Lifestyle Redesigned

“Some think it’s holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it’s letting go” – Unknown

I have to tell you, used to love my job.  Sure, there were some really bad days, stress, and everything else that goes along with having a job, but there were good things too.  I like the people I work with, my management supported me, my hours were flexible, the office was close to home, and I made a decent wage.  Over the last few years the good things have slowly eroded away leaving me with more bad than good.

First it was the location, the company moved from a five minute commute from home to a 45 minute to 1 hour plus drive.  That is a lot of extra time out of my day, gas expenses went up, as well as wear and tear on my vehicle.  Sure, people do that kind of commute every day, but when you had a 5 minute trip for 4 years losing 2 more hours from your day really sucks.

Second, the company started laying off people, cutting costs, and changing the culture to work more with less.  It’s great for the companies bottom line, they are still very profitable.  It’s horrible for employee moral.  It burns people out and pisses them off.  Companies abuse employees in this manner because they know they can get away with it.

Third, I still love the people I work with, but due to the culture change and added stress they are unhappy.  When everyone is unhappy it is not a fun place to work.  People are short with others for no apparent reason because they are stressed and they really don’t give it their all like they used to.  Douchbag bosses take note, the once overly productive employees that you used to have will not work as hard when you fire their friends and expect them to pick up their work for the same pay and longer hours.  So good people are leaving the company for elsewhere.

This lead us to number four, management.  A friend of mine used to say that you are one management change away from unemployment.  I got a new Vice President that hasn’t liked me from the start.  I’m not sure why as I’ve always gotten accolades, but this guy is a complete dick.  I did find out he is friends with a director at our company who I’ve had many disagreements with.  Maybe he’s finally able to enact his revenge.

Whatever the reason my day is now one of displeasure.  I hate going into the office, and avoid walking by his office at all times.  Feeling like you have a target on your back is not a good feeling.

The bottom line is I’m not happy and it is taking a hold on my health.  I have chronic insomnia, heart palpitations, gained 30 pounds yet lost my appetite, I drink a lot, and have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.  Stress and depression.  It’s a killer.

Letting Go

“A weak man has doubts before a decision. A strong man has them afterwards.”     Carl Kraus

I’ve had enough.  I can be irrational at times which doesn’t always work out in my best interest.  But I decided I have to leave this job before it killed me.  And besides, life is too short not to be happy.  I’d been saving money for a few months, but figured I need till at least June of this year before I would be ready to leave.  Then the new V.P. came on board and I new I had to kick things in high gear.

I spent a week or two feeling sorry for myself.  Then I decided – I’m out.  I made it a reality.  I booked a 2 week trip to Thailand at the middle of February.  Marked two weeks before on my calander as “independence day” and wrote my resignation letter.  I won’t turn the letter in for another month, but it felt good to right and made things real.

I don’t have another job to go to.  I’m taking a huge risk in the worst economy since the Great Depression.  I have my doubts, but I’ve made the decision and I’m not turning back now.  I need a better life.

Some people that have depression say that they want their life back.  I don’t.  I want a better life than what I had, the one I had was why I was depressed in the first place.

Now you maybe wondering why I decided to book a two week trip to Thailand when I don’t have a job and limited savings.  I need to get away, do some soul searching, and come back with a game plan.  Plus, I may not get another chance to travel for quite some time, better have a great memory to get me through the stormy waters ahead.

I though I was being the strong person by persevering through the difficulties, dealing with the stress, and hating my life for a steady paycheck.  But I realized sometime it takes a stronger person to let go, especially in times of adversity and risk.

Image: Phaitoon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

People want to change their lives.  Not all of them, but surely enough of them.  They often know what they don’t want, but never take the time to illustrate or document the life that they really want.  If asked you’ll find that most give similar answers.  Make more money.  Work less.  Travel more.  Drive a nice car.  Lose weight.  Have a supermodel girlfriend.  They sound specific, but they are really just generalities of what they think would make them happy.  They need to dig deeper to understand and define what their dream life would really look like if they had it.

You also need to understand the meaning of what an answer like ‘make more money’ really means to you.  For some people it may mean security, others independence.  But understanding the underlying need will help you realize your goals and make them more tangible.  That makes them more attainable.

