What were you doing 5 minutes before reading this?
Maybe you were browsing your Tumblr page. Or maybe you were getting ready for the day. Or you could have been watching some TV while making dinner.
But I bet I know one thing you weren’t doing.
Something that was hard. A challenge.
It’s okay to admit it. In fact, right before writing this I was drinking a beer and looking at tiny cabins (a new obsession of mine I’m sure you’ll hear more about in the future.)
We all have our routines. Safety nets that make us feel at home. We’re comfortable in these places and it’s in our nature to want to be comfortable.
But if you’re on my blog you’re here for a reason:
To make your ideal life your real life.
Unfortunately, this is where it gets tough. Because an ideal life comes with changes that are necessary. In order to get different results you must be willing to try different things. It’s just that simple.
Convenience will kill your ideal life
Our world has become accustomed to convenience. Fast food, washer/dryers, television, internet, smart phones, home loans, certified mechanics, and money itself.
Almost everywhere we look there is convenience. Over the past few hundred years we have specialized and planted ourselves into a black hole of conveniences. No longer do we spend more than 30 minutes doing anything ourselves (seriously, when was the last time you changed your own oil or instead of buying a new car you fixed your current one?)
This obsession with convenience translates back into the decisions we make (or don’t make) when it comes to our ideal lives.
Maybe you want to feel fulfilled in your job. The convenient option is to just quit and get a new one. Because at the very least there will be a honeymoon period in the new job where you feel you made the right decision.
Maybe you want to feel good about your weight. The convenient option here is to just starve yourself for a week or two, thin down, and then go back to your old ways. That’s much more convenient than researching healthy ways to lose weight and keep it off.
I myself am completely guilty of this. Hell, a year ago I quit my job and moved just to get away from it all. Did I try to make my old job work? Not really. I just “knew” it wasn’t for me.
But what that move did show me is that even though I got to move to a town I loved I was also making less than half of what I was used to. I didn’t have the convenience of being indifferent about money anymore.
That lesson was huge for me. I learned that it’s really not hard for me to picture my ideal life. But what is hard is actually changing my life.
I want to be someone who builds something for myself that I am proud of. Have a family. Live in a place I love. Build things with my own two hands and become self-sufficient. Become more aware and care less about what I have or what others think. Constantly learn new things. And overall just enjoy who I am and this moment in life.
But all of those things come at an inconvenience for me. To live in the place I love, I had to give up money. To build things with my own two hands I had to make a leap into a project I was completely unaware about. And to constantly learn new things I had to become okay with being nervous as all hell (still working on this one.)
An inconvenient life is a fulfilling life
We cannot expect to be our ideal selves while still doing the same things we’ve done in the past. Something must change. We must break the routine and make our lives more inconvenient.
That may sound wrong. Like you weren’t raised that way – to WANT an inconvenient life. But isn’t that a big reason why you want a different life now?
Think about something you’ve always wanted but just have never had. It could be anything. To be more comfortable talking in front of groups. To fly a plane. Or to travel the world.
What inconvenient decision can you commit to right now? It’s not going to be comfortable. Get used to that right away. But I promise you, once you make the decision that you’re going for it and you do it, all of that inconvenience slides away.
Let me know below in the comments section what you wish you could do but the lack of convenience is keeping you away.
Here’s to a life of inconvenience,
By the way, if you’re on LinkedIn, I suggest you subscribe to Deepak Chopra’s page. He is currently writing an amazing piece on “The Conscious Lifestyle.”