Living Life On Your Terms: Taking Charge of Your Choices

We’ve all seen them. The videos of the self-proclaimed millionaire showing us around his mansion and swimming pool on YouTube. The photos of the woman making millions from behind her laptop, lying underneath a palm tree on a white sandy beach somewhere. Both often stating if you’re NOT living the life they have, you’re a slave in the corporate world. Filling someone else’s pockets. Living someone else’s dream. Only when you quit will you, at last, be free.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for people exiting employment to follow their dreams. I’ve done it myself and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. But just because you’re working for someone else it doesn’t mean you’re a slave. Nor does it mean if you quit you’ll have absolute freedom. Nor does it mean any life on social media is the reality or a better (more fulfilling) life.

(Image: @geraldinewest_)

 THE FALLACY OF FREEDOM

There are people out there trying to sell the idea that living life on our terms means absolute freedom. To do whatever we want, whenever we want. Who wouldn’t want to buy that?

But... is it real?

Why so many millionaires and billionaires still choose to work

Have you ever wondered why you see so many super-rich people still working? Yes, some might still have a sense of purpose to fulfil. But for others, it’s because on some level they still NEED to work.

For some, it’s financial. A multi-millionaire lifestyle is expensive to maintain. The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated to fund a lifestyle like Madonna or the Beckhams you would need to be worth a cool ￡108mn.

But for others, particularly billionaires, the need to continue working is psychological. With their whole identity linked to their status and achievements, their need to be No.1 and stay No.1. makes it almost impossible for them to relinquish control. They’re not a slave to corporate but a slave to success.

If you want more freedom of time, you will have to hire people to do the things taking up your time. If you want more freedom in what you can buy, the “stuff” you buy will need to be maintained. (A $605mn superyacht costs $60mn a year to maintain.) In most cases, more “freedom” means needing more money and having more responsibility.

It’s also important to remember, regardless of how wealthy we are, we will always have someone to answer to. Shareholders, clients, customers, employees, the government, the people in our lives. We will always have responsibilities. And if COVID has taught us anything, even if a billionaire, we are never fully in control of what happens in our lives.

SO, WHAT IS LIVING LIFE ON YOUR TERMS REALLY?

Living life on your terms means you are consciously making choices true to YOU. Choices that allow you to experience what YOU deeply want to experience in life. Choices that are good for you – mentally, emotionally, physically.

Not what social media says you “should” be experiencing. Not what people are boasting (insecurely) about what they’re experiencing on Facebook/Insta. Not what the celebrities, self-proclaimed entrepreneurs, millionaires and billionaires in the world say you “should” be experiencing. What YOU want to experience.

So if working in corporate makes you happy – great. If working part-time and earning just enough money to cover the bills so you can surf, paint or volunteer for the rest of your time makes you happy – great. If working 80-hour weeks to become a multimillionaire makes you happy – great.  As long as it’s your choice based on what you truly want, not what you think you “should” want, you’re living life on your terms. Once you've made that decision, it's having the strength of character to not get sucked into what everyone else is doing and staying true to you.

 NOW SOMETHING YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO HEAR (SORRY!)

Here’s the cold, hard truth. If you’re working an 80-hour week in corporate and hating it, you’re STILL living life on your terms. Because this is still a choice YOU are making. The difference is it’s based on your subconscious terms, not your conscious terms. Your subconscious is the part of you programmed to keep you alive. Guaranteed survival are its terms. Anything that does not meet or threatens these terms is assumed deadly and must be avoided at all costs. (Dramatic I know. The subconscious is protective. I didn’t say smart.)

It also decides our habits. Thinking about and making new choices requires calories. This goes against our subconscious’ terms of survival. To reserve energy it programmes habitual ways of thinking and behaving, causing us to be in “autopilot” approximately 90% of the time.

Going back to hating your 80-hour workweek. Now, on a conscious level, you know you want to work fewer hours. You want to say “No,” and establish healthier boundaries. Or quit and work for a company that advocates work-life balance. Or work for yourself. But you don’t. Why? Because the outcomes of those choices are unknown. And the subconscious is terrified of the unknown. Without any guarantee those choices are safe and will lead to something better, the subconscious will keep you where you are.

Let’s imagine you want to quit corporate and start your own business. But it’s something you’ve never done before. Your subconscious will say, “So let me get this straight. You want me to quit a job that is underpinning our whole, entire mental, emotional and physical survival for something that, chances are, will put us in a box, 6 feet under? Are you cray-cray?!” At which point it will flood your mind with images of your business failing, you losing everything and within 24 hours living on the streets.

Or worse...

(If you can remember this film, I'm guessing, like me, you had a Walkman growing up, not an iPod.)

Your subconscious will tell you anything (e.g. “You’re not good enough/capable enough.” “Don't go that way dummy, you will die.” etc.) to deter you from the unknown. (Like I said, dramatic and protective. Not smart.)

We stay in situations we know on a CONSCIOUS level are not right for us because our subconscious knows we can survive there. Only when the threat of “death” in our current situation is greater than the threat of "death" in the new situation will the subconscious be convinced to move into the unknown.

Living Life On Our Terms Means Being Accountable

Sometimes we look outward to make someone or something else responsible for our inability to change our circumstances. It's easier to blame our boss, company, the market, our spouse for our unfortunate situation than to be accountable for our own lives. But nothing and no one is forcing you stay in your current siutation. You could take action towards changing your circumstances if you wanted to.

What’s making you feel like you don’t have a choice, and paralysing you, is your subconscious. Because to your subconscious all other options are unknown (and lead to death). “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. But the moment you blame someone or something else for “forcing you” to stay in your situation, you have disempowered yourself. You have placed the locus of control of your life outside of you. The moment you take accountability for your life and your responses to life. The moment you accept this is a choice you’re making for now, until such time you can make a different choice, you’ve put yourself back in the driving seat of your life. You are living life on your terms. From a place of conscious choice.

THE KEY POINT

Living life on your terms is NOT absolute freedom, complete control over your time or having little to no responsibility. Like calorie-free ice cream, these don’t exist (can someone please invent this already?!). If you live with this expectation you will always face disappointment. Disappointment that, over time, will eat away at your hope and stop you from taking the action required to change your life.

Living life on your terms IS taking charge of your choices: making them from a place of conscious choice, not subconscious habit or fear. It’s making choices that might not necessarily feel good initially but are the best thing for your body, mind and soul. It’s being happy with your choices, changing them if you’re not happy with them or making peace with them and the situation until such a time you can make a different choice.

If you want to have a different life, you have to start making different choices. What does a different life look like to you?

How clear are you on the life and career you want?

Not clear? Don’t worry!

I’m writing this newsletter to inspire that clarity so we can all create the life and careers we want, and live life on our terms. I also want to create a community of support, experience-sharing and encouragement to create safety in making different choices.

Help me to help you. What content would you like to receive in this newsletter? What tips, advice, insights would be most valuable to you? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time.

Zeta x

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