I remember when Hubby and I first made the decision to “throw” our old life away and start fresh. We were sitting in our kitchen, trying to “imagine” what we wanted our life to be like. We honestly had no idea. We didn’t have careers or jobs we were going to, in fact, we didn’t even know WHERE we were going.
As we sat there I said I want a quiet farm house, with sunshine coming in the windows, and greenery. A meadow, and peace.
Over 3 and a half years we have continued to chip away at life to reveal our dream, our balance. Somehow, with constant focus, we are achieving it.
Slowly…. but it is coming.
The key word here is CONSTANT FOCUS. I am treating achieving my “dream life” as a project that needs full time commitment. It is something that I can never forget about, and it not only needs to be forefront of my actions but also the foundation of my values. This “project” of mine is the reason why I say no, and the reason I say yes. It is behind every decision I make (or don’t make) and the purpose for most of what I do.
Does that seem hardcore?
Think about it though. I wanted a life that was balanced, that had room for me to just BE every day. I wanted us to be self sufficient, not just in raising food, but also in balancing the budget. I wanted to spend most of my time with my family and have control over what I chose to do most days.
Every day it is a challenge to maintain. To not answer emails on weekends, to turn my tech off at night. To spend entire days on our farm, surrounded by critters and kids and work and laughter. To exists solely in MY place.
But this morning, I woke up to the sunrise, put the coffee on and spent time waking our farm. I spoke with clients, tweaked amazing projects with amazing people across the country. I searched for ideas and solutions to problems as I tossed scratch for the hens. I scratched a goat, while chatting with my husband about his day.
Someone asked me a while back what we gave up on our journey of a life makeover. My answer was, nothing that mattered to us. Nothing important.
I am still not sure how it all worked out this way, but I do know that it has taken consistent effort and an intense amount of work. I have never worked as hard on anything as I have on remaking our life, and I know we have hardly begun.
So, if you are in at a place in your life where you are about to sit down at a kitchen table and talk about what your “dream” is, don’t hold back. Close your eyes and picture it, and then allow everything that didn’t exist in that dream to fall away. And prepare yourself… it is a lot of hard work, but it is the best work you will ever do.