I have done this, this is not theoretical, this is real and you can do it too as long as you follow the 5 steps.
The 5 steps are:
Dream
Goal
Plan
Structure
Schedule
We are going to discuss those 5 steps and by the end of the video, you will have a clear understanding of the process of building your dream life.
Step 1: Define Your Dream Life
Create a picture of your dream life, where you live, how you live, who you live with, what you spend your time on.
This part of the psychological process identifies the motivational aspect of your dream, this is what will keep you motivated in the long term.
You have to spend time on this, fully enter into every detail of your dream life and record it.
It is not enough to have a vague notion of what you want in your life, you have to define it clearly.
People with a strong vision for their life can overcome so much more than those that have no vision and just live moment to moment.
Tip: Use a vision board if you need help picturing it.
Step 2: Create A Goal
Set a financial goal, a monthly minimum income amount you need to realise this dream.
This next step in the process helps you to set targets for your dream life, this helps quantify it.
We need to take it from being a dream to a financially measurable goal.
This engages the intellect in the process and puts the intellect in charge.
This also gives us something we can measure, something we can use to evaluate our progress.
Aim for the lowest amount you need, don’t make the goal harder than it needs to be.
Another important step is to keep this target realistic, we want to enter into the dream life at the earliest opportunity.
So what is the ‘bare minimum’ of your dream life, what is the ‘lowest income amount’ you can aim for to achieve the dream life.
We can always embellish the dream life once we have hit the basic target.
Setting an impossible monthly goal will just discourage us.
Don’t set a goal of £10,000 a month when £3,000 a month gets us in the door.
Get the £3,000 first and then push on to the £10,000.
But have a clear goal in mind, a dream is not enough by itself, it needs a clear goal for it to become manifest in your life.
Step 3: Create A Plan
This part is where we decide what exact business we are going to start, what vehicle we are going to use for the journey.
The business we choose has to meet certain criteria for it to work for us and to get us to commit to it.
Rule 1: Find a business model that you will enjoy
The business you choose is going to be something you are going to be working on for the next few years and is likely going to take over every spare moment of your life, so you need to pick something that you will enjoy, that won’t feel like a burden, that has meaning, has value to you personally and is something you are genuinely interested and passionate about.
You need that to carry you through the first part of building a business where it is typically all work and little money.
It has to be something that you believe in!
Rule 2: It has to have demand and proven profitability
Make sure that there is demand for the business, are there similar businesses already out there, is there a market for this, are enough people interested in this subject.
These are things you can research online by using things like Google Keyword Planner, by looking to see if there are other people already running these businesses and are actually getting sales.
Also look for people that are sharing their progress on YouTube or on social media, where they are actually running the business and not just telling you about the business.
Rule 3: Identify what skills you need to learn to run that business.
Each business has a set of skills that are required to run that business successfully, the more of these skills you have before you start, the quicker the business will become profitable.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t start a business you don’t have skills in, but the training you will need to go through will mean the business will take longer to be established.
Rule 4: Set a time scale for the business
Set a timescale for when the business should be a residual source of income that can pay for your dream life on its own.
It can be as quick as 1 year if you have experience and have built a business before, but can take 5 years if you are brand new and have to learn everything from scratch.
You can do it quicker than 5 years if you work hard and get a little bit of luck, but if you have no skill set in the business, you have to give yourself time to develop.
But the most important thing is to write the plan down, record the plan, review it periodically and be prepared to adjust it as more information comes your way or things change in the industry.
The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty.
This is the key principle you have to adopt, create a plan, stick to it, work on it and remember it is the tortoise who wins the race…
Step 4: Build Your Structure
Create your business structure.
Step 1: Systems and Processes
These are the systems and processes that you need in place in order to be as efficient and productive as possible.
You want everything you do to have the lowest time cost possible whilst maintaining the necessary quality standards that your customer typically needs.
