Do you know what your ‘ideal life’ is? The life that would leave you fulfilled daily because you’re working on awesome stuff?

Note I said working? Some of you may have been thinking of lounging on a beach, drink in hand and not a care in the world. I hate to break it to you, but that’s not an ideal life — that’s a fantasy land that will leave you unfulfilled.

How I will be

Meet future Curtis. Not only is he good looking (wait — he is already), he’s smart (check), has a beautiful wife (check) and kids who always listen and never fight (okay, that’s a fantasy).

He gets to spend a few days a week in the mountains. He travels to awesome spots around North America and gets to experience the beauty around him. He participates daily in the homeschooling of his kids.

Yes, he works — mostly writing, but he really only needs an Internet connection two days a week to catch up on email and to take some coaching calls with his clients.

He travels to speak, but takes his family with him most of the time because he hates it when he’s away from them.

Most of his money comes from a business model that is one-to-many. So that’s books, courses, a few plugins. Things he builds once and then many people can benefit from.

He actually does web development still but he’s super picky and charges much more than he currently does. That means he only does web development a couple weeks every quarter.

He does still dig into development of things he finds interesting, but as he wants, and usually for personal projects.

How will you be?

That’s my story of where I will be. What’s your story? If you’re not sure ask yourself:

If I didn’t need money what would I do with my time?

As I said above, I’d spend more time in the mountains (or in the great outdoors) and I’d still help people because I simply can’t stop myself. I want to see people succeed.

There is a problem with that question of how you’d spend your time, even though it’s a good starting point. Money isn’t really a predictor of happiness and an awesome life.

If only I looked that way, if only I had more money, if only I got that job…but since I can’t get that, oh well, it wasn’t meant to be, and I’ll just stay stuck in this lousy place. – Shift for Good (Amazon.ca)

Asking that question gets us too focused on money, and implies wealth being a place of happiness. But happiness is a choice, in large part. Just like being busy is not a sign of success. You can be happy with no money to your name, happy barely making it, and happy with lots of money.

You can also be unhappy in all those states of your financial journey.

Another question to ask yourself is:  What tasks do you currently do that leave you more energized? I know that when I talk to people about how to run their businesses better and help them take steps to earn more without simply adding hours to the day, I get breathless.

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Yes, I literally talk so fast and pace so much that I have to stop to take a deep breath as we talk.

Knowing that I get so energized by that I want to do more of it.

Finally do you know what your purpose is? Do you know why you’re around on this earth?

Mine is:

To help people run an awesome business so they can live the life they want to live

Knowing that allows me to make decisions about what I’m going to do.

If you haven’t figured out what your purpose is then get my free PDF with 10 questions to ask yourself to find your purpose.

The rest of this month I’m going to talk more about how to get to this ideal life in your business.

photo credit: sesen cc