Make This Your Year … Take a Chance and Chase Your Dream
By Andrew Murray

My wife Peta, hard at work in our outside office!
We live, work, and travel the Australian Outback in this truck camper.

Freedom.

One small word, just seven letters. Yet such a powerful concept, such a fundamental part of our existence.

What does freedom mean to you? And how can it help fulfill your dream of the writer’s life this year?

Personally, I believe freedom is about choice. And yes, we all have stories about missed opportunities … those turning points in the past where you made the wrong choice.

A brand-new year is an ideal time to start afresh, to leave old habits and regrets behind. But how?

By learning from the past. Learn from those missed opportunities and grab the next one to come your way.

Perhaps your next opportunity is right in front of your eyes. Have you ever thought about building a Money-Making Website? It could help you fulfill your dream …

What’s Stopping You?

We should look back over our shoulders occasionally, so we can learn from our mistakes. Figure out why we made wrong decisions, then use this to better understand what’s holding us back.

I’ll wager you made the wrong decision because it was the easier or safer choice to make.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We humans don’t like difficult decisions, or putting ourselves in situations where we’re not comfortable.

Freedom’s about being happy within yourself. Sometimes this means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. In other words, taking a chance.

Think of your comfort zone as a protective bubble. Your world is certain, predictable, and secure inside its walls.

Outside the bubble? A whole new, exciting, and slightly scary world … a world most people never try to explore.

All societies pressure people to conform, to follow the pack. So it’s always easier to choose the path where you won’t stand out from the crowd … where you don’t have to leave your secure bubble.

But rarely will this get you where you want to go.

For instance, what if you’re someone who desperately wants to live in a beach shack, writing all day in your own piece of paradise? Would you have the courage to take a chance if that’s your definition of freedom?

Would you actually make the big step? What’s stopping you? What keeps you from pursuing the writer’s life?

If you’re like most people, the honest answer is, “I can’t. Everyone will think I’m crazy.”

And therein lies the answer to why most people are never truly free. They worry too much about what others think.

You know what? It doesn’t matter what others think. You only have one life, live it how you want to live it … not how others think you should.

Let me tell you a story …

The Curse of the Work Ethic

I was brought up by two incredibly hard-working parents. We were poor, but my childhood was rich and full of love. You see, we owned a station (ranch), isolated from the world by steep mountains and a rough, narrow road.

It was the ideal life for myself and my three siblings.

Our parents instilled a strong work ethic in all of us … work hard, get a degree or trade, save for your future. It doesn’t matter what you do in life, just do your best.

We all followed their advice, getting university degrees and achieving varying levels of success in our respective careers. The four of us slotted into “normal” society surprisingly well, considering we had only each other for company in our pre-teen years.

But I never felt like I belonged. This whole “work hard, buy a house, make money, buy things, work harder, make more money, buy more things, retire then die” concept simply didn’t make sense to me.

The turning point was the day my father died, aged 83.

He had worked incredibly hard as a farmer, from when he was a small boy until he was 73, when my parents sold the farm and retired.

My parents loved traveling and had big plans to see the world. But just two years after he retired, Dad could no longer travel. All those years of hard work had completely destroyed his body.

When he died, I made a commitment. There was no way I’d become a slave to the cursed work ethic.

Instead, I set a goal to retire in 10 years, by age 50, and I would enjoy life.

I decided to take a chance.

And one way or another, I achieved my goal … give or take a couple of years. Although I haven’t actually retired, more changed my lifestyle to a much slower pace.

And this suits my wife Peta and me fine. We travel full-time in the vast Australian Outback. It was our end goal — our dream lifestyle. This is our definition of freedom, the result of us taking a chance in our lives.

And to fund our freedom, we took an important step by starting a Money-Making Website. We wanted it to generate a reliable source of passive income.

The Doubters

Now, along the journey towards our new lifestyle, Peta and I met some subtle and not-so-subtle resistance. We were planning to do something very different … and this didn’t sit well with many.

What shocked us was the reaction from friends and work colleagues when we first announced our plans. I would say it was split about 75-25 between negative and positive feedback.

There were those who were genuinely excited for us. They understood why we were doing this, how strongly we felt about taking real control of our lives and truly living a life of freedom.

Then there were the doubters … “You’ll never do it,” “You can’t make a living that way,” “You won’t stop working,” “You’ll be home in three months,” “How can you afford it?,” “What will you live on when you get old?,” “You must be rich,” and so on.

What had we done? What had disturbed this hornet’s nest of doubters and set them swarming around us?

I believe we made them feel uncomfortable. We had prodded their nest with the Introspection Stick.

We made them look inwards and they didn’t like what stared back at them. So they took it out on us.

What’s really sad is, these people are caught in an endless loop. They’re worried about what others might think, so they do nothing. They never take a chance … so their lives never change.

It doesn’t need to be this way.

The thing is, it gets easier once you start making the difficult decisions and push yourself out of your secure bubble. You lose the fear and make good decisions, ones which ultimately allow you to break through into that world you’ve only ever dreamed about.

It’s empowering … and slightly addictive!

Finding Real Freedom

The moral of my story?

If you truly want freedom and happiness, decide what you want in life and stick to your plan … regardless of what others think or believe.

You’re always going to run into naysayers, but don’t let them hold you back.

Take a chance, make a fresh start. Do what you want to do.

If you have a passion, an interest, or a hobby but can’t see how to earn an income from it, then a Money-Making Website might be the answer. Take a chance … a chance to do something you truly love doing, a way to earn an income, a way to pursue your dream.

A chance to find real freedom.

Chasing freedom takes courage. Perhaps determination is a better word. Or grit? Whatever the right word is, stick to your guns.

People get uncomfortable (often envious) when others dare to be different.

But if you really want the freedom you desire, and dream of a better life — the writer’s life — you’ll overcome these obstacles.

Ignore the naysayers, make the difficult decisions, and give it your best shot.

Break free. Take a chance, now. It’s the ideal time. A New Year … and a new, better life!

Have you taken a big chance in life and it paid off … one which changed the course of your life for the better? Let us know in the Comments.