Two days ago my friend invited me to do an exercise. He invited me to make a list of how I would ideally live my life on a daily basis, and then calculate how much money I’d need to make it a reality. I already a similar exercise some years ago, but now my priorities are changed so I thought it was actually a very good idea.

I thought about what I really wanted to do for a few minutes, but then I decided to sleep over it. The next day, as I was taking a shower, the answer finally popped out in mind. It turns out that what I want is simple and that I don’t need much money to be happy, indeed my ideal day consists of 1 hour of physical activities, 4 hours of writing and 4 hours of programming. I also want to be location independent, and live in a different country each year.

How to find your passions

Finding your passions is the first step toward liberation. Before figuring out how much you’d need to live your ideal life, let’s talk about how you can figure out what it would look like, which is often the hardest part.

I think that you can figure out what you want in your life in less than 30 minutes, regardless of your current situation. The trick consists of analyzing the activities that provide the more joy and satisfaction to you, and then understand what’s exactly making you happy. A few examples will help clarifying this concept:

  • John is a 40 years old guy from New York. Every time he walks near a travel agency he remembers about that time when he was visiting Europe with his family. He can remember every detail about that vacation because he was having fun with his wife and his children. It turns out that John he’s spends most of his time working and what he’s really missing is spending time with his family, not visiting Europe. John could easily fix that and be more happy by working less and spending more time with his family.
  • Christine is a 20 years old from Singapore. She loves making art and her dream is to spend all day creating paintings and other creative things, but right now she has to work all day in order to pay for bills.

It’s easy to see what those people would be doing all day if there were no limits, but what would you be doing instead? You can answer that by writing down in third person how your ideal day would look like. When I did it for myself, this is what I wrote:

Oscar is a 22 years old guy form Italy. He loves giving value to people by creating websites and writing about the things that he personally experiments in real life. He also loves programming and martial arts, and he’s living in a different country every year.

Your scenario will probably look very different than mine. Most people want to have a place that they can their home and spend time with their family, while others want to travel a lot and go to parties every night. Note that this is not a lifetime commitment, and you can expect your scenario to change within the next five years as you gain more clarity.

Another way to figure out what you want to do is asking yourself what you would do if you had all the money in the world. Imagine that you could have everything you wanted, what would you do during your day? Perhaps you would relax under a palm most of the time, or maybe you’d like to start a project. Only you can answer that question.

Fulfilling your dreams

Now that you know what makes you happy, it’s time to look at how much money you would need to live your ideal life. In my case my requirements are simple: a place to sleep, food, a computer and air tickets to travel around the world when needed. For me it’s not important to have a big home and expensive clothes, so I can optimize those areas that are not important for me and maximize those that make me happy. In my case 1000 euros per month are more than enough to live my ideal life, and I can also save something for buying tickets.

When you know how much money you need to be happy, it’s time to find a way to get them. If you already have a job that allows you to live your ideal life, then there’s nothing else that you need to do, otherwise you have to look for other options. One of those options is to do a part time job.

If you don’t need a fancy car and you can share your flat with someone else, you can easily cover your costs with a part time job. But let’s say that your requirements are high, for example that you want to spend most of your time reviewing expensive video cameras. In that case you’d need plenty of money right? In this situation what you can do is finding a way to get paid for doing the activities that you love. For example you could create a website where you would review video cameras and get a commission for each sale. You can also reach a point where manufactures will send you a product for review so you don’t have to buy them at all.

If you don’t know how to monetize your dreams, look at what other people are doing and imitate them.

Living your dreams

In the real world you’ll not be able to live your ideal life from day 1, most probably because you’ll still have a job that pays for your bills. That’s perfectly fine, you can still start to live your ideal life in your remaining free time. For example you can start by working on your dream for one hour per day and increase from there.

Leaving your day job is surely something exciting, but make sure you have enough to support yourself before making the switch.

I hope that you now know what you’re ideal life looks life, and you’re making plans to get there. I’m sure the world would be a better place if you were spending your time doing what you love.