EP. 137 - Don’t wait for “a good life” someday | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the further your lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 137 today, and we're actually doing a deeper dive into one of the points that we spoke about in different mindsets in last week's episode. So today's episode is purely focused on don't wait for a good life someday. Life is happening right now, so don't delay doing you and I think this is super important because in today, where there is so much happening, people are not people, just everything is wanting our attention and we think about oh, I'm going to be able to do this later, I'll do. Or you put things off or you get distracted. Don't start working on something today that's going to get you to where you want to be one year from now, or 10 weeks from now, or six months from now, or a week from now. Do things that are going to get you making the progress that you want in the future. All right, don't wait, for I'll just do it in the future, because there's always going to be something else. That's what we're talking about today. We're going to get straight into it. So let's roll the intro. So the way I'm going to actually do this episode is we're going to first start off with some real cliche questions or frequently asked questions that actually came up around this topic that I've just been able to find, or I think it's just very relevant to it, and then actually I'm going to just mention a few other points that I think are worth discussing, to bring to your attention and maybe challenge you on how to think about this perspective. So the first one is, if you've just heard this, don't wait for a good life someday. Maybe a question that you have is how do I start pursuing my personal goals immediately when I have so many responsibilities and commitments already? Right, and I think this is a fair point, because when I was working the nine to five and I was working, you know, 50, 60 hour weeks it got to the point where I didn't have time to take on more things. I didn't have time to start this podcast, I didn't have time to go more thrifting or to start a business, but at the end of the day, they're all excuses because we all have time.

Speaker 1: 2:08

It's about priorities, setting boundaries and making it happen. Sometimes it means you're just going to have to work a little bit harder. And when I say work a little bit harder when you're tired is you know? Rather than watching Netflix for 30 minutes or one hour to unwind, at the end of the day, spend 30 minutes and research something. Spend 30 minutes and go to the gym. Spend 30 minutes and go for a walk. Spend 30 minutes and build a relationship. Spend 30 minutes and read a book. So doing all these things that are actually going to get you closer to where you want to be. We all have the time to do it. I know you do.

Speaker 1: 2:40

It's about making the priorities more important. That's really what it comes down to, and when we, when you're struggling to commit to something, it's because you really don't want to do it, or you're not motivated to do it, or you don't see the value in doing it. That's look, that's real talk, and I know what that's like. I do. There's things if you feel friction, if you feel things that you want to say yes because it sounds like a good opportunity, but you're not excited to actually do the work. It's going to be a combination of either you're scared of the work that's required or you're really not that interested in it, in that committed role and you'd rather spend that commitment somewhere else? Fair game.

Speaker 1: 3:21

The next question is maybe you're thinking is what if I'm not clear about what my personal goals are? How can I identify and set meaningful goals for myself? Look, I mean, I've done episodes on this. I think, at the end of the day, we can go through smart goal process where you can go about, you know, setting good goals. But I think you need to ask yourself this question what do you want? Right, and depending on what age you are, where you are in life, whether you're starting a job, whether you're in your career, mid-year, free, like midlife career Maybe you're not in a relationship, maybe you're in a relationship, maybe you want kids, maybe you don't. There's so many different components to this question, but I think you need to ask yourself what do you want this year? Right, if I was to say to you what are you trying to achieve this year? Where do you want to be at the end of the year?

Speaker 1: 4:07

Most people would probably say you know, I want to get a promotion at work, or I want to go on a holiday, or I want to be fitter all these very Generalised answers, which is fine. But then you need to ask yourself Well, where do you want to be in three years? Maybe you want to be married. Maybe you want to get a puppy. Maybe you want to have a house. Maybe you want to get investment property. Maybe you want to be dabbling in shares. Maybe you want to have a new skill. Maybe you want to be living somewhere else. Okay, now we know what you want.

