The blaring of my alarm. I hit snooze to squeeze out a few more minutes. Fall back asleep. The alarm goes off again. Hit snooze once more to get another minute of precious sleep. The sound muffles, back to sleep. The alarm goes off. Hit snooze for the final time. Realize I’m cutting it close. Rollover and sit up in bed. Head to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for the day. Step into the shower, the alarm goes off again. Shower off, alarm off, back to the shower. Clothes on, coffee ready. Head out the door. Twenty-five-minute drive to work, turn the computer on, join the meeting. Eight hours then a twenty-five-minute drive back home. Walk the dog, make dinner, watch TV. In the shower, teeth brushed, back to bed. Five days a week for the rest of my life.
When I was a kid, this is not how I envisioned living life when I got older. But this is a typical day in my life. Don’tworry, I do other things in my free time aside from watching TV, but you get the point. How did I settle for such a monotonous existence? How did we settle for this? I don’t know about you, but I am committed to making a change and getting more out of life.
Living someone else’s dream
So much of my time is dedicated to doing work for other people. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to have a stable job that pays the bills and allows me to take care of my family financially. It’s this stable job that helped me pay off $40,000 in credit card debt. It’s this stable job that provided my family with health insurance to cover the cost of bringing our daughter into this world. But when it really comes down to it, all I’m doing is paying the bills. Someone else has a dream and a vision, and I come to work every day to help turn it into a reality.
Life is too short to put off truly living
See, life is short. And as I get older, this reality is becoming more and more real for me. For example, my wife and I have been re-watching all the National Lampoons movies. I remember watching those as a kid. And here I am, an adult, sitting on the couch Googling how old the actors in the movie are. And it dawned on me. I originally watched those movies twenty-five-plus years ago! But it feels like just yesterday. Time is a limited resource, and as it goes by, we have less and less of it.
We have less time to spend with our families. We have less time to pursue the goals we’ve had for years but failed to get started on. For me, continuing to work day-in and day-out pursuing someone else’s vision without making any effort to pursue my own won’t get me where I want to be. I can’t let another twenty-five years pass by. The last thing I want is to be sitting around twenty-five years from now wishing I had done something different. I have to break the cycle so I can pursue my goals and live life on my own terms.
Start and be free
This is why I started this blog, Start And Be Free. In order for us to pursue our goals and live the life we want, we have to start. Not tomorrow, next month, or next year. We have to start now. There’s no better time.
For me, getting started meant paying off my credit cards and starting this blog. $40,000 in credit card balances required me to work incredibly long hours just to keep up my head above water. It took nearly four years to pay off, but once I made my final payment, I was able to scale back my work hours and focus more on myself. My next step was starting a blog as a sort of side-gig. The goal here is not only to document my journey but to motivate others to take the next step towards getting more out of life.
Getting more out of life: How will you break free?
So what are you going to do to break free? What’s the next project you’ve been looking to get started on but have been putting off? If you’re looking for some motivation, check out CNBC’s Make It. They have story after story of people who’ve picked up side-gigs, sometimes multiple, to break free from their 9-to-5 so they can pursue their passions. And real quick, I’ll let you in on a little secret. The common denominator in all the stories is that they started.
Seems simple, but getting started is often the biggest barrier to pursuing your passion. Before I got started on this blog, I wasn’t sure where I’d find the time to actually work on it. That’s a common excuse a lot of people use as to why they don’t start one thing or another. If you’re looking to make a change for the better, you have to make the time. And that’s exactly what I did. If I can do it, so can you.
There are tons of side-gigs out there, but you should pursue something you’re passionate about. I chose to blog because I’ve always liked writing. Now, you can probably tell I’m no expert writer by any stretch of the imagination. But guess what? I won’t let that stop me from pursuing my desire to write. Practice make perfect, right?
So whatever you decide to pursue, be sure it’s something you’re passionate about. And don’t choose a side-gig just because you think it will be easy. The goal here is to live the life we want, and that often comes with hard work. So be prepared for an uphill battle. As the saying goes, anything worth having doesn’t come easy.
Don’t be afraid of failure
I recently caught a story on the news about Jose Hernandez, a first-generation Mexican-American astronaut. Mr. Hernandez always dreamed of being an astronaut. He applied to NASA on 11 different occasions, starting when he was 20 years old. Each time, he was rejected. He could have given up after his first rejection, but he didn’t. He could have also given up after his 11th rejection, but he didn’t. Finally, when he was 42 years old, 22 years after his first rejection, he was accepted into the 2004 class of astronauts. Mr. Hernandez’s story is a prime example of embracing failure, but not letting it keep you from pursuing your dreams.
When I started repaying my credit card debt, I quickly realized it wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, I failed many times at overcoming my debt before I was finally able to do so. Failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. And this is something I’ve heard over and over from many successful people in the past. Most have failed many times before reaching success.
So if you embark on your journey to getting more out of life and don’t succeed at first, don’t give up. Learn and grow from the experience. Embrace it. Most people never get to the point of failure because they never begin in the first place.
Final thoughts
Whatever you choose to pursue, be sure not to put it off. There are countless excuses as to why now is not a good time. But when is it really? Is it tomorrow, next month, or next year? Starting is often the biggest barrier to us getting stuff done. Knowing this, just start now. Start and be free.