LifestyleDesignUnleashed

photo credit: nattu

It seems that since lifestyle design has become more and more mainstream, certain elements of the Four Hour Work Week have received far more attention than others; indeed some elements have virtually vanished from the common consciousness.

I therefore thought a brief look what I see as a few lifestyle myths might come in useful to help level the playing field for any freedom seekers who want to learn more about the process.

The Goal Of Lifestyle Design Is To Travel The World

It seems to me that a lot of people actively involved with lifestyle design are all about packing up your laptop and going travelling. Whether that’s backpacking around India on a few dollars a day or doing it in style with 5* hotels doesn’t matter – it really all about going out to explore the world.

In my opinion though, while travel is important and can be an integral part of lifestyle design, it doesn’t have to be the end result. Lifestyle design is really about creating a lifestyle that you love.

It’s about finding ways to be able to live life now rather than using the “deferred life plan” and working in a job you hate for the next 40 years only to retire and then try to do all the things you want to do once you retire.

If you really want to travel then knock yourself out. I know I certainly love to travel. But if you’d rather be at home for whatever reason that’s also fine too. It’s about creating life around *you* rather than just trying to fit into a life that has been made for you by someone else.

To Succeed With Lifestyle Design You Must Have An Online Business

One element of lifestyle design is to create “hands off” income, freeing you up financially to be able to chase your dreams. Of course an internet business tends to be ideal for this. Once it is up and running, an online business requires minimal effort to run and can be managed from anywhere in the world where you can find an internet connection making it a perfect way to earn money in the pursuit of lifestyle design.

But if the idea of an internet business doesn’t appeal for whatever reason, all is not lost. Again, an online business is only one way to live the lifestyle of your dreams.

To give you another example, I know of a number of people who work for around 3 months each year in “normal” jobs then spend the other 9 travelling the world. By keeping costs low they can do this and know that their 3 months of “proper” work each year is finite and will soon come to an end. Many of these people are amazingly happy with their arrangement.

Then there are people who work while abroad. Teaching English to foreign students is a perfect example where you will often receive a wage and housing, as well as having plenty of free time to explore a new country. So this too could be a way of earning money to achieve your lifestyle design goals.

Some people have passion for something that is so strong they actually *want* to work. Many entrepreneurs struggle to find the dividing line between work and play to the degree that work feels like play if they’re doing something they love. So lifestyle design could just as easily be about quitting your current job and instead managing to land your dream job doing something you love, whatever that may entail.

Yes, many people active in lifestyle design *do* have an online business, but you don’t have to if you don’t want.

An Important Step In Lifestyle Design Is Eliminating Communication

In the classic lifestyle design book The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss talks about minimizing “noise” and unnecessary communication to free up time to do the things you want.

With all the junk mail we get these days, the spam emails, the newsletters, magazines and newspapers we receive massive amounts of information each week and one way to further free yourself is to cut back on all but the most essential communication using a variety of techniques.

Lifestyle design isn’t about eliminating communication through these media but rather about eliminating *unnecessary* communication so you can focus even more on the few pieces of information that really matter to you. One could argue that by doing this, and spreading yourself less thinly, you will actually be more effective with your communication.

Lifestyle Design Is Really Only Possible For A Tiny Percentage Of People

Do you ever feel jealous of those people who are further down the road of lifestyle design than you are? Maybe they’ve already quit their boring dayjob, and are now launching their own business, fundraising for a charity they are passionate about or living in a tropical paradise.

It’s easy for *them*.

What about people who have no experience of setting up an internet business? What about people with kids, people who have the responsibility of looking after older relatives, who have a house and garden they love and don’t want to give up, or whatever else.

The fact is that lifestyle design is, by it’s very definition, a flexible, fluid concept that moulds around *you*. Given enough passion and effort, I believe that *anyone* has the potential to improve their quality of life. What that ideal lifestyle looks like is, after all, entirely up to you.

There are huge volumes of information and advice available now in the form of books and websites that will help you to make those transitions and so many people have been successful that the sky really is the limit if only you will apply yourself.

To Be Successful At Lifestyle Design You Must Outsource As Much As Possible

More than anything else, lifestyle design is about freedom. Freedom to do what you want, when you want. And whilst financial freedom is a key to this, another element is time freedom. To not have someone else dictate what you do.

And outsourcing can really help with increasing your time freedom. After all, if someone else will do some of your chores for you – whether that’s booking you a dentist appointment or updating your website – then you have more time available for other things. Outsourcing also allows you to leverage the time of other people to speed up your lifestyle design journey.

So outsourcing has a lot going for it. I have been outsourcing for more years than I can remember so I know the benefits.

But is it *essential*? Again, this depends on your life as it is right now, and on your eventual goals. If you work 3 months of the year and then want to spend the other 9 travelling the world, there might not be much outsourcing you really need, if any.

On the other hand, if you want to run a high-profit internet business working only a few hours a week you’ll probably need a team to create content, respond to customer queries, issue refunds and so on.

So yes, outsourcing can help set you free. But it’s not essential. Again, it all depends on what *you* want to achieve.

Lifestyle Design Is Easy

Reading some of the blogs on lifestyle design you might be mistaken for thinking that lifestyle design is easy. Looking at the sales letters online for various money-making courses you might think that you could be earning $1000 a day by the end of the week and then you’re all set to quit your job.

The truth, of course, is rather more boring.

Internet businesses take time to master and to build. Convincing your boss to let you work online from a foreign country takes time. Working out, and then giving up, all the elements of your life you don’t like, takes a lot of time and effort.

In short, lifestyle design in the real world takes time and effort. Whilst it I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it is *difficult*, it does require concerted focus and effort if you’re really going to make significant changes.

If you’re buzzing about the possibilities of lifestyle design then that’s great because it will motivate you to take action. That motivation will do you well over this journey and keep you on the right track when things go wrong.

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