Speaker 1: 4:36

So what are you doing between now and that three years to ensure that you're getting to want whatever that objective is? Then you can start to say what are the steps I need to be doing? What do I need to be doing this year, next year and the final year to make that happen? That's how you set goals. That's. That's that's how I would recommend you set goals. Maybe another question that you have is how can I stay motivated and disciplined to work towards my goals constantly, especially when life gets tough? So I think, if you've got the first part of this that I just said before like you know, around setting the goals If you've got that down pat, you can then leverage, whether it's looking at something visually, tracking your progress, seeing the results and I guarantee, if you do something for 30 days and you track the results of that and you see what you've achieved after 30 days, like the, the, the jump in Progress, whether it's running or whether it's more steps or give more money, or you know You're seeing progress.

Speaker 1: 5:31

That will encourage you. And then, when you do have a low week or a bad day or things aren't going in In your favor, that's when you can start to refer back to and zoom out and see look, you're gonna have bad days, you're gonna have bad weeks and you're gonna have bad months, but you're also gonna have really really good days, really really good weeks and really really good months as well. And you can zoom out and understand what you're trying to do, based on you know your end goal and seeing that progress and that it's really not that bad. That would be my encouragement for that one. What steps can I take to ensure that I make steady progress towards my goals without feeling overwhelmed boundaries and not biting off more than you can chew?

Speaker 1: 6:12

A good example of this is in the space of reselling. You know we encourage people to list on a daily basis right Now. Obviously, the more listed, the more possibly consult, but that doesn't mean I you need to be listing a hundred items every day. It's just not feasible. Doing 10 would probably be pretty good, but if you can't do that, do one, like, just do one, because if you do one in a year, that's 365. If you could sell 365 things for, well, let's say you can sell 365 things for 50 bucks, well, you're gonna earn 18,250 dollars, right? So, whereas if you, if you're in the list one thing a week, it's going to be a lot less, but that's okay. So you need to understand what isn't that. You want be realistic about it. And if the you know doing 10 is too overwhelming, start with one. If one's easy to do, two, two is easy to three, right, it's the same with running, same with distance running, same with exercising, same with learning. Oh, I want to go study. Don't, I'm gonna study for four hours. Go study for 30 minutes, take a break, come back and do 30 minutes. Make these things easier for yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:21

Is it selfish to prioritize my personal goals over my responsibilities towards my family, work, community, and how can I balance them all? Um, so I mean, look this, we've got to do this with a bit of kind candor, right, because at the end of the day, it's your life and coming. If you zoom into your life and understand what are the most important things to you family, work or community, etc. Etc. Etc. And all your own personal things. So you need to understand how do you regulate all those things, but also have the conversations right.

Speaker 1: 7:52

If you want to spend time with your family, spend time with your family, but also say this is my time to work on the things that I'm working on, this is the time I have to work, this is the time that we do community stuff, have the conversation. If people don't know what you're doing, like trying to do, how can they help you balance it? So you need to have a balancing conversation, setting the boundaries, setting the expectations of what you want. Maybe you want to play video games for an hour. Have that conversation. I want to play video games. Build that into your workflow, build that into your routines, build that into your schedule. You want to spend some time with your kids? You need to do that too. You want to spend some time with your partner? You need to do that too. You need to work 40 hours a week, or 10 hours a week, or whatever it may be. You need to plan that too. Have a conversation, build it into your lifestyle and take ownership of it and stick to it. Like set the boundaries If you don't have the conversation, the boundaries will just be screwed up completely. It just won't happen.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Can you provide examples of people who have successfully taken control of their lives and started the pursuing their goals immediately? There's lots of people right, I mean. I'd like to think that me doing this podcast and documenting my. That's the main reason why I do document my reselling journey. My business journey is to show that anyone can do this.

Speaker 1: 9:02

I left the job the nine to five after working there for eight years and stepped away to pursue my passion for the podcast, but also to build my own business. I've always wanted a business. I didn't know what it looked like and stepping out of my comfort zone and going cold turkey to go straight into it. Now I still have not replaced my income, but I am loving it. I am having so much fun and I'm realizing that the potential in this is going to outweigh me working eight years for someone else, because I'm only two and a half years, almost three years, into this and I'm going to absolutely be able to take it to crazy places in another three, four years, which, again, if I was working where I was currently working, I probably wouldn't have the same result. You might get the feeling from a monetary value perspective quicker, but you don't get the depthness of it. So for me, that's what I was just being consistently working towards, what I want.