I must admit I’m not happy with my life and I aim to change it.  The problem for me is that I really didn’t know what I wanted.  When I asked my self the question I would respond with the same answers listed above.  That is until my recent trip to Pattaya Thailand.  Traveling alone gave me plenty of time to think and contemplate things.  I dug down and really looked at my life.  I saw what I didn’t want and I saw what would make me happy.  I started to formulate a plan with real goals.  Things that I could act on daily.

One of the most important things I did was to write the plan down.  It began to not only take shape, but I started to see how changing my life into the one I wanted was actually possible.  I set reasonable goals, but ones that also were a bit of a stretch.  I didn’t put down “buy a Ferrari and date a supermodel within one year.”  Those aren’t even aspirations in my mind at this point, that’s not to say I wouldn’t enjoy them if they came along.  I might have thought that type of life would have been my dream in the past, but looking deeper that’s not really what would make me happy.

Now that I have a clear set of goals and a reasonable plan to achieve them, I can start acting.  Each day I take steps towards meeting those goals.  If I have to prioritize things in a day, those actions that will help me get to the end goal go to the top of the list.  Each little step helps the feeling of accomplishment so that you can keep pushing forward.

Will I reach that life that I really want?  At this point I’m hopeful.  But I’ve let myself down before.  That’s the final piece of the puzzle.  Having the mindset to carry through.  This is the toughest part of all.  I need to break myself of the pattern of unproductive behavior and keep going down the road of activity and success.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying ‘working for the man’ before.  It is one that I think is a bit worn out, but one that I still use from time to time, usually jokingly.  I work for someone else at my full time day job.  The pay is good and it makes it hard for me to leave.  But I know in my heart that the only man I want to work for is myself.

I don’t relish getting up and going to work on a schedule.  I savor my freedom and independence, something that you must compromise on when you work for someone else.  You have to ask for permission to do things.  May I have a day off?  Can I take two weeks vacation?  Can I work from home?  Plus they tell you how much vacation time or sick time you can have.  I enjoy traveling and the 3 weeks per year I get is not enough for me.  But I press on, for the security of the paycheck.  Which in actuality isn’t that secure.  They can fire you anytime they like.

My goal is to work for myself.  To be my own boss.  However there are some obstacles in the way that prevent me from doing this.  I have a lot of debt and monthly bills, I haven’t built up a second income, I don’t have much in savings,  and I’m not sure contracting in this job climate is worth the risk.  So I’ve come up with a plan to make this a reality.

First is tackling my debt.  My current plan should have me out of credit card debt in less than a year.  Then I plan to either trade my car in on something less luxurious, or pay it off.  That would take another year.  There isn’t much I can do about my house.  I would love to sell it and get something with a smaller monthly payment.  But I’m just about underwater in my home value at this point.  However with no car payment or credit card payments my monthly expenses will be greatly reduced.

Next is getting my second income to a point where I could lose my job and still have a good income to live off of.  This is no small task I know, but one that is achievable with some hard work.  Of course that is the hard part.  Working a full time job then coming home and working a second one is not that entertaining.  But I know it has to be done so I am going to hit it hard for the next year.  It will also allow me to pay off my debt faster and get some money in the bank.

This plan should put me in a great position by April 2012.  At which point I hope to quit my job and start working for myself.  Being the scardy-cat that I am, I’ll also look for short term contracting work in my chosen profession.  Keeping  my skills sharp in case I need to go back to that.

I look forward to working for myself.  I realize it is not for everyone, but you have to do what is right for you.  I cherish my independence and plan on getting it back.

Today I’m going to talk about two of my favorite subjects, Travel and Thailand.  There is a travel forum that I am a part of where they were talking about the good parts of Thailand.  So often in the news and in the rumor mills across the globe you only hear about the bad stuff.  So true from the long term travelers to Thailand.  After being there for a while they all seem to become jaded and talk only of the bad stuff.  I am always disjointed when I see this.  If you hate it so much why to you keep returning, or for those who are there for the long haul, why do you stay?  So I’m going to give you my take on Thailand and why I love Pattaya.

When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.

