This piece is for you potential entrepreneurs, daydreaming hourly workers, and ambitious employees looking at just how high that corporate ladder goes. It’s for people that can’t say with certainty that they’re truly satisfied with where they are in life today. I’d like to help you take a positive look at your current situation, even if you’re really discouraged or pissed off about things right now. I’d like to help you avoid some traps that I have personally observed along the way.
I believe that one of the larger overall reasons for unhappiness is the psychological phenomenon of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. Whether it’s in the context of careers, houses, cars, or relationships, the idea that somebody else’s life is better than yours because of the things they have is a common fallacy.
Many of us have experienced the feeling that if we could just get that elusive dream job or start a crazy successful business, then we’d be home free and never have a care about finances again. We’d be the Joneses that everyone else in our life was trying to keep up with, and no shadow of unhappiness would ever enter our minds again. With this idea, it’s very easy to end up with a feeling of waiting around for something bigger to come along and provide us with the upward momentum needed to reach the lifestyle we’d like to live. The end result of this grass-is-greener, waiting-around mentality slowly becomes distilled into one idea: You’re currently wasting your time building someone else’s dream, and your employer is just using you to line the pockets of the executives and shareholders.
This feeling plays into one of the silliest marketing hooks that the fake-ass success gurus love to use to get people to buy memberships to their platform of motivational videos filmed with loaned Ferraris and rented mansions. Ever see one of those ads about how someone supposedly used Instagram or YouTube to fund their “passive income” seven-figure tropical lifestyle, and you can have their system too? That’s what I’m talking about. That stuff severely pisses me off, because it’s preying on people’s unhappiness by telling them that they, as the guru, know the shortcut to exotic cars and exotic booty. That’s not to say there aren’t highly legitimate sites and mentors, but for every Secret Entourage or Patrick Bet-David there are a dozen leeches with dubious $150 Udemy courses.
Don’t fall for this trap of trying to find a shortcut to your dream job, business, or lifestyle. Mentors, courses, and gurus all have their place, but your goal has to start with you. As Robert Herjavec has said, a goal without a timeline is just a dream. Instead of trying to find the elusive fast path to your hoped-for career and lifestyle, go grab a pen and notebook and start to list out what it is that you want. Then read this list every morning for a week before starting work. Throughout the day, look for ways that what you’re currently doing is preparing you for where you eventually want to be. When you think of something during the workday, write it down in your notebook.
At the end of the week, consider all the ways that what you’re doing right now is helping you get to where you want to go. If there’s just a massive disconnect between your current life and what you desire, it might be time to consider changing employers. But that’s almost never the right course. There is usually a lot of experience to be gained and a good deal of stability to be had for a time where you are right now.
Learning the physics of how large corporations operate, observing consumer behavior, looking for problems that you could solve and profit from, and becoming skilled in selling your own value are all examples of important lessons that can be learned in many occupations. Wherever you are or whatever it is that you’re being paid to do, consider it continuing education that ultimately makes you more valuable and is preparing you for the epic breakaway towards the destination that you desire.
There is no such thing as overnight success; it’s all the sum of incremental daily effort working towards a known goal. Take a look at your list of dreams, then write a separate list of things that need to be done in order to get to those dreams. This may sound a bit cheesy, but I can tell you from firsthand experience that the power of writing down your goals is incredible. Once you do this, you will have a mental framework of where to start. If there’s no starting point, there won’t be a finish line either.
You aren’t just building someone else’s dream if you know what your dream is and have at least some kind of a plan to reach your goal. Don’t be a passive leaf floating down the river of your life; figure out what it really is that you want, then go get it. Life is a lot more adventurous and fulfilling if it’s not just a weekly loop of vague discontentment.
Remmy is the founder of Exoverse Products. He joins the SoBros Network as a contributor in the fields of business, tech, auto, travel, and anything else he damn well pleases. Check Exoverse Products out on Instagram @exoverseproducts.
Follow us on Twitter: @SoBrosNetwork
