Life is an Investment, You Need to Figure Out How to Spend Your Time
Last Updated: February 14th, 2020
The theme for today’s post is going to be a little different than what you might be expecting. In between writing posts on photography, travel and running a business…and working a full time day job…I have a tendency to think about life and how I want to spend it.
In the pursuit of having a photography career – which has been extremely challenging and rewarding – I’ve also spent a good deal of my life working towards this goal. For the past 3 years, my wife and I worked tirelessly, often around the clock, to do something we really love.
Looking back, there is no denying that I had to actively choose this life for myself. And my choices came with consequences – both good ones and bad ones.
While most “investment advice” you will find online talks about how to save and spend your money, this post is going to talk about how you can save and spend your time.
What do you want out of life?
The best investors know what they want to get out of their investment.
Most people do not have the luxury of being able to just throw money into a bunch of different stocks and hope for the best. This approach will probably just lead to money being wasted.
In the context of life, people often make the same mistake.
They don’t set good goals.
They don’t even really think about what they actually want to do with their lives.
Some people just fall into a job and stay there.
Others just go with the flow and let other people dictate where their life will go.
The key to living a good life and enjoying your time here is to clearly define the things you want to do, and the things you don’t want to do.
Shape your own goals for happiness
Let me preface this by saying…I’m not an aspiring self-help guru or anything of the sort.
I am simply motivated to share a story of “success-in-progress” because I have also experienced the bad parts of life in spades at times. I hope these details help you if you are aspiring to reach a goal (be it starting a photography business or anything else).
I have personally struggled with overwhelming anxiety and crippling depression at points in my own life. I could rant and rave about things that have happened in my life that serve as triggers, and how my own interpretation of simple things often lead me down the same path.
It’s only in more recent years that I’ve started to have more clarity over what I really want out of my life: happiness.
On the surface, everyone on the planet aspires to just be happy. The things we enjoy that bring us happiness is the biggest variable.
While my personal definition of “happiness” has changed with time, these days it boils down in a very simple way:
I want…
- To be able to do what I want, when I want
- To love and feel loved
- To spend more time with friends and family
- To travel the world
I don’t want…
- To waste my time doing things I don’t want to do
- To feel stressed out about things out of my control
- To be a “cog in the machine”
To fulfill these (honestly simple) desires – it has required some planning, self-care, patience, motivation, intense passion that allows for a certain level of risk to be taken, and acceptance of whatever outcome.
Let me talk about these 6 key things and why they matter to reach “happiness”:
Planning
Friends & family could make the argument that I, sometimes, over plan things.
I prepped for a 10 day trip to Iceland starting 1 year before I even got on the airplane. This preparation was not just in the form of reading forums and books, but went so far as to layout a Google Map fully pinpointing key areas around the country I wanted to visit. I literally felt like I learned a whole lot about that country in the process – and even today recognize small places there by name.
In the context of achieving happiness, a good plan helps – but it is in no way the only determining factor.
Some people do happen to stumble into the good things in life. Other people are sincerely happy by just doing the same old thing again-and-again. Both of these scenarios don’t require much of a plan – but moreso a little luck and the right personality quirks.
If you are like me, you don’t have the natural luck for success – instead you have to really work for it.
If you are like me, you don’t have the innate personality to just accept the status quo – instead you need to make a real concerted effort to change it.
How to Make a Good Plan
Whether you are a planner like me or totally adverse to it and just prefer to “go with the flow” – let me say this: my plans have never been complicated.
When trying to figure out “life”, we can often get stuck in the mindset that there needs to be some grand solution to it all. In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy it’s discovered that the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” is…42…and your plan will only need a little more detail.
With the idea of what makes you happy in mind, you can start to identify ways to achieve the things you want.
Looking back at my list from earlier, let me break a few down:
I want…
To be able to do what I want, when I want
How do I achieve this?
- I only do things I want to do outside of my working schedule (this is the start).
- I started my own business with the intent of it giving me more of an ability to do “what I want, when I want” over time as I am not satisfied with only being able to call the shots after my 9-5.
I want…
To travel the world
How do I achieve this?
- The first time I left the country as an adult was for my honeymoon in Mexico. The experiences I had with my new wife both relaxing on the beaches there as well as exploring really interesting and beautiful places inspired me to want to travel more.
- I save money and rarely spend on myself outside of my travels – this has led to a major decrease in needless spending on things I once spent too much on (like video games and DVDs).
- I make an effort to travel (via airplane) at least 1x a year. In the past few years, I’ve visited Iceland, Arizona, California, Oregon…a great mix…
- I wrote out a list of many places I want to visit someday – and I’m beginning to make plans for how I can get to those places. For myself, I’ve decided to intertwine it with my photography business goals – aspiring to help fund my traveling adventures in this way.
- It should also be mentioned, this goal is also severely tied to the other goal of doing “what I want, when I want” because, even if I have the money to travel, my time is extremely limited due to the amount of work I have and limited time off through my day job.
If it sounds from these results that I’m not quite fully where I want to be, then you’re reading correctly. I firmly believe that “happiness” is not some overnight sensation – and that working towards these goals brings happiness in small doses.
