“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” — Scott Belsky

“Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius

“Everyone has an idea, but it’s really about executing the idea and attracting other people to help you with the idea.” — Jack Dorsey

“The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.” — Oprah Winfrey

Do you have a Career, or do you just have a job?

If you go to work everyday and just do what you’re told, you just have a job.

Maybe you hate that job.

Maybe you do just enough work so you don’t get fired.

Many people work at a job that makes them miserable just so that they have enough money to survive.

Obviously, this is not ideal.

Nobody wants to work at a job they hate.

So, why are so many people in this situation?

This is not going to get you to a place of success.

And, having a lackluster attitude of doing the bare minimum will seep into the other areas of your life.

Depression.

Frustration.

Anxiety.

Stagnation.

Success and happiness will seem further and further away.

Even if you make an effort to improve other areas of your life, it’s not going to work.

You cannot separate your work life from the rest of your life.

They are intertwined, whether you like it or not.

You need to find a way to better integrate your work life and your desired lifestyle.

You need a plan.

To achieve happiness and financial independence, you need a career growth plan that aligns with your lifestyle goals.

There Is A Link Between Your Career And Your Happiness

The work you do is just one part of your life.

But, it does consume a lot of your time.

According to a survey by Gallup, Americans work an average of 47 hours per week.

Because such a large portion of your time is spent working, work will impact your life satisfaction and happiness.

But, this can be a good thing.

A study in the Frontiers of Psychology found a positive link between job and life satisfaction.

The paper states, “Job satisfaction predicts increases in life satisfaction, which in turn predict increases in job satisfaction, and vice versa, thereby creating a virtuous circle in both individual and organizational well-being.”

Basically, being happier at your job increases overall happiness, which then causes more job happiness, and further increases overall life satisfaction.

It’s a brilliant feedback loop.

Building a strategy to align your lifestyle and your career will bring you greater happiness.

3 Steps To Bring Your Desired Lifestyle And Career Into Alignment

You probably want to tie together what you enjoy in your lifestyle with a career that makes you money.

Finding alignment between your career and lifestyle can increase your happiness.

But, how can you make that happen?

Explained here are the 3 steps that are crucial to making this happen.

These are the 3 steps that I used, without realizing it at the time, and now I want to pass this on to you.

Here is my 3-step plan for bringing your desired lifestyle and career into alignment…

1. Get a killer career.

Most people have had a job, but have never been in a real career.

A job is something you do, but you hate (or at best, tolerate).

It’s something you show up for and learn just enough about to not get fired.

A career is something you approach with an owner’s mindset.

When you have a killer career, you ask…

“If I was going to run this company one day, what would I need to learn?”

“If I had a business like this, how would I scale it? What would I change? How would I ensure effective communication between departments?”

In a Killer Career, you work at one company and progress through the ranks.

This means finding a large enough company that can offer you a killer career.

A company with many departments and a clear organizational structure.

You want to be able to experience multiple departments on one site so you can see how those departments interact with each other.

Believe it or not, the stuff that you learn in a corporate career is going to help you a ton.

You will learn about company dynamics.

You will learn about business.

Every company makes both good and bad decisions, so you can see what they did that worked, and what they did that was terrible.

Learn everything you can from this killer career.

One final, but very important component, is that you need to be able to move upward in the company — quickly.

So, the key is targeting a company where you can excel very rapidly and vertically.

In order to learn as much as possible, you need to have visibility at the higher levels within a company.

2. Have a brain child.

Having a Brain child means that you have an idea that you then turn into either a service or a product.

People have ideas all the time, so it’s easy to think, “I’m having brain children all the time!”

You’re not.

A brain child is more than just an idea.

It takes execution.

Action is always a limiting factor.

Having an idea is one thing, but productizing it so you can sell it and create a second source of income off of it, is entirely different.

This is the step that many people don’t make.

They get stuck at the idea phase and never actually create a brain child, because it’s hard.

And, since creating a brain child is hard, very likely, you’re not going to have a product in the beginning.

You are probably going to start by offering a service.

Ideally, the service you create, your brain child, is something you can do while you’re still in your killer career.

That way, you can build up the brain child while still having the security of your killer career.

You want to work your job and have a side project, a side hustle, going on at the same time.

Your side hustle is your brain child.

And, you can grow it to eventually be your main hustle.

3. Achieve deal flow.

As your brain child grows, your second stream of income will grow.

Your personal platform will also grow, as will your reputation.

Others will start to see that you’re not just a one-trick pony.

They’ll see that you’re different.

Intelligent. Driven. Unique.

These people will show you respect by being open to making deals with you.

Eventually, you’ll be approached so often that you’ll achieve a state of deal flow.

Deal flow is where financial independence, location independence, and true happiness (the opposite of boredom and dependence) are achieved.

Deal flow is what comes at the end of the first 2 steps.

It’s really what’s at the top of all of this.

A lot of people think the top of all of this is laying on a beach somewhere drinking Mai Tais.

But, you’ll get bored of that very quickly.

Really, it’s about reaching that alignment where your brain child allows you to enjoy working and gives you the lifestyle you want.

That means, you want to build your brain child up so that you have a lot of other people working with your brain child.

Turn it into something where you’re working with multiple people.

That way, you can do more strategic things.

You can make strategic deals and focus on productivity.

This stuff is crucial.

But, you have to know where you’re going.

You need to be thinking strategically, and the only way to do that is to build a team so you have the time and energy to be strategic.

You need to be the one making deals that grow your brain child.

Once you reach a state of deal flow, once you have your killer career, once you have your brain child, then you will just leapfrog ahead, further and further.

Whenever you see someone who wrote a book or started their own project, and then all of a sudden, they are everywhere — how did that happen?

How are they everywhere?

They’ve achieved deal flow.

They’ve reached a place where they are strategically growing their brain child everyday.

Neatly tie together your work and your lifestyle so that you can create a life of fulfillment and happiness. Your life satisfaction is directly tied to your job satisfaction. So, how can you create alignment in these 2 areas of your life? The 3-step plan that I used was to first, get a killer career, then have a brain child, and finally achieve deal flow. By following these 3 steps, you will be able to find the place where your work and your lifestyle tie together in a way that brings you happiness.

To learn more about the 3 Steps To Align Your Lifestyle And Career, and to get instant access to exclusive training videos, case studies, insider documents, and my private online network, get on the wait list to create your Escape Plan and Achieve Intelligent Alignment.