contemplate my newfound freedom and what it means to me.
It’s incredible not thinking about having to go back to a job or trading time doing something I don’t enjoy in order to pay the bills.
I don’t get the Sunday night blues anymore, but I did realize several startlingly annoying things about myself.
To begin with, I have been focused on making myself financially free for a few years now and it was this giant event that I was looking forward to happening.
Once I reached the goal, I woke up the next morning and was still the exact same person as the week before.
There wasn’t an earth shattering change from one day to the next.
I realized that I still have a lot of work to do on several things that I could have changed a long time ago.
So, I have always been extremely cognizant of the passage of time.
For most of my life, time meant money and I hated wasting it.
I thrive in efficiency and high levels of production at just about anything I ever worked on.
This includes jobs, work, chores, driving, eating, relationships, and even play time.
I rarely slowed down enough to really enjoy so many moments that passed all too quickly.
This habit still remains after years and years of practice.
I have to really try to actually eat slowly and not scarf down my food even though I may have literally nothing planned after the meal.
I like to learn from my mistakes instead of living with regret.
However, I’m realizing that I could have been enjoying many of life’s moments much more if I just slowed down a little and let it enter in.
I could have just stopped and allowed myself to be there in that moment and experience instead of stomping through it because of the mental list in my head of the ten other tasks that were perhaps urgent but not as important.
This actually takes effort and energy for me.
I have a very hard time sitting still and I’m realizing through focused practice that I actually enjoy it.
In fact, a recent revelation was that it can be very gratifying to purposely do nothing and let minutes and hours go by without worrying about what else or what’s next (I haven’t got to days yet).
In stark contrast, I am also seeing how quickly my day can get filled with distractions and completely meaningless tasks and chores.
Intentionally spending an hour watching a sunset or looking at stars is much different than getting stuck on a rotating loop of thumb mashing from Facebook to Instagram to email to news etc.
As I purposely set more time aside to enjoy taking in this beautiful world and life I have, I also have to be vigilant about what I spend my time doing.
It’s not always easy and I am still working on ways to keep from getting distracted from things that inspire me and are worth my time and attention.
One thing I found is that if I find myself on my phone looking at nonsense, then I verbally say, “NO!”, or “No distractions”.
This helps me recognize quickly what’s happening so I can shift to more important matters.
Also, making lists the day before of what I have planned for the day keeps me from laying in bed and wasting time on my phone.
Obviously, I can adjust the schedule and pivot if something changes or I decide to do something else.
It’s hard to make plans to work out and decide productive tasks while I’m still laying comfortably in my bed.
I’m entering that battle disadvantaged which usually means important things don’t get done, or at the very least, I’m wasting time that could be spent fishing, talking to someone I care about, or trying to get my hair to stand up the way I like it in the front.
I read about this concept years ago in the book, “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill.
He writes incessantly about having a definite purpose.
If you have something you are working toward that gets you excited, then you will jump out of bed in the morning and get started quickly on it.
This is easy to understand if you imagine that you are going on a really fun vacation that perhaps you planned weeks or months earlier.
The day of the vacation comes and you almost launch out of bed even if you barely slept the night before.
It doesn’t even matter how tired you are, you get busy on everything that needs to get done.
You may even leave the house sooner than you had originally planned.
So, how does this translate to achieving a goal that is perhaps further down the road or difficult to obtain.
At one point, I thought I could use money to inspire me this way.
The problem is that money and even possessions don’t get me to move that urgently for very long.
I think this is true for most people.
When I was able to define that money as freedom and really get clear on what freedom meant to me, it became very easy for me to do any tasks required for the achievement of my goal.
I became the most efficient worker, the best employee, and the happiest, most helpful coworker.
It almost became joyful and easy.
While everyone around me looked like zombies, complained, and just put in the hours, I was happy to be making my dreams come true which opened up more doors for me everywhere, even at work.
It wasn’t because of my character, or that I was a better person.
I had just spent time imagining my life as I wanted it.
I would set time aside and picture myself doing things and having experiences I had been wanting my whole life.
I felt the emotions I thought I would feel in those moments.
Then, I took the necessary steps in my life in order to make that happen for me.
A lot of it was brutally, painfully difficult.
I was tired and some days I cried from the effort and sacrifice.
I just knew I wanted to have what I had pictured.
The point is that all it takes for anyone to have the life he or she wants is to get clear about what that actually is and start moving that direction until it happens.
It won’t work if you are imagining what you think you “should” want based on society or other people.
Don’t should on yourself.
It needs to be what gets YOU excited and makes your soul smile.
Only then will you be able to do what it will take for you to get there.
Pin it down and start picturing the details of that life.
It is right ahead of you and closer than you think.
Thank you for reading.
Phillip Adams