Thailand Has Great Food

I love Thai food, and there is no better place to get it than in Thailand.  Should be enough said, but it really only scratches the surface.  Thailand has a mixed bag of cultural cusine that is surely top notch.  From the local fair and global favorite Thai foods it only gets more interesting from there.  There are local dishes from the different regions of the country that you won’t find in any restaurant in the U.S..  This is some truely amazing stuff.

You will also get a wide cultural mix, and there is a heavy Chinese influence due to the past history with Chinese traders, but that is another story.  But in any of the major tourist destinations you will find a wide variety of foods from around the world.  American, European, Asian, Indian, you name it and someone has opened a restaurant to cater to it.

Street Food.  Did I mention I like street food?  Oh hell yes.  They have some amazing stuff you can get off the carts.  From fresh fruits and kebabs to deep fried hot dogs in various Thai sauces.  Umm-Umm good.  Plus some of those food carts are attached to motorcycles so they can drive them around town, how cool is that?

Both Pattaya Thailand and Bangkok have some of the greatest street food that I’ve had the pleasure to sample.  Just stay away from the bug cart.  I ain’t Andrew Zimmerman and I don’t play him in my fantasy world either.  Chicken Satay?  Yes Please.  Fried Scorpion?  I think I’ll pass.

The Beaches In Thailand

Some of the best beaches I’ve been to, including the Caribbean and Mexico.  Powdery white sand and a tropical blue green ocean.  Some of the beaches I go to aren’t in any guide book and are like a forgotten beach paradise — much like the movie The Beach.  Which by the way was filmed in Thailand.

That is not to say that all beaches are awesome in Thailand.  It is like any other country some are better than others.  The Pattaya beaches for instances are less than spectacular.  However if you head over to Jomtien you will get a whole ‘nother, better beach.

Thai Culture And Sightseeing

I’m a self admitted history snob and wanna be Indiana Jones.  However my day job has me sitting infront of a computer all day pretending to be useful to the world at large.  I exercise my fantasy life by traveling to far off exotic places like Thailand to see the sights, and it has some amazing stuff.

From the Wats (Temples) to the palaces and other historical structures, you can’t run out of things to see and do.  I for one love taking photos and can fill up a memory card in a day.  The ancient ruins and Buddha statues are a marvel to behold.  I think I need to do a post on the great things to visit in Thailand and give some photo examples.

Now I’ll admit this is not an exhaustive list of why I love to travel to Thailand, but it does give you  some of the highlights.  I truly love this country and look forward to the chance to go back and visit any time I can manage.  Sure there are a lot of negatives that are said about the place.  But most of those things are said by people that have never ventured outside their own country or their comfort zone to some place exotic.  Live a little and you can see the world through a whole different set of eyes.  And who knows, you might even like it!

I never used to live such a sedentary lifestyle. Now I’m sitting on my but almost all of my waking hours staring at a monitor and typing on a keyboard. Between my 9-to-5 job and my own business that I’ve started up, I never seem to get away from it to get any exercise – or do much of anything else.

I’ve found that my productivity and energy levels have dipped to a record low. In this type of state I get less done in more time – not what most people are striving for. So how did I change this? I started getting a little bit of exercise everyday. First step was to just get moving. I go out for walks every night for 45 minutes. I do this just after dinner and before it gets too late and screws up the the second part of the adjustment – getting more sleep.

I had been working late into the night and surviving on less than 5 hours of sleep a night. I though I was being driven. The truth was the only thing that was being driven was my productivity – straight into the ground. Now I head to bed by 11 and get a full 7 – 8 hours of sleep. And with a little exercise everyday I now sleep better as well.

Next step, which I’m about to embark on is adding an hour workout session. Yes, exercise twice a day. The walks are nice to get the blood flowing and clear the head, but they don’t constitute real exercise in my eyes. I was a lot more active before, and plan to get back to that again. Plus, sitting in front of a computer for most of the day I also put on a good 25 pounds of unwanted fat. That has to go as well.

So my own personal prescription is 1 hour of cardio in the morning and a 45 minute walk after dinner, followed by a good nights sleep. We’ll see how much better I’m feeling and looking in a month. If present indicators are indicative of future results, I’ll have to say I’ll be looking and feeling pretty darn good.

