At the time of writing these words, I’m 38,000 feet up in the sky on a flight from my home in New Zealand to Denpasar, Bali.
I’ll spend 4 weeks there, before going through the rest of Indonesia, to Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and wherever else life may take me.
The only reason I tell you this is that 24 months ago I wouldn’t have even dreamt of living in this reality.
I remember reading an article by Nicolas Cole, “This Is How Much Your Life Can Change In A Year.”
And I didn’t quite know where my life would go or how I’d achieve anything worth writing about, but I knew that one day I wanted to write an article just like it.
I took my dreams and ambitions and got to work. Through what has been a whirlwind of emotions and results, I’ve managed to scrape together the story that I’m about to tell to you.
Here is my account of how much your life can change in 2 years:
My Life 2 Years Ago
January 2018, I’d just been let go of the summer job I’d been working while waiting for the last year of my accounting studies to resume.
I’d also recently started writing and publishing my work online. The first article of which, went to crickets. The same with the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th, and the 5th.
However, by about the sixth, my words had begun to resonate. Comments of both admiration and agreement were coming in. What I thought were just a few random musings typed into a screen were actually making a difference.
At such, I began to contemplate dropping out. Sure, I was only a year away from graduating, and the money and “stability” from an Accounting job may have been nice.
However, I also knew you could only find so much fulfillment in filling out spreadsheets — the money alone wasn’t enough.
Rather than merely working a 9–5 and living a predictable life, I wanted to have complete freedom in my life! I wanted to have complete passion and joy for what I did.
So, listening to James Altucher’s podcast became my escape.
I would listen to the stories of those who had dropped out of college or left their jobs in order to pursue their life’s work so that I could hopefully build up enough courage to do it myself.
Although I never did; I was scared. I thought it was a better bet to finish my degree and go onto get an accounting job than it was to drop out and get a job waiting tables.
So, I kept writing. I kept studying. I kept getting up at 3 am. Day by day, my passion and audience kept growing.
Indeed, my life very much had become a Groundhog Day — sleep, write, eat, study, and repeat.
Fast forward to a few months later, however, and I never did get a job; no one would hire me. 50+ job applications had gone wayward.
“Sorry, you just haven’t got enough experience.” “Your report card doesn’t quite match what we were looking for,” are among some of the things they would say.
Luckily, however, the universe just so happened to have some other things in the works for me. I remember going home from my last exam and typing out what I thought was just another regular story.
Although 24 hours later, you could tell that was not the case. Instead, I had a viral article!
Suddenly, my monthly expenses were paid, and my head was spinning: “Is this just a one-off?” “How did this even happen?” “Will I be able to do it again?”
Sure enough, I was able to do it again, and again, and again. At such, I stopped looking for an Accounting job and went all-in on my writing dream.
This was all after one year, I’d taken a few blog posts and turned it into a career.
However, what happened next?
My Life 1 Year Ago
Evidently, I’d made to the level of what Paul Graham would call, “Ramen profitability;” I was making just enough to pay the bills and eat Ramen, and to be frank, it remained like that for the majority of the year.
Unfortunately, this is not a story where I discovered my passion and then went onto becoming an overnight millionaire. Instead, it was simply slow progress that happened over time.
Said Jeff Goins,
“Most growth happens this way: slowly, over time. You don’t see it happening — in fact, sometimes the circumstances feel more like inconveniences than opportunities — but then one day you wake up, amazed at how far you’ve come.”
Inconveniences there certainly were; income streams were versatile, an array of payments went missing, and being ghosted was frequent.
However, when you’re committed to a vision, you don’t worry about the ups and downs or the little inconveniences that happen along the way. Instead, you just do whatever it takes.
You have faith that all your dreams will work out, regardless of your current circumstances in life.
As Benjamin P. Hardy has said, “Your circumstances are far less significant than your choices.”
Indeed, no matter your circumstances, you can always make the choice to rise above them.
And that’s precisely what happened; I simply kept pounding on the door to my dreams until they became a reality.
However, how did I do it?
Make Success a Must
“Most people are hedging their bets, creating several backup plans in case their dreams don’t quite work out. Ironically, they end up dedicating the majority to their backup plans, and that becomes their life” -Benjamin P. Hardy
Forget backup plans. For me, there was no possible way of retreat.
For example, I bought the ticket for the flight that I’m currently on before I even had enough money to find the trip. In fact, I didn’t even have a passport at the time — it only arrived last week!
I begin telling everyone about these experiences that I’d be having before I even knew any of it would become a reality. Indeed, more than logic, these experiences were fueled by the pages in my journal.
Of course, all this may sound silly and a little bit risky.
However, I was simply willing to live out of my imagination rather than my memory. I wasn’t going to let my current circumstances stop me from creating something far more powerful.
As Gary Keller has said,
“We should never let what’s achievable determine what we want out of life, we should let what we want out of life determine what we set out to achieve.”
Indeed, everything you want in life is available to you; there are no limits. You simply have to be willing to play a bigger and different game.
You have to be willing to follow what you truly want in your mind and heart, regardless of what “logic” or other people will tell you.
So, who will you be in two years?
“A few years, if done right, can set your entire life up on a different trajectory and level than the “norm.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
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