Speaker 1: 9:57

Now I can't it's not easy to just go do that because obviously there was a risk of money, real circumstances where I'm living, how I live, things that I have to be responsible for, what you need to be responsible for. So everyone's lives different, but you need to work it into what you want and how you can make that happen, because if you're not taking action, nothing will happen. And the other question that came through that I think could be relevant to this is how can I manage my financial situation to support my personal goals, especially if they require significant investment? So I would never encourage anyone to do something without weighing up the pros and cons, understanding the risks factor and doing nothing that they're not willing to lose.

Speaker 1: 10:37

So when I started working sorry, when I left working and started working for myself I knew that I was not going to earn any potentially earn no money from this business. I had no idea and all the podcast, but I knew that if I did not earn any money, how many months can I survive off my savings? What was my run rate? How many months could I live comfortably, assuming I had to spend exactly the same that I was doing when I was working full time? How long could I survive? And I knew how long. But I also knew at the same time but I do not want to spend a cent of that savings because I've spent 10 years or nine years working towards that number and that number is then to get a house and to for other things. It wasn't to just live off and do whatever I want. So I think by setting realistic expectations is key.

Speaker 1: 11:29

And then, if you do need to make a financial investment around, maybe you want to go take a skill, like learning a new skill, understanding that, okay, if I spend $1,000, what does this get me? How quickly is it going to take me to get the $1,000 back by learning that skill? If you won't get anything back from it, then don't invest the money. But you need to ask the equation what is the return on investment? What is the time of return of investment? But you also have to take into account, you have to do the work to get the investment back. You can't just spend $1,000 learning skill and expect that tomorrow you're now earning $2,000. You have to do the work to earn the $1,000 or earn the $2,000. So you really need to consider those factors. Go slow, take it easy, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 12:12

If it was something that was $1,000, maybe how can you do it at a smaller subset. Then do it at $100 and do it as a minimal, viable product to test that theory. That's what I did before going into all clothing with my business. Now I'm bringing in 1,000 pieces of clothing a month, or every six weeks actually, whereas before that I'm like jeepers. I didn't even know how to do anything. So, rather than spending lots of money and bringing in lots of items, I just purchased enough to do it with 50 so I could test the process, test how it was going to work. Do I even enjoy it? How much does it cost? What are the problems, what are the issues, what are the things I need to sell for? And it was a tangible amount of data and, I guess, experience to give me enough to know that, okay, $100 got me this or $1,000 got me this. If this was 10 times, what would it look like and got myself comfortable with it All right.

Speaker 1: 13:04

So a couple of other things that I think worth considering, and these are just kind of some other points that I'm just going to throw out there that I want to challenge you on. First one is taking immediate action. We're kind of covered that already, but when we don't take action, you don't get results. So we can talk about good life, all these different things and I've used this example before I just need to take a drink. I was chatting to someone a few years back and they said to me I said where do you see yourself in five years? I was like I want to be running my own business. I said oh, okay, what business? I have no idea. This is actually something that challenged me as well. They said no idea and I said okay, so what does the business look like? Or what are you doing to get? I said I don't know, I'll figure it out. But if they're currently doing X, which is nothing in relation to Y, but they want to be doing Y, they want to be doing Y, how do they expect why to occur? Right, and that's what this whole whole thing is about, is don't wait for a good life. Make it today right. You need. It's like I'm gonna run a marathon one day so cool. Have you signed up for one? When's the one year training for? It's like I don't know what. It doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense. See, what are you doing to make, take steps to get to where you want to be, and then that comes into.

Speaker 1: 14:25

The next point I wanted to mention was clarifying personal goals. Now we can, you know, do strategies around smart goals, like specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time about. That's really granular and I think you should look up smart goals. That will teach you everything you need to know about goals. I don't know the expert on that, but I think, again, identifying what it is that you want, based on you know the thing you want in five years, two years, one year, and then break down what. What do you need?

