At the start, it might take a huge amount of time to get things off the ground, but that should not be the average. Grinding in your business for a few months is a lot different than ten years.

In some circles, this is called lifestyle design. Lifestyle design holds that you are in complete control of your own life and choices.

Most people don't start off thinking about actually constructing their life intentionally. Instead, they roll with the punches and let life happen to them.

That is not your fate.

You are part of the Choose Success community.

Choose Success people step out from the crowd and plan for their lives. Just like you.

You have a definite purpose. So you make plans for your purpose and activity pursue your dreams every day.

You want to enjoy all the things life has to offer you. Therefore, you have to design your business to support your lifestyle, not the other way around.

Understand the consequences of not designing your life.

If you do not design  your life you will not:

So if you genuinely want to create a lifestyle that matches your business plan precisely, you need to know the kind of lifestyle you want first.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about the lifestyle of your dreams.

Why are you here?

This question is really about what your purpose in life is to you? It should align with your definite purpose and core values. It can help you to create a mission statement. Your purpose should spell out what matters to you in life.

Many people have found it helpful to write their obituary to answer this question. What do you hope you have accomplished if you die at the ripe old age of 120? Spell it out as if it happened.

What energizes and animates you?

Starting and growing a business will take a lot of energy. Therefore, it is best to know how you can recharge your batteries.

What do you love to do most?

Can you name one thing you love to do the most out of anything else. Don't think about money making things when you answer. Think about what makes you feel happy. When you exude joy, it's obvious you like what you're doing.

Where will you do it?

When you think about doing what makes you most happy, where do you want to be when you do it?

Who will you do it with?

Life can get very lonely if you don't build the structures to meet your social needs.

What impact do you hope to make?

Ultimately, what impact do you hope to have on your world doing this thing you want to do? What impact will it have on you, your family, your friends, your customers, and the world at large? This is vital information for you to figure out.

It would be best if you create your ideal lifestyle and life on paper just like your business plan.

Creating the ideal business is to provide service to your clients and develop the best lifestyle for you.

A lifestyle that the nine to five grind can never support for you.

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. Stephen R. Covey

Keeping your designed lifestyle in front of you can be a challenge.

One of the ways is to create a vision board with aspects of your ideal life.
The pictures remind you of what you're working toward.

Another way is to have pictures of your loved ones around to remind you of why you are building your business.

Knowing what success looks like to you will be a lot easier to experience some of it every day instead of some distant time in the future.

Remember to develop a business around you, not the other way around.

A successful business without a successful personal life is like settling for a participation trophy.

It looks good at a distance, but when people get close enough to examine it they see it is skin deep.

Don't settle for that.

Take the time to develop a lifestyle you want. Don't compromise.

If you have enjoyed this, here are a few more that might interest you.

It's the align with your core beliefs and goals that I would like to talk about because it happens more than we would like to admit.

Not every business is a good business for you. It has to align with your personal values, goals and skill sets.

So before you start working on your business plan, you need to sort out your personal goals. They need to be in sync. You don't want to be a different person when working in your business and around your family and friends.

When setting goals, it is essential to remember that there needs to be some balance in the major areas of your life. Without this balance, you will spend all your time and energy focusing on work and not spend any time on family or your health, as an example.

People never think about how each decision affects how their lives will look and be in practice when designing their lives.

When you talk about goals with friends and family, are most of the conversations about work and financials? Why is that?

Why are you limiting your goals to work? Is focusing on your career and business goals the only thing that matters? NO, but like us all, you get sucked in by the commercials on TV and magazine advertisements for insurance brokers and banks to focus on making money and managing money to have all you want in the future. What about now? You need some balance.

So let's break a long-held myth in the self-improvement industry. Goals are not just about work.

Let’s start strong and talk about the areas of life you need to design to ensure your success.

If you want a particular lifestyle, you must think about how each choice impacts your desires.

There are eight areas of life that you need to design purposefully for success:

Career Goals

Education- Life Long Learning

Don’t forget your local library. They have access to a wide variety of materials, and depending on their services, online learning could be available.

Finally, check out your local college or university to see if individual courses will help you become an expert in your field.

Family Goals

Community Goals

Do you want to be involved in your church, or do you want to feed the poor or take care of stray animals in your area?

What do you want to have the time and funds to do in your community?
It might be as simple as helping the elderly couple down the street with the groceries.

Spiritual Goals

Spiritual goals sometimes focus on changing you into a newer, better person.

Maybe control your temper or give a certain amount to a charity you care about and want to support.

Health and Fitness Goals

Your health and fitness level are essential because it doesn’t matter what level of success you achieve if you're unhealthy.
Being ill or not working at peak performance physically, it’ll be hard to keep up the momentum to achieve your plans.

Finances Goals

Hobbies 

More Goal Lessons

Your goals should be yours, not your spouse’s, your companies, parents or close friends. Take control of your future by making your goals for yourself. If you’re chasing someone else's goals, your life will not be balanced, and you will feel artificial.

As you look to creating your own business you can now put some boundaries around what you will do and what you won't do.

It would be best if you had goals in all the areas and did not limit your goals to work. Don't think you can separate your business life from your personal life. It wont work.

Go through each area and write a summary about how you envision your life in each of these areas.

Then be very specific about what it will cost you in terms of time and resources to achieve the ideal life you’re designing for yourself. Do not make assumptions.

Look up how much something costs, ask people who have done it how long it takes, and get real information so that you’re not just guessing.

The idea is to design a life that you really want to live, but that is realistic for you to achieve.

If you found this helpful, you might want to check out these articles

Why Is It Important To Have a Goal In Life?

Why It's Never Too Late to Go After Your Dreams

Change Your Habits to Change Your Life

Whether you want to become the next Steve Jobs, launch a successful project, or climb up the career ladder, you need to start with baby steps. Swap any habits that hold you back for habits that move you forward.

Let's say you always find excuses to skip your workout by doing that; you'll never manage to lose those extra pounds and get in shape.

Commit yourself to hit the gym at least three times a week. Take it seriously, just like you do with your job or family time. Then, a month later, schedule four workouts a week.

In the meantime, make small changes to your diet. Do one thing at a time. For instance, you could ditch the sugar during week one, cut back on junk food the second week, cook your meals from fresh ingredients the third week, and so on.

Think small to go big, and the results will follow!

If you like this you might want to check out 5 Ways to Set and Achieve Your Goals