Live fabulously on your terms
What do you want to achieve? Who do you want to be? What does a successful life look like for you? Follow these four steps and get the free Fabulous Life worksheet included with the Fabulous Life bundle below to define a fabulous life on your terms.
Live fabulously on your terms, don’t live fabulously broke
Want to know the inspiration for changing our tagline “Living Fabulously, Not Fabulously Broke”? A few months ago we spoke at Prudential’s LGBT Financial Experience Symposium in Newark, New Jersey. Prudential invited us to this one-night event to share our story about how we got into and out of debt as a gay couple.
As we told our story orally, as we have often done in writing, I described how, although our lives looked amazing from the outside with our fancy dinners, expensive cocktails, vacations, and designer clothes, we were in debt up to our mascara-lined eyeballs . I concluded, “We were the gay stereotype of living fabulously but being fabulously broke,” and the audience responded.
Until then, we had never said this publicly. We also knew that something could rub wrong. But it’s true, and we felt there was an all too familiar contradiction in it.
The audience agreed. People clapped. You did it! That’s when we both realized we had to change our slogan to the all-too-familiar contradiction that our community is in balance with.
Later we saw that several participants retweeted this quote.
What does it mean to live fabulously on your terms?
Too many of us, gay, straight or not, allow ourselves to be seduced into living life on other people’s terms. We pursue the careers our parents think we should have. We buy our houses to keep up with our friends. We buy our neighbor’s car. We dress to impress people we don’t know.
This is not a fantastic life according to your ideas. Living a fabulous life on your own terms means you understand what matters You and design a life about it.
Contrary to what others or society think you should desire, living a fabulous life on your terms could mean not having a stressful, six-figure paying job and having a job that helps others.
It could mean not owning a home but traveling the world instead.
Maybe you don’t want to be a gym bunny or muscle god.
For you, it might mean hiking the hills of Palm Springs and posting videos of it on Facebook.
To explain his hierarchy of needs, Abraham Maslow is quoted as saying, “Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinions of others.” So defining a fabulous life on your own terms is 100% your own definition.
1. Become self-aware and
The first step to defining a fabulous life on your terms is becoming aware of who you are and what your feelings are.
Even though on the outside we looked like we were living fabulously, when we weren’t, we realized that we were 1) making up for the feelings of inadequacy and inferiority when we were younger by being gay, and 2) hoping That we were a new, gay community would accept us.
We realized we weren’t happy living like this, no matter what it looked like. Becoming aware of this contradiction was important in order to be able to fabulously define life according to our ideas.
2. Learn your values.
After recognizing that you have been living in contradiction, the next step is to figure out what your values ​​are. This may sound like a step you can skip, but you shouldn’t.
If you have just realized that you have been living a contradiction, then you have not been living according to your values, and that could be because you don’t know what your are true values.
You may also not realize how your values ​​impact your financial life. “The hierarchy of your values ​​determines your financial fate,” says Dr. John Dimartini. He means that you spend your money on what is important to you, and if what is important to you does not provide financial security, then you are not financially secure.
If looking and living fabulous is important to you, that’s exactly how you’ll spend your money. If saving and investing is important to you, you will prioritize saving and investing. You then saved and invested more money.
Whatever you value, it’s okay if it doesn’t harm you. Just know how you spend money and why you spend it that way. If it threatens your financial security, then understand why you are sabotaging yourself.
Get all the tips for living an amazing life without breaking your budget:
3. Then list your happiest moments
If you’re struggling to decide what it means to live fabulously on your own terms, be it your personal life, your material life, or your work life, then think about the moments in each of these areas of your life in which you are most proud were.
What moments excited you? What were some experiences that you couldn’t wait to tell someone about? When were you the happiest?
It is these moments where you find your true happiness. They inform you about your true calling and what will help you live the best version of yourself.
Let these experiences define life on your own terms and not on those of others.
4. Dream bigger!
Okay, we all fall into lives of mediocrity far too often. We believe that the focus is on exciting success, not for ourselves but for others.
“They’re so successful that they’re not real people, and I’m just here because I’m real people.”
Nonsense! You can have any success; However, you define what you want. So when you realize your true values ​​and define what it means to live fabulously on your own terms, it’s tenfold.
Break down self-imposed limitations. Ignore the naysayers and trolls. Forgive your past and step forward to be the person you are meant to be. As Lisa Nichols says, “Step into your greatness.”
Yes, that’s easier said than done, but you’ll never live up to your full potential, you’ll never live fabulously on your terms if you don’t know what your terms are.
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