This is essential, as your greatest resource in a business is your time, learn to minimise the time it takes to do everything and then systemise that, this is often called ‘creating Standard Operating Procedures’.
Step 2: Equipment
Get the most basic equipment you need to start your business, keep costs down.
Don’t fall into the trap of loading your business with debt thinking that that is the way to grow it.
I know, I know, you need the latest and greatest equipment because someone on YouTube said you need this latest and greatest piece of equipment that has all these special features (that you will never use - an example being a 4k camera with 120fps for an additional $1,000).
I know that, because I did that, buy the equipment you need, not the equipment you think you might need, keep it basic, use what you have, if you are starting a video based business, just use your iphone, get some cheap video lights and a half decent microphone and you are good to go.
Once you have mastered the basic equipment you will know what expensive equipment to invest in.
Step 3: Location
Find a place to run your business from (a bedroom will do at the beginning),
Again, keep your costs down, but try to set up a place where you can work and you don’t have to set up every time, you want to remove all distractions and focus on the work itself.
If you have to set up your workspace and it takes an hour every time, then that is an hour of productivity lost.
Find a space and set it up and then don’t touch it, this will enable you to be as efficient as possible.
Step 4: Training
Identify the training you are going to need and start taking as much as you can find.
Find free training to start, that will give you the basic skills, then look for good courses that teach you the structure of your business. You want training that takes you through the process step by step from people that have actually done it.
Avoid super expensive college courses from professors that teach but have never done the thing they teach.
Go to the genuine experts.
Get the basic training out of the way as quickly as you can so you can start being productive, but get training first, it will save you time in the long run, don’t reinvent the wheel.
Step 5: Create A Schedule
Now we are into the nitty gritty, we have defined our dream, created a goal, written a plan, created our structure, now we need to put all that in action.
And this means we have to create a schedule, a weekly schedule to carry out the plans diligently.
We have to keep doing the things that generate success week in and week out, no matter how our business might look like it's doing, especially at the beginning.
The Three Time Budgets:
Divide your business time into these three time budgets:
product creation / marketing / administration
Now what you need to do is allocate daily time blocks to each of these tasks.
Budget 1: Administration
What most people do is go all in on product creation and then fall behind on accounts and basic admin which ends up costing you time and money.
Do your accounts daily, that way you are not trying to reconcile your figures 3 months later when you cannot remember what you spent on something and what this line in the bank account is for.
Backtracking takes longer than doing it at the time of the transaction.
Ask us how we know…
Budget 2: Marketing
Do your marketing daily, the most common mistake people make is they do marketing when the business is quiet and switch it off when they are busy, then they ask ‘why is my marketing not working’.
Online marketing is all about consistency, posting every day, putting new content out, engaging with followers and creating connections online.
The value of building positive social proof around your business is sorely lacking in most businesses and it is social proof that drives profitability.
Do your marketing daily!
Budget 3: Product Creation
Every day you should be creating something to sell, working on a product that will bring you money, this is how you push the business forward.
This is the most important activity in the sense of time investment for your long term success.
So I recommend you spend at least (based on an 8 hour workday), 6 hours on your product creation at the beginning and then 1 hour on admin (accounts, emails etc) and 1 hour on marketing (creating posts and content).
Once your product is created it changes and you start to spend a lot more time on your marketing, but at the beginning you have to have something you can market and this is where the focus needs to be.
Some people might ask ‘so why not just create the product and then start marketing it?’
And the simple answer is, you don’t want to launch your product cold to an audience of ZERO.
By building up an audience whilst creating the product you have someone to launch the product to, that then generates social proof and social proof then drives the sales of your products.
So these are the 5 steps!
If you would be interested in a planning journal to map this out, then let me know in the comments and we can produce that, we have been playing with the idea but wanted to check demand first.
But in the meantime, do these five steps and you will be surprised how quickly you will…
…Build Your Dream Life With An Online Digital Business