Speaker 1: 14:48

If you need a deposit of $60,000 to be able to purchase the house that you want in five years time, you need to consider well, can I earn $60,000 as a deposit? Right, can, but will? Will the inflation be high? So maybe I need to actually. And $75,000, does that include stamp duty? Okay, maybe it's $80,000. Now you know that in five years, you need $80,000 to be out of our house. So you know what are you going to be doing to get $80,000 across five years, right, nearly saving $16,000 every year for the next five years. So how do you do that $16,000? Right, we know, if that's over weeks, you need to be saving $307 every week for the next five years. Can you do that? Can you do more? So these are the things.

Speaker 1: 15:35

You can start to break it down with basic math, just simple things to understand. This is tangible, this is possible, right, and you know that you're going to be doing something for the next five years, regardless. Some five years you'll have the result that's, it's that simple. There's no way, I mean you can make it quicker. If you can do 600, you can do it in half the time. If you can save $600 a week, all these things, it once you break it down, that makes so much more sense. But break it down and understand is it tangible, is it feasible, is it smart, is it achievable, can you do it, is it relevant and can you do it in the time?

Speaker 1: 16:08

The next one is staying motivated. So, when it comes to motivation, I think if you're doing something, because someone else has told you to do it. You're only. You're probably motivated based on your getting something from it, like a monetary value usually, whereas sometimes, when you're creating something, you're taking ownership of it, so you're not necessarily worried about the dollars from it, but you want to see it grow, you want to see it shine right. It's like watching a child or teaching something to do something, or being a mentor for someone else, seeing them thrive and come up and think, wow, and I, because you can have pride in that. So Understand what it is what you're doing and why you're doing it. If you're doing it for the wrong reasons. If it is just money, look, we need money and there's a common place for you know to work and earn money. But you also need to weigh up is like well, if you could take less money for a period of time to then enable you to have more money for a longer period of time, would you do it? And that's the question.

Speaker 1: 17:10

And I think the other thing to stay motivated is, as you're progressing through things is making sure you're celebrating the small wins, taking the time to smell the roses, zooming out and reflecting what's working, what's not, and continuing to adjust and apply things that are going to enable you to continue to get results. That will continue to motivate you Makes sense, right? Balancing responsibilities. We touched on this in the conversation before. When it comes to balancing, it's a balancing act. You need to. If you've got like four jugs to fill, you're filling them up from one liter kettle. So you've got four cups sorry, not a jug. You've got four cups and you've got a liter of water. You've got to fill them all up. One of them's either getting more or they're all getting the same and you need to weigh that up. But the trick is, when you do that is, have the conversation with the expectations around that Maybe for year one you're not going to be able to spend as much time doing this because you're going to spend extra time here so that the year afterwards you can spend more time in a different area. But if you don't have the conversation, then nothing can. It's just not going to run smoothly. The other thing is managing your time and prioritizing, setting the boundaries, scheduling it in ensuring that you're being accountable to what you're wanting to achieve. That's going to enable you to be strict, responsible and balanced Financial planning.

Speaker 1: 18:33

We spoke about saving, investing, if you want those things over the long term, I would encourage you to make sure you do seek advice around this. Obviously, I'm not a financial advisor. I'd like to think I'm pretty good with my money, but there's always better things we can be doing and it might be around. If you're trying to budget, if you're trying to save, if you're trying to invest, get some help on this area, right, if you're going to do it, I mean, you can watch YouTube videos, you can read books, you can learn from other people, but do your research. That's going to enable you to make this a little bit easier so you're not making more mistakes than you need to.

Speaker 1: 19:08

And then kind of comes the next point, which is seeking support and mentorship, having a support system or a mentor or people that can provide you guidance and encouragement you can reach out to share resources with or get some insight or get some feedback. Those things are crucial, absolutely crucial, because you will save time. You'll save having to figure it out. You'll save you're still going to have to go experience it, but you're not going to have to. You know, try five things to hit a wall and then the sixth time it's okay. They're going to kind of say, oh, maybe just go straight to this point and maybe only fail once or twice, but you're going to save yourself four other duds, right? So, seeking support and mentorship, there's nothing wrong with it. Ask for help if you don't know. Get the support and surround yourself with people that are going to celebrate with you, encourage with you, support you, challenge you and, you know, enjoy that ride with you.