And to take things to the next level, I’m looking at adding in some weight training during my lunch hour. I have a gym membership to a health club near my new office, so it’s time to start using what I’m paying for. The catch will be the fourth part of the dynamic – eating healthy. I’ll need to start bringing my lunch and eating at my desk.

You need to eat healthy in order to feel healthy, and to full this lifestyle change of working out several time a day. It isn’t that hard to do, except fitting it into my already hectic schedule. I’ll need to find time to exercise, grocery shop, cook, and work two jobs…the next question will be if there will be time for anything else? I’m not too sure at the moment. I’ve already cut back on my time in front of the television and replaced it with time working in front of my computer. I record all my favorite shows, and catch up on them when I’m feeling burned out and don’t want to do anymore work. I know I’ll also have to be a little more productive on the weekends as well.

The work and health dynamic is something we all need to consider. What good is working hard and earning money if you are fat, unhealthy, unhappy, and on your way to an early grave. Just something to think about.

Well I think it is official, the true Internet Marketing Gurus for the past few years have left the building. These guys were the mentors to a lot of us looking to escape the rat race and build a life that is better for ourselves. For me it was the dream to escape the cubicle and travel. That dream is still alive for me thanks to them. They taught me a lot while they were online, to to them I say thank you.

Griz has let his secondary domain go, his blogspot blog hasn’t been updated since his “facelift” post. Vic and Allyn have stopped posting as has Ben. Leo is taking a break while he works on a big project. Dave has picked up the torch, and although he still calls himself a newb, the student has become a teacher, and a very good one at that.

So it is time to get to work. Their sites are still online, and if you need information it is all still there – for now. But it is time to stop reading and get to work on your own sites. Take the knowledge they have given you and use it to realize your dreams, whatever they are.

For me, it means putting the nose to the grind stone and cranking out content and backlinks. I’m finding my groove, but my main problem has always been motivation. It is tough to put in a full day at work then come home and crank out a few more hours. But like anything in life, it comes down how bad do you want it.

For me, I realize it is now or never. Though my job is good, I find myself dreading the daily grind sitting in a cubicle being a cog in a big corporation. As my company grows bigger it is only going to get worse. I will be free from this job and traveling the world at the end of the next 12 months. July 4th, 2011 is my independence day. I’m marking the calendar, I want it bad now, and I’m willing to put in the work to get it…are you?

P.S. – I’m now going to use this blog to chronicle my journey, more for my own benefit by keeping myself accountable, but I’ll add some tips and advice, and try and pick up a small torch where my mentors left off. Paying it forward as they say.

Today I wanted to give you an update to the first day of starting the new business. I have to say it was kind of a crap start in all honesty. I spent the majority of Friday night working on a redesign on a website I promised I would forget about until I launched the rest of my projects. It’s a passion of mine and pretty hard to stay away from. I really believe it will turn into something big by the end of next year, if I put in the time and effort. However it is distracting as I need to get some other projects done. So I worked on design, getting some articles submitted, and of course did more ‘research’ on the web. Before I knew it, it was almost four in the morning. But I got a lot of stuff done, just not the things I had planned.

Now as for this morning, not really going gangbusters. Got up early, 10am (that’s early after a 4am night) and thought I would get after it today and launch those websites I have been planning for the weekend. I surfed the web and did nothing in stead. I spend time coming up with new ideas and not implementing anything…it is starting to piss me off and I know it is costing me money. Time just flys by. I need strict goals to stick to…I need to teach myself discipline and execution. If the method I implement doesn’t work out well…as least I did something. I’m going to take Leo Demilio’s advice from his Internet Marketing site and start doing my work off line. If you haven’t read Leo yet, you really should. He is a true marketer and gives a different angle to the Niche Marketing business that I think is more long term than a lot of the other promote and forget guys.

Well it is time for me to get offline and get back to work. I’ve got things to do before I can call this day worthwhile, and a have to get to sleep so I can go play golf tomorrow.

New Goal: Execute My Current Plan Till The End Of The Month. Then Judge the results. No more distractions and work off line for the remainder of March. (Though I’ll still be keeping up here).

