Changes in life don’t always come easy. If you have been following us from the beginning you know it hasn’t been easy for us either. Now that we are celebrating one year of blogging and the launch of our YouTube channel, we thought it was time to tell you the 10 things you need to do to change your life, as we did.
1 – Acknowledge you need a change
The first thing you need to do if you want to change your life is to actually acknowledge that things are not going the way you had envisioned and that change is exactly what you want and need.
One day it hit us that we were stuck in the rat race, working to pay a hefty mortgage and bills without doing any proper “living “. We did not have time for family and friends, we were frustrated with the way our company was going, I was having an overwhelming amount of work and James was simply demotivated. Furthermore, we realized were not adding anything to the world and felt an urging need to do something that would make a difference to society.
2 – Take 100% responsibility for your life and commit to change
Only you are responsible for your life, for the things you do or don’t do, for going or not going, for allowing things to happen or stopping them. If you want to change your life, realizing this is fundamental because it puts the power of change in your own hands.
The minute we took the rein of our lives things started to change. Because we made it change. We started looking for alternative ways of making a living while doing the things we love. We watched hours on end of inspirational, motivational and “how to” videos to give us the push we needed to start moulding our new life.
3 – Find your purpose
If you are doing things without purpose you are just going through life, living the rat race as a hamster in a wheel. When I say purpose I’m not talking about paying the bills. That is not a life purpose it is just a necessity for most of us.
We were immensely lucky to have been offered a life-changing book called The Success Principles
4 – Pull your dreams out of the trunk
Another important step to change your life and turn it into the life you always wanted is to retrieve your old dream. Go back in time, since you were a child, and pull them out of the trunk. Can you still remember them? What were the things that you did that really made you happy? That made your heart full of joy?
My trip back in time took me to a place where I had time to be with my friends, travel and read, where my creativity was expressed by writing, drawing and painting and where my soul expanded by making new friends and by helping people who crossed my path. Nowadays I have a new passion, yoga, that actually triggered my life-changing process. (Check the 6 Pillars of Blissful Happiness)
In addition to all these things I always knew I wanted to make a difference to society, but I only figured that one out recently, during a
James, on the other hand, is a creative mind and a nature lover. He is a country boy with a passion for animals ( and animals for him). His soul craves travels, motion, communication and getting involved to help make a difference. He was a windsurfer for many years and loves the immense freedom of swimming in the deep waters of the ocean and the heat of the topics, but
5 – Figure out a way to make money with what you love to do
Once you get passed the steps of finding your purpose and your passions the next step is to find a way to make money with them. Make a list of all your passions than write in front of each one how you could monetize each passion. Let your mind go loose and creative. Don’t limit your options by thinking that your idea is silly, crazy or that you are too old or too young or don’t have the skills to take it to a money making level. Just write down what comes to you mind.-
In our case, we took what we had in common and first came up with the idea of setting up when we started to call a “Zen Guest-house”. It would be a place where we would have rooms and host yoga, health and wellness related workshops and events.
This was a way of joining our passions together: sustainable building, meeting people, hosting people, making a difference, contributing to people’s well being and doing what we love to do.
In the meantime, I decided to start this blog to document my newly taken path.
6 – What do you need to learn or what skills will you need to acquire?
What do you need to learn to be able to turn your passion into a financially rewarding activity? Do you need to attend any type of training, go back to school, enrol in workshops, online courses, watch hours of Youtube tutorials, read books? Add a column “What do I need to learn” next to “how can I monetize this passion” and fill it in.
Before I started the blog I attended a storytelling workshop with the first and best known Portuguese travel blogger, an online blogging course called Efficient Blogging and I started devouring information about how to set up a blog. Lot’s to learn there! The course was worth every penny invested.
James, on the other hand, started watching hours of sustainable construction videos and reviews about all kinds of photo and video equipment to find out the best equipment to buy and to perfect his photography and filming skills.
7 – Take the necessary actions to prepare for your next phase
Once you have identified your passions, how to monetize them and what you need to learn you must take action and start doing what you need to do to move you forward and closer to your goals and your dream life.
We decided to close our wine marketing and export company, sell our house (and rent it in the meantime), I finally launched this blog and we bought two tickets to the Portuguese island of Madeira, where we went looking for land or a property to remodel and turn it into our “Zen Guest House”.
8 – Be flexible and openminded
Things don’t always work as we plan so you need to be flexible not to frustrate your expectations, however, keep in mind that what we want is not always the best thing for us. Give all you have to achieve your dreams, try everything possible to make it happen, but if you come to a point when you feel things are really not going to work don’t be afraid to “reroute”. Listen to your instincs.
After three months on the island of Madeira, we realized that the island did not have the characteristics we were looking for and we also realized that what we really wanted at that time was to travel. So after some research, we decided to buy tickets to Malaysia.
9 – Step out of your comfort zone
Be willing to embrace new experiences and try new things. Anything that you think of that makes you feel uneasy just by thinking about it is taking you out of your comfort zone. Try t! The things that you are most afraid to try are the most liberating when you actually take action and do them. Don´t be afraid to try. There are no failures, only experiences.
In order to finance our stay during our first trip to Malaysia, we decided to apply for a volunteer job through the website Workaway. We run a small resort for three months, made friends, learned about a new culture and gained experience for our future “Zen guest house”.
Changing environment opens opportunities. Any change is a good change.
10 – Understand that happiness is a state of mind controlled by us
Happiness comes from within and it does not mean to be euphoric all times. We have the power to change our mindset so as to achieve happiness. It all depends on how we look at events in our lives. There are always two ways of looking at things: in a positive way or in a negative way. By assuming an attitude of always having a positive outlook and always choosing to see the positive side of things our subconscious will keep us in “happy-mode”.
Why would anyone want to have it any other way?
A new path
These ten steps put us on a new path. After going through this process we became more giving, compassionate, tolerant, fulfilled and consequently happier people. As I always say, this is not a quick or easy process but it is doable if you really want to change your life and experience life in a fuller way.
We hope these steps can also help you find your bliss and the life you have always dreamed of.
Are you ready for the 10 things you need to do to change your life? Let us know in the comments below if you are living the life of your dreams and if not what are you doing to change.
May The Bliss be with you,
Luciana & James
“Travel light
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