For a while now, there’s been a growing financial divide in the United States. On one side of this abyss folks are getting wealthier and wealthier. On the other side, it’s been harder and harder to live a financially secure and peaceful life. There are many political, social, and moral reasons for this, none of which I’m about to go into.
Instead, I want to talk about how those on the wrong side of the abyss can choose to navigate this world of inequity – how to get your fair share of security, satisfaction, and freedom. It involves one simple concept.
Stop playing their game.
I’m a fulltime RVer. In my online perusing, as I researched what it might be like to live on the road, I came across many nomads giving advice along the lines of “Just do it! Sell your house and live your dream!”
Please don’t do this.
I’m all for dream-chasing. It’s what I coach others to do. But I want my clients to do it successfully. “Just doing it” isn’t a plan, and if it was, it sure wouldn’t be the first step. I already told you the first step.
Stop playing their game.
Who is “they” in this advice? I’m actually referring to three groups of people.
Definition 1: The dysfunctional voices in your head. Whether you were taught certain things about life or about yourself, or whether these things were modeled for you, we all have beliefs and assumptions that guide our every move. Not always for the better. Maybe you believe you’ll never have a lot of money. Maybe you believe that life should be hard, and if it isn’t then you don’t deserve good things. Maybe you believe you’re an imposter who has nothing of value to share with the world. If you don’t deal with these kinds of voices in your head, the minute something goes awry on your path, they will begin to scream and you will doubt yourself. They can make you quit, when all you needed was a slight trajectory adjustment. Many a dream has been killed this way. Shine a light on the voices and change the narrative. Stop playing their game.
Definition 2: Restaurants, Banks, and Shiny Objects. How do the haves keep the have-nots on the wrong side of the abyss? By keeping us in debt. Except we do it to ourselves. You can’t have a financially secure future without taking control of your finances today. If you keep upgrading your phone when you don’t need to, if you get into auto loans you can barely pay on, if you keep buying things on credit cards and making small payments toward them each month, and if you’re doing all this without putting money into savings and an emergency fund each month, you are playing their game. And you’re the loser, because the house always wins. If we stay in debt, we have to keep shitty jobs and bad working conditions because we have no choice. And if we don’t create our own safety nets to survive difficult times, we won’t survive difficult times. Stop playing their game and take charge of your financial life.
Definition 3: Those who fear risk. We creative box-hopping types scare some people. Generally, these are people who love us. But our career choices make them concerned, and our scary (to them) dreams make them downright anxious. They want to talk you out of those choices so they can feel more comfortable. But you can’t build a life based on what makes someone else comfortable. Incidentally, a great map that includes sound finances and good logistical planning would ease their concerns. But their concerns can’t be your concern. This is your life. Stop playing their game and start living it.
We knew we wanted to RV fulltime but we didn’t want to workamp.
Michael and I decided to embrace a mobile lifestyle because we wanted to simplify our lives and stop feeling married to a job and a mortgage payment. One way RVers finance life on the road is by workamping, meaning they get jobs in various parks that give you a place to park your rig while you work. Now, lots of folks do this kind of work and they love it. But to us, having to sort out from season to season where we’d get our income from next was a similar kind of pressure to the pressures we wanted to leave behind when we sold our house. It wasn’t for us.
What do you dream of jumping into, and how can I convince you to put some time into planning it out?
Yes, we live on the road today, but we spent nearly three years getting ready for the change. The primary challenges involved:
- Getting rid of unnecessary debt and fattening up our emergency fund.
- Transforming my mostly in-person business to an all-online business.
Trust me, we wanted to jump in and just do it, like many YouTube influencers tried to tell us. And maybe there’s something you’re itching to jump into right now. But if an outcome is really important to you, starting before you’re ready to be successful is too big a risk, isn’t it? If you jump before you know where you’re going and how you’ll get there, you may find yourself back to playing their game.
One option I offer you right now is to reach out to me and setup a free consult. It’s just a conversation about what you want to achieve and what’s getting in your way. There’s no obligation to become a coaching client. But use me as a sounding board to help you uncover the next step, whatever it is for you.
Whether you take advantage of a free consult or not, start drawing your roadmap today. Your life tomorrow will be worth it!
Agree? Disagree? Let me know.
Judy Fine
Full-time RVer and Vocal, Performance, & Creative Confidence Coach
Got a creative lifestyle dream you’d like to work toward. Consider creative confidence coaching with me. Visit www.voice-your-potential.com to request a free consultation.