Why Personal Freedom Is Important

While defining your version of personal freedom, you probably discovered there are many different kinds of freedom.

Let’s look at each in a little more detail and find out why each type is so crucial.

 

Freedom of Time

When you’re not bound to someone else’s clock, you have the freedom to do what you want with your time – it’s up to you how you spend the 24 hours you have in a day.

You don’t have to have every day free to experience freedom of time either.

What if you worked four days a week? Or had one afternoon off every week? Reflect on how much downtime you would need to feel free from life’s hustle and bustle.

You have to balance how much freedom of time means to you, versus how affluent a lifestyle you may want. A change in your career might mean you have to downsize your home or spending, but would more free time to do what you want balance that out?  This is a personal decision of course, and it is one clearly worth examining.

Freedom of Choice

You want to be able to live life on your own terms. You want to choose where to live and what kind of job to have. You want to make your own decisions regarding your family without interference from outsiders.

Consider some of the freedoms you might choose for yourself:

• The freedom to travel by living more simply or because you’ve accepted a job which gives you this opportunity.

• The freedom of embracing a simpler life because you’ve chosen to give up the trappings of modern society. You choose to live in a way more harmonious with your environment or system of beliefs.

• The freedom of being able to pick up and leave quickly by choosing to rent over owning a home.

• The freedom to enjoy retirement entirely on your own terms, culminating a lifetime of passion and joy, by investing now for your vision of this future.

Financial Freedom

People desire economic freedom because it allows them other freedoms as well.

For example, if you have economic freedom, you won’t need to work as many hours which will help you have more freedom of time.

You also have location freedom because you have the money to move wherever you wish, and freedom of choice to live the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of.

Financial freedom might not be as out-of-reach as you think, either. For example, if you want to live a simple lifestyle, it takes less money to be content. Or if you’d love to live in an exotic locale, you can focus on the places that have a much lower cost of living. This way so you don’t need as much in the bank to enjoy luxury.

Consider not only the amount of money you would need to be financially free but also the lifestyle you crave. The two can work together to make it easier to end up where you want to be in life.

Freedom from Fear

This is the freedom not to have to live under the pall of worry, and the way it influences a lot of our decisions and other personal liberties.

For example, when we’re afraid of not having enough money to support our family, we give up the freedom to choose a job we love for the sake of having a steady paycheck.

When we’re afraid of living life alone and without support, we tend to stay in negative relationships, even abusive ones, rather than step out on our own.

So how do we explore freedom from fear? We do it when we stop letting fear rule us, and when we make decisions which reflect a life of fearlessness instead.

Consider these examples and decide how you might break the chains of fear:

• When we choose not to care what other people think of us, we experience freedom from the fear of other people’s opinions.

• When we learn how to stand on our own two feet and recognize we have value and worth, we find we lose the fear of being alone, giving us the strength to leave an abusive relationship.

• When we make a plan on how to live on less, we lose the fear of financial insecurity and free ourselves up to pursue a different career, one more satisfying in the long run.

All kinds of fear hold us back from reaching out and grabbing all manner of freedom with both hands. Anything that limits your thinking or actions is a hindrance to your freedom. All limiting beliefs and inaction come from fear.

[Picture – Noah Silliman -Unsplash]