Last Tuesday we talked about your ideal life and how you define what that looks like for you.
For me it means spending time in the mountains, and with my kids. I haven’t yet achieved my ideal, but I know my goal, which means I can start — and stay — on the path.
My first stop is to define a few truths.
What’s true
Let’s talk about this dude I know. He gets to charge well for his services, but he still typically operates by a one-and-done business model. That means he does the work for a single client and then it’s mostly done and he moves on to the next client. He doesn’t get to sell the exact same work over again.
That means that his next project is also a bunch of time spent working for his client. Every dollar has time associated with it, even though he doesn’t bill hourly.
He realizes how blessed he is to work for himself and blessed that he can charge in the top of his field.
He’s blessed that he gets to take off around 4 weeks every Christmas and can travel to his family across the country without missing a beat in his business.
He’s got a lot going for him, but he’s still striving to create his ideal life.
If you haven’t guessed, that person is me, and reading through the above story you can tease out a few new truths about my business if I want to transition to my ideal.
One to many
My main truth is that I need to transition my business from a one-and-done business model to a one-to-many model. Meaning I write a book/course/something, and then sell it many times.
I’ve done that with my current book, Effective Client Email, but it’s not earning enough yet to say that my business runs on a one-to-many business model.
A second truth is that that in order to reach my ideal life, I’m going to need to cut my Internet requirements — as in the days I need to be online. Currently that’s 5 days a week, but if I really want to be able to spend days in the mountains I need to cut that down to 2 days where I require Internet access.
That also comes down to having a business model that earns me many times based on the work for one book/course/thing.
Your truths
What about you? For you to get to your ideal what needs to be true about your business?
Once you’ve broken down your ideal into a few truths you can go about working to make those true.
To get to a one-to-many business model I need to release more products. I need to bring more traffic to my site via guest posting, guest podcasting, and writing posts that get shared more.
I need to drive more people to my email list and then market to it effectively.
Having identified my action steps, now I can start breaking those down into smaller bits and start actually accomplishing them.
Way too many people (myself included at times) dream of their ideal business and just keep dreaming. They don’t figure out what needs to be true to get to their ideal. They don’t then break the truths down into action items.
But they dream and dream and dream yet continue to wonder why they can’t achieve their ideal life.
[Tweet “Way too many people dream of their ideal business and just keep dreaming, never taking action.”]
Without a solid plan you’re not going to get to your ideal. Without defined steps to take day in, day out, you’re not going to get to your ideal.
If you need some help getting that plan and putting your steps into action I’d love to talk to you.
Oh, and don’t forget to get my free PDF of 8 Questions to Ask Yourself to Find Your Purpose just below the content here.
photo credit: barneymoss cc
2 responses to “This must be true for your ideal life”
Hey Curtis!
I’ve been thinking along similar lines lately too, turns out my “ideal life” is also quite similar to yours. At the end of last year I was so burned out and sick from working that I knew something had to change.
Since then it’s been a long slow process but I can definitely see things getting better. Like you, I’m also working with the one-and-done business model and I found that one thing that has really helped was to double my rate and cut my working hours in half. In theory, once I realized that I didn’t actually need bucketloads of cash, then it all gets easier. In theory. I’m still working on that part, changing the mindset that seems ingrained in most of our society that is “more is better.”
Thanks so much for writing your blog, even though I may not comment very often (if at all…I think this is the first!?) I do read all your posts and you’ve definitely helped change the way I think about my work for the better 🙂
Yup this is the first comment, and I’m happy to hear from you. I’d like to raise my rates even more for 1 off projects but even at that I’m going to spend that client project time looking at things that will yield a product for my business after. I likely won’t build the whole thing for the client, but the base that I can then build more to a proper product for me.