Ultimately, we all want to achieve our overarching goals – and the next 2 things I’m going to talk about tie into this point.
Self-Care
In the pursuit of happiness, it can be natural for some people (like me at times) to abandon themselves in the process.
It’s an ironic thing – and maybe a symptom of the virtual workaholic syndrome many of us are forced by nature to adopt.
Personally, I’ve been guilty of going the Steve Jobs route from time to time and not even bothering to shower since it’s just a thing getting in the way…
While having goals and a good plan in place are key as you aspire to do things that make you happy, so to is realizing how important the day-to-day is & taking good care of yourself.
It turns out – eating healthy and working out are some of the most common things successful people tend to have in common.
When you think about it – it makes sense!!
While in the short-term you may be able to get some extra work done, any good approach to achieving “success” and “happiness” will be designed with the long-term in mind.
How to Take Care of Yourself
Actually taking care of yourself, especially when faced with either extremes of being excessively driven and a workaholic or depressed and lazy, is easy in paper.
For many people, putting the ideas of how we should take care of ourselves into action is tough.
Even tougher is learning to apply them consistently, day-in-and-day-out, until these elements of self-care become a natural extension of us. IE: it means you take on a new lifestyle.
A few things I’ve done to maintain a level of self-care (even during really stressful times and busy seasons):
- Wake up a little early to eat some breakfast
- Find little things to enjoy during my commute. IE: mixing up my music, changing the radio station, listen to an audiobook, etc.
- Start (and commit to) a workout routine. I’ve done Stronglifts 5×5 and PHUL over the years for regular training.
- Eat healthy (but don’t make it too extreme if you don’t want to). This is an area where people can get carried away, but the reality is that people tend to be happier when they can eat a mixture of things that are good for them and things that make them feel good. So yeah – I’ll eat a salad, but I’ll also have pizza & beer sometimes too.
- Have a hobby (or two). Growing up, photography was always a great hobby for me. I still enjoy it – but my relationship with photography changed as I became a professional. Over the years I’ve taken on a number of other things like music production and home renovation projects.
- Make time to relax. I am often driven so much by my ambitions that I forget to take a break. Today, I make an effort every day to relax…at least at the end of the day.
The key is to find things that help you stay mentally and physically alert.
The side effect of all of these things is a little dopamine rush – in other words – a dose of happiness for the short term.
Patience
Of all the things required to reach a state of happiness as you define it, patience is the most difficult virtue.
The challenge with learning patience as it applies to someone who is very driven to achieve goals as they aspire to better themselves is that it can feel like it gets in the way. Who wants to slow down and be patient when it’s so much more natural for us to want to run as quickly as possible to our goal?
For myself, I have always been a patient person. At times, my patience has bordered on laziness & apathy – but most of the time it’s productive patience. 🙂
As I have worked extremely hard towards my business goals, I have done this over the course of several years. I’ve grown my business at a slow and steady pace – allowing me to adapt to changes and pressures over time. Some of this was forced on me – as a result of working as a wedding photographer where I may get a booking today for a wedding a year or 2 from now. This means I never get to fulfill jobs until that later point in time.
A lot of my personal and professional success is hinged on the performance of my business. While I do have a day job, I do not judge my successes based on how I do there (though I perform well) – it simply does not have the motivational edge that having my own “thing” does.
How to Learn the Right Kind of Patience
There are different forms of patience.
On one hand, patience could refer to the ability to achieve a meditative state of stillness, and be slow to react unnecessarily to things. These areas are great personal attributes, but not exactly the type of patience I have in mind.
Instead of helping you find some innate sense of patience tied to doing the right thing and living at peace with yourself and your surroundings, the kind of patience that impacts you in the context of growing a business (or otherwise achieving a goal) is grounded in goal-oriented patience.
What is “goal-oriented patience”?
Well – it’s the awareness that patience is a necessity to achieve your goals and the action taken to consciously be patient.
By understanding and accepting this, it forces you to slow down and realize that not all success is overnight. Some goals, like those I work towards, are built over seemingly long periods of time.
Motivation
There was a time in my life when I felt a lack of motivation – and this was the result of a life without purpose.
I talk a lot about my pursuit into photography as a professional was it was inspired by an intrinsic motivation to work for myself, be with my wife more, and experience a life I want to have on my own terms. And sure, there were other experiences that really pushed me in this direction – like being let down again-and-again by the workplaces I inhabited.
For myself, and others like me who have been fortunate enough to find a “calling” in life, motivation is easy.
It’s easy to wake up at 5AM and go to work when you get something out of what you do. Even when it’s not always easy (I die inside every time I have to open up Quickbooks to do my accounting).
For those who feel aimless and without purpose, I get it – and I know first-hand that motivation can be really hard.
It’s like you need some motivation just to feel motivated.
Need more help finding some motivation? Check out these great reads…
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The Keys to Finding Motivation (Even When It’s Hard)
Motivation is something that can be worked for when it’s not naturally occurring, and it can be found on its own when it is.
