Continuing on with Life of Freedom
Increase your value
Learning new skills makes you a more valuable employee. It allows you to insist on a raise, gain a promotion, move to another company, or start your own business.
If your skill set includes being an expert in one computer language, push yourself to learn another. Pick up a second language. Or learn how to create a business plan. Being valuable to the world around you gives you a lot more freedom in choosing how you want to live.
It reflects what you can charge for your services and how much your time is worth. Personal freedom means you get to dictate the terms of your employment, not the other way around. Keeping abreast of the current technology gives you the freedom to remain employed and desired as an employee.
Become your own boss
Whether you’re starting your own business or reaching a point in your workplace where you get to call the shots, being your own boss is the epitome of personal freedom in the area of work.
How do you get there?
In the case of the entrepreneur, you start with a good idea, a solid plan, and a lot of guts. After all, it’s a scary thing to step out into the business world entirely on your own.
If this is the route, you want to take, start with finding ways to dip your toes in the pool. You might want to keep your day job and begin by exploring your new career in your downtime. Eventually, you’ll want to start increasing the time you spend in your business to the point where you’re ready to take the plunge and start working fulltime for yourself.
If you’re taking the route of wanting more authority at work, you might have to spend some time working up the ranks in your workplace.
Explore what needs to happen to be promoted to positions of authority. If you need a certification or some additional education to leap into your dream job, go out there and get it!
You’re never going to make it if you sit around doing nothing and hoping something will happen. You have to make change possible at every opportunity.
This is another kind of personal freedom, where you direct your fate by whatever means necessary.
Live Your Passion
You spend a considerable percentage of your life working. There’s nothing worse than going to a job you hate every day. It becomes drudgery, something to suffer through for the sake of a paycheck.
The most significant change you can ever make in terms of personal freedom is to find out how to pursue your passion. Choosing a job you look forward to every day, means you’re living a life of passion in a richer and fuller sense than you ever had before.
Sometimes the switch from something steady and reliable to something new and exciting might feel a little risky. Choose to be courageous though. Imagine how amazing it’s going to feel when you get to do what you love every day!
Financial Freedom
Embrace financial freedom
Being trapped by mountains of debt is crippling and allows others to control you, whether it’s your bank or a dozen other debtors. If things get bad enough, they’ll be calling all the shots on every penny you earn.
Here’s where a solid financial plan becomes your road to personal freedom.
Budget yourself. Make a plan to pay down your debt. Take charge of how your money is spent, and where it’s going. You’re going to have to include learning how to live within your means. If you find yourself overspending frequently, it’s time to do things differently.
Take on an abundance mindset
By discovering the freedom of having enough money, at least in your perception of things, you’ll free yourself from financial worry.
Does that mean you need more cash in the bank? Not at all. An abundance mindset helps you to realize you already have enough. It’s how you’re living or spending that might have to change.
Start with gratitude for what you have and go from there. Gratitude imbues freedom.
Cut that out
Just how are you spending your money? Are you putting yourself in debt just to live in the way you feel you ought to?
Letting others determine how you spend your money gives them the power, and you’re left without financial freedom. Every dollar you make goes to what somebody else thinks you should have, or to pay for items needed to ‘keep up appearances.’
Personal freedom means taking control of your spending. What are you paying for that you don’t really care about? Cut those expenses and don’t worry if everyone else thinks you need those items or services.
Create a budget designed just for you. Live within your means, your way, and quit worrying about what the rest of the world thinks. These actions are the only way you will have the financial freedom you desire.
Create an emergency fund
Nothing drains finances and steals away personal freedom like an unexpected financial hardship. To secure yourself against this kind of crisis, create an emergency fund capable of handling everything from a nasty auto repair bill to time off work for illness.
How much should be in your fund? Honestly, as much as you can comfortably squirrel away. Having extra set aside preserves your freedom and autonomy in a difficult situation. More is always better.
Manage your retirement
There’s a school of thought which says you have to save like crazy for your retirement, which means depriving yourself now.
Here is where a lot of people give up a lot of their personal freedom. But is it worth losing sight of your goals for the sake of a 401k or some nebulous goal of traveling ‘someday’?
While it pays to be sensible on savings for some things in the future, it’s also good to express your personal freedom in these aspects too.
Ask what personal freedom look like for you in the future. Your retirement can look however you want it to. What if you planned for a different retirement, one where you can live your passion, even in your final years?
Maybe you want to work part-time at the thing you love well into your 80s. Or perhaps you want to retire early. Decide now what you want your retirement to look like and then set up a financial plan to make it happen.
[Picture – Razvan Chisu – Unsplash]
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