I thought this really sets the tone of the relaunch – of my site and my life.

I’ve been struggling to find a proper direction for this site since I started it 10 months ago. It sure took me long enough, heck it takes less time for a baby to be born. But that is kind of what this site is like, my new baby. The new heading for this site is all about lifestyle design. In other words, living the life the way you want to live and not the way people think we should, or people expect us to live. Enjoy things today and not putting them off till tomorrow, or when we are too old to enjoy them. In essence the art of strategically making your life the most fulfilling it can be right now.

So how did I decide on Lifestyle Redesign as my new focus? It is the major focus of my life right at this moment in time. I want to free myself from the life I’ve unconsciously developed over the course of the last 30 some years through wrong decisions, or worse – not making decisions and allowing things to go along as they may. I wanted something more from life and I awoke one day determined to get it. My original problem was that I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it.

I went back to old school basics – brainstorming, dreaming, and goal setting. I took a weekend and listed out my goals and dreams, and what I wanted to do and have over the next ten years. I started broad and worked back to things that I could achieve every year, quarter, and month. Now I didn’t get that detailed execpt for the first year, the other nine I left as broader goals. It really helped me outline what I wanted out of life.

Some of the things on my list:

• Workless – travel more
• More free time
• Not working for someone else
• Learn a foreign language (or two)
• Visit with my family and friends more
• Take up skiing again – in the Swiss alps
• Travel across the world
• And the list goes on…

I noticed that the majority of my items revolved on free time, working for myself, and travel. How would I achieve these things? My first step was to find a way to make money that did not require me to be tied down to one place and work for someone else. The problem was I had to do this while I was tied down to one place and working for someone else…bummer. This meant my entire free time would be dedicated to trying to start a second business. I would have to sacrifice friends, family, and social life for the greater long term good. This would not be fun, but I need to treat it like building a business.

So what type of business did I decide to build? Marketing. Internet Marketing to be specific. I started looking into it about the same time I started this site. I read all the free information I could, took in the good, got duped by some bad, but by November of 2009 I had figured out a business plan. Then I took a vacation, and with the holidays didn’t do much of anything till January of 2010. I started to press forward and started to make some money online.

February rolled around and I really started to put some work in. I got distracted on more than a few occasions and started reading again instead of doing. Which is where this site’s new direction came from. Documenting my journey to lifestyle redesign and making myself accountable. I’ll probably make some long informative posts here, but most will be updates on goals and progress so that I can keep myself accountable.

So what does march hold in store for me? I have 10 sites that either need to be started from the ground up, or have more content added and a serious marketing campaign needs to be done on all properties. For these sites, I’ll be trying 3 separate techniques to try and evaluate if one works better than the other for me.

Where do I stand currently? One site fully developed, 4 more partially developed, and 5 that need to be built from scratch.

March Goals:

• Launch all 10 Sites
• Run a full marketing campaign on each one
• Increase income from $35 a month

Long Term Goals

• Make $1,000 Per Month by the End of June
• Make $3,000 Per Month by end of September
• Make $6,000 Per Month by end of Year

These are pretty lofty goals for sure, but I believe they are attainable. I’ve be researching and testing for almost a year now, so I don’t consider myself a complete beginner. I wouldn’t have been able to make those type of goals a year ago and have a rats ass chance of making them. It is going to take a lot of hard work and dedication. I know what needs to be done, the question is whether I have the drive to do it…only time will tell. But quitting my job by Jan 1, 2011 is my goal. At that time I’ll be sitting on the beach in Thailand drinking a Singha and appreciating what my new life has to offer.

So from today on, I’m committing to myself and the rest of the interwebs to give up my friends, family, and social life for one year and work my ass off to have a better more fulfilling life. Here’s to making lifestyle redesign a reality…Cheers!

Well I’m a little late in getting my new years resolutions for 2010 together, but at least they are finally done. I typically don’t do your standard new years resolutions, I think they are usually too general and too easy to break. Instead, I like to take a weekend and set out my goals for the year. Then I break them down into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and finally daily goals. I like to have a massive action plan to achieve my goals. It usually works for me. However the last few years I’ve been in a funk and have not set any goals for myself, and to be brutally honest I achieved next to nothing. The last two years passed by with next to no real accomplishments. This year is going to be different.

