What does your dream life look like? Imagine you can live that life without having to work a day in your life. Pure bliss!
Picture these scenarios. You can travel anywhere in the world without worries while earning a sizeable income. You do not have a micromanaging boss breathing down your neck, but get paid to do the things you enjoy. You work for yourself and on your own terms. You enjoy the scenic views of your favourite resort while working from your laptop. Sounds like something you like, yeah? What if I told you that people are already living your dream life?
No jokes. These people are digital nomads. They enjoy the flexibility of living their best life by leveraging technological tools. They also get paid to do so on their own terms. This blog post provides a high-level framework to help you become a digital nomad and live your best life. I got the inspiration for this write-up from a video posted on YouTube by Ali Abdaal. Are you ready for this? Let’s delve right into it.
The key requirement for living this type of life is to figure out how to make money. This is pretty obvious, right? This is the biggest limitation people have on the journey toward digital nomadism. You need enough money to pay your bills and some extra for the comforts associated with the nomadic lifestyle.
To meet your financial needs, identify a job that you enjoy doing. Preferably one that is not location-bound and gives you freedom over your time. There are three main paths to this:
- The content creator path is one most people are familiar with and takes a long time to yield dividends. It requires consistency to gain credibility before it pays off. If you want rewards in the short term, this is not the path for you.
- Another path is to build something (anything) from the ground up. Entrepreneurship is hard. Founding a start-up is not trivial; it requires a significant investment of time and resources and lots of patience, especially at the beginning. If you want the ‘soft life,’ this is not for you either.
- The last path, which is doable for most people, is freelancing. This means that you identify skills that you already have that you can use to earn an income. Skills like writing, graphic design, audio and video editing, web design, and so on are in high demand. At the onset, though, you will have to work hard at it. That’s because you are exchanging time for money. If done right, it can catapult you into the creator or entrepreneurial economy in the long term.
To explore the freelancing path, you need to have clients. Real people willing (and able) to pay you for your services. You also need to be findable so that your ideal clients can locate you easily.
Next, you need to make time to transition into the life of your dreams. You can start transitioning without quitting your day job. Well, not until you can fund your dream life through your side hustle. To do this, you must master managing your time and energy. Especially if you have other responsibilities, such as family commitments. It will help if you schedule time on your calendar to work on your dream. It could be every day, thrice a week, or only on weekends. Whatever works for you.
Back to that dream life you pictured at the beginning of this post. You know you have to make it work if it is ever going to come through, right? What are you waiting for?
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Scottish Proverb
Categories: My lifestyle
Pearl's Blog 
Nice one!.
Here is what I think of it
You can be anything you want to be. You just need to willing to move and change.
Ely Shemer
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree, Ely. We can accomplish anything if we are WILLING to make the changes to achieve whatever we desire.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much, Pearl.
This write-up is quite encouraging.
I am into freelancing as an academic editor already, attracting scientific manuscripts destined for publishing in top or high impact journals.
I plan to retire into freelancing, so I find your article really a booster.
While it’s fun working on one’s hours, getting academic editing jobs can be exceptionally competitive — most retired professors settle down into same and are usually given first rights of passage by their former institutions.
I suppose besides academic editing or proofreading there are quite a number of other skills one can deploy on freelance basis for a global market.
LikeLike
It’s great to know that your interest is in academic editing and publishing. Also, that you have started freelancing already.
Concerning the competitiveness, I’d say the goal should be to become so good at your craft that it is difficult to ignore you. Yeah, there would always be people with more degrees, experience or other advantages, but with consistency and determination, you can also break through. You do not need to explore other skills or options if editing/publishing is what you really want to do. You just need to figure out a way to be outstanding and to showcase your value.
LikeLike
Thanks so much for your comments. I really appreciate your advice in being so good at one’s work as to become irresistible to clients. It’s never too late to hone one’s skills.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d love to do remote jobs so I could travel easier. I just moved from the west coast to be closer to family, but if I had a more flexible remote job, I could potentially live in both places throughout the year. It would be ideal! Freelancing could do that, too.
Thanks for a great post. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s the dream, Sara. A job that gives enough flexibility to live anywhere. Yeah, freelancing a great way to do that. It helps that WFH is now a thing now (unlike a few years ago); it can be a way to start making the transition.
Glad you loved the post 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. 🥰
LikeLiked by 1 person