Speaker 1: 19:58

Next one is overcoming fear and uncertainty. Look, life's tough. There's big scary things out there, but there's also really rewarding things over those big scary things. And I was talking to Carla the other day about me going to the Philippines, like been to the Philippines before, but I haven't been there for as long as we're going. We're going to a new area I've never been to. I'm meeting an extended family. It's going to be out of my comfort zone.

Speaker 1: 20:27

But the way I look at it is, if you were driving down a highway and let's say the highway is 100 kilometers, you can see a huge mountain in the distance. I can see that coming. I know it's coming, it's reminding me that it's coming. But as you get closer, you then start to just one step at a time. You know one kilometer time and you get over that mountain, and there's a really good book that I would encourage anyone to read is you Are the Mountain. I think that I think that's the book you Are the Mountain. I'll put it in the show notes below, but it's talking about. You know, most of the time our problems are ourselves, and we just need to get over ourselves, climb that mountain, and then we can get on with achieving success. So I would encourage you to check that one, and then that actually comes down to the next point, which is investing in self-improvement.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Continuous learning and self improvement is the absolute, crucial part of growing and achieving personal goals, because if you're not learning, if you're not doing things differently to what you've always done, then you'll always get the same results, and you need to dedicate time to leveling up. You need to dedicate time to improving yourself. You need to dedicate time in doing the learning, doing the reps. You need to dedicate time for that, because if you don't, you cannot learn. You can read something and then go apply it and take action, but you won't win at it or you won't conquer it in one go. You need to continuously be learning, adjusting what works better for you. Different things work better for different. That's why there's so many different business models. How I run my business is different from how you'll run your business. We might get the same result, but we're doing it ways that works best for us.

Speaker 1: 22:03

The final point I'll finish on is creating a live vision To make all these things all these things sorry, make this next point very, very easy. When you create a live vision of where you want to be whether it's a motto, something that you want to live by, a set of values or just a big plan of an end game of the next, you know, two, five, 10, 20 years you need to visualize it, you need to think about it constantly, you need to revisit it, but when you put those things in play and you can have an idea of what you want, what life could look like based on the actions that you do, you're going to be able to make that happen With all these different things that we just spoke about investing in yourself, staying motivated, having personal goals, planning correctly, having balance, all these different things. Now I can talk about this from a forward perspective, knowing that some of these things I've been doing for the last, you know, two and a half, three years, and they've been working, but I also know I'm going to have to do a heck of a lot of them to get to where I want to be. So I can only talk about from what I've done. I know that where I want to be it's probably still another two to five years away, but it's rapidly growing quicker because I'm constantly investing in myself, I'm constantly asking for help, I'm constantly trying to overcome the fear and try new things. I'm constantly clarifying my personal goals, I'm constantly taking action all these different things to then get it closer to my life vision. So I hope this encourages you.

Speaker 1: 23:33

If you've got questions, comments about this, more than happy to continue the conversation. Let me know in the comments or reach out to me if you're just here on the audio experience of which area of this or which question stood out the most to you. What's challenging you, what are the things you struggle with, what are the things that you own? Let's share it, let's talk about it and, of course, if you did enjoy this, I would appreciate it. If you can share this, send it out to someone, tell someone about it, challenge them to take this upon themselves, to challenge themselves and get them ready for the next three months, or the next year, or the next five years.

Speaker 1: 24:07

I know I speak big numbers, but the reality is you'll be having a conversation with someone in 10 years thinking, oh, I should have started this 10 years ago, and I'll be the one to tell you so. So don't be that guy. Start today, make progress today and don't wait for the good life someday, but actually start making your life become irrelevant and actually happen today. It's time to actualise. You Appreciate being here. Any questions, comments, chuck them down below. Otherwise you have a wonderful day. Cheers.