It’s a lot like finding water while hiking through the woods (one of my favorite things to do). Sometimes, you can follow the trail until you run into a stream – that’s easy and pure water for you. Other times, there might be no water in sight, and a freak rainstorm might be able to provide (granted – you’ll have to set up some contraption to catch the water and purify it).
Motivation is the same – it can be had at all times, but sometimes it’s easy to get, and other times it’s hard.
Here are the things I’ve learned to help keep myself motivated day-in-and-day-out:
- Remind yourself of your goals constantly. Your goals need to be powerful enough that you can’t fathom a life without achieving them. You would do anything to make them happen – so remember that even when you’re tired and it’s hard.
- Taking a break is nourishment. I have a bad tendency to get “hangry” (hungry + angry). A lot of times I’ll think I’m just not feeling well, but turns out I just haven’t been eating all that much. Once I eat, everything’s good. I get the same way with working – I’ll work, work, work, and overwork, then end up frustrated. Taking a break (whether 30 minutes or a night off) does a lot to help get back into the game.
- Chisel away at small goals. While I have large goals like “working for myself”, there are many smaller goals that help make this a reality. Every day I do things like “post on Instagram”, “write a blog post”, “respond to all my emails”, and so on. By fulfilling these little goals, it brings me closer to achieving the bigger ones. It also feels good!
What are things that keep you motivated in life? Share with me in the comments!
Intense Passion
Intense passion is not just the name of my DJ persona – but the fuel that keeps this car running well past it’s prime.
Unlike most of the other key things I’ve highlighted in this post, your passion for something will be difficult to quantify.
It really is that feeling inside that makes you tick.
I’m not sure I can really teach you how to find a passion, it’s something that will come naturally to you. However, when you do find it, you need to take it as far as you possibly can.
The best thing I can offer you is just some personal experience talking about how I managed to take something I was passionate about and turn it into something life-changing.
As a photographer & blogger, I am enabled to see the world through different perspectives.
I use a variety of tools to shape how other people see the world, too.
I began exploring photography when I was relatively young, back at the start of high school. It was a simple hobby, and a way to communicate despite my pretty introverted self. My interest in writing held up from around that time too (hence the blog you find yourself on!).
As with a lot of things, life got in the way and I went down some more traditional paths. I went to college and got a degree in Psychology, and worked my way through a group home and into corporate environments. I won’t act like it’s been all bad (it hasn’t), but there has always been this empty pit inside. For some people, these types of roles in life are sufficient – they are the goal, motivator, and point of it all – but they weren’t that for me.
Along with my wife, I came to a realization that photography (this extremely simple thing at it’s core that I had no formal education or training in) could be the “thing” that is used as a catalyst to enjoying the rest of my life on my own terms.
Now, I take photos for people 1-2 times a week. Weddings, portraits, commissions – I take a lot of pictures. But, I am happier for it.
As I have learned, a passion for photography spread into other areas of my life – particularly to writing, which led me to creating this blog and sharing experiences with other people. As of the time of this writing, I have 170 articles published here over the course of the past years – talking about topics ranging from simple photography tips for beginners to product reviews and discussions of my travels (here’s one on photographing Icelandic horses – talk about a niche topic!).
When I summarize this experience, it sounds easy. But it wasn’t. Honing my skills, learning how to run a business, and so much more were all driven by this core underpinning passion that really made it possible to achieve what I have. I hope the same for those of you reading who want to get to a point in their life like this where, you can look back and say, “all the hard work was worth it!”
Acceptance of Any Outcome
The hardest part about aspiring to reach a goal is failure.
It is easy to talk about how great things are when things go well. I get excited to talk about my successes. I mean – who doesn’t want to hear a good success story?
While it’s easy for me to be a cynical type, most of the time I strive to be more positive and optimistic (though – my heavy coat of sarcasm makes this difficult for people to realize at times!).
Still – all the positivity in the world doesn’t always equal the good outcome we want. While we have some control over the things that happen to us, we don’t have all of the control. With my photography business, I have had success and very few failures (knock on wood), but I am also realistic and well aware that all the things I’m aspiring for could come crumbling down with an economic recession or illness.
The best we can ever do is be as prepared as possible for the potentially bad outcomes. I work my full time day job in addition to running my business to have money saved for a rainy day. But – we can never be prepared for everything.
At the end of the day – all the big things we do in life in the pursuit of a big dream is a gamble.
We all hedge our bets and hope we put together the option that has a 90% success rate instead of a 20%.
We go as hard as possible – being motivated by a fiery passion to achieve goals and make the things we want to happen in our lives happen.
At the stage I am at, I know full well that, whatever happens, I am satisfied with the effort I’ve put in. The painstaking planning, slow burning movement through life and making an attempt to reach something higher than I would have envisioned for myself even 5 years ago.
In your drive to invest your time, energy, money, etc. – keep this in the back of your mind. It’s not the happy-go-lucky motivational speech you might prefer, but if I’m being honest – it’s the reality that things could go wrong, that failure is a possibility, that life can throw unexpected curveballs – that really make success feel good and well deserved.