First I start off with my yearly goals. I try to break them down by groups. The groups for this year are financial, personal, health & fitness, things I want, and lifestyle. From there I brain storm how I want my life to be at the end of the year and come up with some specific goals for each. Goals that are too broad are way to easy to miss. For example ‘lose weight’ or ‘get in shape’ are too broad of goals. I want to lose 20 lbs of fat, gain 10 lbs of muscle, and be a ripped 185. I want to be in the best shape of my life. Those are specific goals. You can break them down further so you have something to achieve monthly and daily. You can put real milestones in place.

My Goals for 2010

Financial

• Make a full time income of 70K a year from my side work
• Quit my regualr job by Nov. of this year and go to contract work
• Save 10% of my salary for retirement
• Payoff all my debt / live debt free (aside from mortgage and car payment)

Personal

• Stay in better contact with friends and family (call or email once per week)
• Go out on one date per month
• Go out for happy hour/dinner/entertainment one night a month
• Get back into SCUBA (get my divemasters)
• Visit my family at least once a year

Health & Fitness

• Be in the best shape of my life by November (lose 20lbs of fat, gain 10lbs of muscle, and be a ripped 185)
• Hike at least 1 time a month
• Eat a clean and health lifestyle
• Cut down drinking alcohol – only with friends or on special occasions
• Quit Chewing tobacco

Things

• Buy a new car
• Travel to Thailand for an entire month

Lifestyle

• Always dress to impress at work
• Get a new wardrobe (after I lose the weight)
• Be well kept and stylish in my free time
• Keep a clean house (clean once every two weeks)
• Keep close cleaned and pressed (once per week)

The the nice thing about setting goals is that you can track of what you are doing to make sure you accomplish them. When you set your daily or weekly to do lists, each item should be helping you realize your goals. Your goals can also be interrelated. You can see a couple of mine, where I must accomplish one, before I can move on to the other. The other nice thing about goal setting is that the list is a living document. You scratch things off as you complete them, and can add more if time allows. You can also reflect back on them everyday and week to judge your progress. This isn’t a list to make at the begining of the year then file away never to be looked at again.

We’ll see how things go. I plan on having monthly and quarterly milestones to keep me on target. It is way to easy for the months to slip away. It is almost the end of January for crying out loud.

Put in another gruelling week of work slogging away at my computer. Nothing beats working for the man. I really love having people tell me what to do all day, and making other people really rich. Then when it comes time for your review, the scoff and sputter and complain that things are tough and all we can give you is 1% raise this year. What a load of balls. If trying to find a way to financial freedom doesn’t get you motivated in situations like this, then I don’t know what will.

I’ve come up with a plan to be free from working from someone else by this time next year. I want the freedom to live and do what I want, and not have to ask permission to take 2 or 3 measly weeks off per year. What a joke that is. Sure there are some nice benefits, but if I can make more money and have my life back I will feel so much the better.

I’d love to be able to pick up stakes and move when the summer is just too hot here in Scottsdale. Get to the mountains for a couple of weeks and cool down. Or move to Thailand or Europe for a couple of months. You just can’t do that in a standard 9 to 5 job. I don’t mind working to make money. I’ll work darn hard at it. I just hate to see all my hard work go to line the pockets of someone else. Someone who pretends like they give a crap about you, but at the first sign of financial hardship would cut you from the payroll faster than you could say pink slip.

So what is this amazing plan? Well it will be essentially taking on a full time second job for the next 6 months and working my ass off. I won’t go into the full details, but a lot of hard work and I should be in a good position by June. Then I’ll reevaluate, before I press on with the next 6 months. In the mean time at work I’m going to building on my skills and getting ready to be able to do some contract work.

My end goal is to have a contract job for 6-9 months out of the year and travel and visit family with the rest of my time. I know it can be done, and I also know it won’t be easy. But there is more to life than going to the office 5 days a week and sometimes more to eke out a living. Working your ass off during the prime of your life so that you can finally retire and enjoy life when you are old. I want that life now. And I’m going to make it happen.