5 Steps You Must Follow to Live the Life of Your Dreams
Few people live life on their own terms — but you can be one of them.
You only have two choices in life: Live the life others expect of you or live the life you want.
You can’t have it both ways.
One path takes courage, risk, and pain and is infinitely harder than the other—yet it’s the only path that leads you to true freedom, fulfillment, and joy.
After all, it’s easy to do what everyone tells you to do. But it takes serious discomfort to change everything: The discomfort of leaving your previous life, the life your family taught you, and the life everyone wants you to live — except yourself.
I’ll share the critical steps to break free and start living your dream life. It might not be what you want to hear, but if you’re ready to listen, it’ll unlock tremendous growth in your life.
1. Put Down The Book and Live
Look, I love books—they’ve taught me so much and have supported me in countless ways.
But there’s a trap: Many people endlessly consume information, going from book to book, hoping to find the answer that will bring them success without having to leave their comfort zone.
Yet the ultimate way to learn is by doing, not by reading; one failure can teach you more than any book could ever do.
So after you finish a book, close it and use what you learned. Books give you direction, but you have to find your own unique way.
You cannot live your dream life without failing—a lot. Unlike a “safe” and “traditional” path, you’re doing things that aren’t guaranteed and that have a lot of unknowns. For example, if you want to move to a new country, start a new career, or transform your body, it requires you to break out of your comfort zone and take risks.
But failure is what will make you stronger and give you the chance to grow—so embrace it and get comfortable making mistakes.
“When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.”
— Paulo Coelho
Rather than waiting until you know everything, just take action and correct course along the way. Who cares if you fail? Life will go on.
2. Unlearn The Lies You Were Taught
“Life is hard.” “Life is tough.” “The real world doesn’t work like that.” “You’re a dreamer.” “You can’t just do what you want!”
Those are the exact quotes I’ve heard from my parents (and countless other people) in my life. The overall lesson? You can’t achieve your dreams, you have to learn to settle, and oh, by the way, life is an endless grind.
Bull-fucking-shit.
The harsh reality is very, very few people live life on their own terms. Instead, most people live a life without purpose or a life pushed by expectations and pressures from society — so the feedback you hear is skewed.
They convince you that you can’t have what you want. That you’re a dreamer. That your goals won’t come true. And so you listen to the lies and learn to just accept things rather than try to change things.
But settling is the most dangerous thing you can do.
Who says life has to be terrible? Who says you can’t do the things that you want to do? People who’ve never done what that they wanted to do?
Why listen to them? Why listen to people who quit before they started? Why let them shape your outlook on life?
You must understand there will always be resistance around you. Once you start, many people will get upset and find ways to bring you down. That’s why it takes courage to do things you’re passionate about, especially if they’re not “the norm.”
But understand that their resistance is just noise and the “rules” they believe are from people who’ve buried their dreams long ago. See it for what it is and stop listening to the bullshit.
3. Escape The Cycle That Plagues Everyone
Too many people need others to give them praise, approval, and validation. But that way, they will always be controlled by other people’s opinions and they will never — and I mean never — be able to live life on their own terms.
Chances are they’ll never be truly happy either.
Yet once you stop chasing approval, you’ll be free. All the naysaying, doubt, and criticism won’t affect you because you won’t need praise to feel good about yourself—and you can take action toward your goals without fear.
A quick warning: I see a lot of people try to live their dream life just so they can prove themselves. For example, many entrepreneurs, digital nomads, etc. show off how awesome their lives are, but in a backassward way, they still want people to admire them and clap their hands.
So although they seem to be living life “on their own terms,” it’s only fueled by a desire to look cool, worthy, etc.
Yes, I care about people, but I don’t need approval to feel happy, worthy, or good about myself. Who I am as a person is always okay — whether I achieve my dreams or not — and the more I forget this, the more likely I’ll do things to sabotage myself.
To eliminate approval-seeking tendencies, I regularly ask:
- If I could never tell a single person about my achievements, would I still pursue them?
- If no one knew I was “living my dream life,” would I still do it?
Stop trying to live the life of your dreams just to show off, get 100,000 followers on Instagram, or because you think it’ll make you better than others.
By stopping the endless chase for approval, you can do things purely for enjoyment and love, which will free you to live the life that you want.
4. Be Brutally Honest With Yourself
You might hate me for this, but here goes:
Many things you think you want are just things that other people — your family, friends, society, culture, etc. — taught you to want.
This is especially common in certain cultures where children are pressured to follow a few “traditional” and “stable” paths. Doctor. Lawyer. Engineer. Banker. Etc.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with those jobs, nor should you pick something to avoid being “clichéd.” But if you choose something only because everyone told you to, you’ll feel more unfulfilled and unhappy as the years go by — and it’ll drag down your life.
Worst of all, you’ll always wonder “what could’ve been” if you did what you actually loved.
Stop letting others call the shots in your life. Start asking yourself, “What do I actually like? What am I passionate about?” After all, the people who are living their best lives are passionate about something and are dedicating their lives to that passion.
After all, how can you live your “dream life” if you have no dreams?
Once you find your passions, things get better. Because that passion gives you the fuel to start taking control of your life. It gives you the direction to shape your life. And it gives you the motivation to overcome the inevitable obstacles you’ll face.
5. Take The One Thing You Need For Success
Too many people live incongruently with what they want. They say X, but they do Y. Life just “happened” and they took what they could get.
They picked the first partner that said yes, not the one that they wanted. They got the first job that hired them, not one they love. They let themselves get out of shape instead of building the body they wanted.
Then they rationalize their situation, blame external factors, and perpetuate the lies I talked about earlier (in point #2).
But if you want to live your dream life, you must take full ownership of your life and what happens every fucking day. Don’t judge by what you say; judge by what you actually do.
Be intentional and design your life so that it helps you get to where you want to go. Create boundaries and remove anything that limits you.
In my life, I’ve met very, very few people who are intentional with everything they do and who are living their life congruently with their values, goals, and beliefs (i.e. their dream life).
Instead, I meet people who feel unfulfilled and make a lot of excuses. Yet spending your life blaming everything and feeling like a victim is not living your dream life.
While you can certainly fight the injustices in the world, you can’t wait for them to disappear before you finally take ownership of your situation.
Your life belongs to you. You control it. No one can define it for you. So what are you going to do with it?
It’s hard to bury your head in the sand when you know almost everything that lies in front of you is in your control.
But once you embrace that responsibility, you’ll be free.
Your dream life awaits.
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