12 February 2008 148 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

Reading Danny’s post yesterday, I was struck by how drastically a person can change their lifestyle. From a move to a new city to adopting sustainable living practices, we all regularly face opportunities to change how we live our lives — hopefully, for the better. But it may not be a decision to make lightly. A person must consider opportunity costs, as well as financial costs, when making these decisions.

There are some situations in which the decision is fairly easy: a sick person may have to make changes in order to get better or a person who has significant debt may need to make changes in order to get in a better financial situation. That said, there are plenty of individuals that choose not to make what others see as necessary changes.

What does it take to make such a drastic change?

•  An understanding that new or different doesn’t mean bad. Change is hard, and it’s difficult to be certain that things will turn out the way that you want, in the end. That alone can derail many of our plans for improvement. Consider the decision to strike out on your own as an entrepreneur if you’re used to your cubicle — you’re looking at a lot of hard work, with no guarantee of success. It’s a whole new world, with different responsibilities and obligations. You have to be willing to work through the worry that those different tasks might be too hard.
• A willingness to work at it. I’ve been dropped off in a foreign country and expected to make a go of it — we’re talking a bit of a drastic change, here. I saw plenty of other Americans in the same position that basically spent their entire time overseas glued to a computer, talking to the folks back home. But those of us willing to get out there and try things had some amazing experiences and learned quite a bit, as well.
• The ability to tell when something isn’t going to workout. I’m all for sticking with things ’til the bitter end — a miracle may appear. But you need to decide what your limits are, preferably before starting on your new lifestyle. Somethings just don’t work out. It doesn’t mean failure — it’s just a fact of life. The real difficulty is in deciding what constitutes ‘not working out.’ My first several months of freelancing, I made practically nothing. I didn’t meet my own goals in terms of work. I set certain terms, along the lines of giving myself a set number of months to make a profit. If I hadn’t, I would have gone back to the corporate world.