Quit The Rat Race 'for Life'

Life is full of compromises. It has to be.

You've compromised with your parents, your partner, your friends, your children, your boss and workmates. If we didn't know how to compromise with each other then the world would be a much more unpleasant place to live.

But what happens if you wake up one day, when its too late, and you discover that you have compromised your whole life away?

This prospect scared the hell out of me and I knew that I had to do something to make sure that didn't happen.

The compromise that I was making was to my family because of the long and unsociable hours I worked. When it became a price that I was no longer prepared to pay, I decided that my only option was to leave my job and start up my own home based business.

This is not about my business per se, but about my learnings that enabled me to take that life changing decision.

If you feel trapped in the Rat Race and are seeking the Knowledge, Confidence and Motivation to make life changing decisions for yourself, then I hope you find a starting place here.

Dictionary definitions include -

A difficult, tiring, often competitive activity or routine
An exhausting routine that leaves no time for relaxation
The ruthless, competitive struggle for success in work, etc
A way of life in which people are caught up in a fiercely competitive
struggle for wealth or power.

The Wikipedia definition is -

A term used for an endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit. A term
often used to describe work, particularly excessive work; in general
terms, if one works too much, one is in the rat race. This terminology
contains implications that many people see work as a seemingly
endless pursuit with little reward or purpose.

Is this ringing any bells with you?

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Ultimately this lens is about being able to be in control of your life and being able to live the life that you want to lead.

I believe that you will seldom have complete control and total happiness within your life if you are bound by the shackles of working for someone else - no matter how hard you work. Having lots of money is not the most important thing here but having enough money is.

To obtain the full freedom of enjoying life's experiences and spending time with your family and friends, not to mention the income you will need to do so, you realistically need to be looking at starting your own business.

The good news is that there are probably more genuine opportunities of earning a secondary or replacement income then there ever have been before and technological, economic and ecological reasons for doing so.

Aside from the lack of awareness of these opportunities, the number one reason that stops people starting their own home based business and taking control of their lives is a mindset that says that 'having a job' is the only way to live.

This is to say that if you are at all unhappy with either your job, not spending enough time with your partner or children, living from one payday to the next, stuck in continual downward spiral of debt and stress or generally not being able to live the life that you want to, then there most definitely is another way.

But there is no Business Opportunity here. This is about getting your head around the truth that you don't have to put up with a life that you are not happy with. It's about believing that it not just possible to have the life that you want for yourself and your family but it is your RIGHT.

Please belief me that Anything and Everything is possible in your life once you believe that you are worthy of it.

This lens is about helping you to find that belief.

Is your life turning out the way that you dreamed, imagined, intended, expected, planned, hoped or even educated yourself to be?

Very few people will be able to answer that question with an emphatic YES. Many more will be able to answer it with an emphatic NO but there will also be many people in the middle who can't really say one way or another because they sadly never had any great expectation of what they would or could achieve with their life.

Before you start on any journey you have to decide where it is that you want to go - otherwise you just go round and round wasting valuable time and not getting anywhere.

Your destination is the goals and aspirations that you set for yourself. Many people never have a destination in mind when they set off and so will spend there lives drifting aimlessly and complaining that they never get anywhere.

But you are more likely to be the person who answered "No, I am not really living the Life that I want to lead". You do have a very good idea of where you want your destination to be but you are just currently still searching for the map on how to get you there. I am not being patronising, it is just that you wouldn't be looking for information like this if that wasn't the case.

So I have three more questions for you. I can't stop you cheating, but I would really like you to answer each one for yourself before you read on further down the page.

1) What are the reasons why you have not yet fulfilled all your dreams and aspirations that you have for yourself?

2) Do you believe that it is possible to achieve whatever it is you want out of your life?

3) Do you believe that you are worthy of the life that you want for yourself?



Question 1
If all, or the majority of your reasons are down to factors that you deem to beyond your control, ie "I didn't have a good education, come from a rough side of town, had a child at 16, had a bad relationship, boss never liked me, can't get out of debt," etc, then you are right - you never will fulfil your dreams and your potential.

This is not because it is impossible for anyone to succeed if they have been through any of these experiences, but because you are giving yourself the perfect excuse for not succeeding. In fact many people have achieved great things in their lives because they had experiences like this.
They used those experiences as a springboard to inspire themselves to go out and make something better of their lives.

You have to take responsibility and control for your own life and your actions or inactions within it. You have to start to focus on the positives rather than the negatives with your life. If you are in a bad relationship then you do have a choice to get out of it. If you have a child a sixteen then by the time you are on your late 20's you still have a lot of time to develop yourself and live life while you are still young. Your choice, your state of mind.


From my own experience I was an Assistant Manager for over 10 years with the same company. In that time many younger and self admittedly inexperienced people were promoted above me throughout the company. A lot of staff and managers underneath me thought I had been harshly treated (equally as many probably didn't!) and so did my wife. For a long time, I too felt the same way and went through spells of disillusionment and despair. But a couple of years ago that all changed.

I was hardworking, dedicated and capable and "one of the best Assistant Managers in the business" but clearly not someone they saw as a number one. I disagreed with their opinion for a long time but I couldn't waste my life being bitter about it. I came to realise that this probably just wasn't meant to be and that actually I probably wouldn't be eternally happy in the job that I sort for so long.

I could have just coasted along for the next 20 years in a secure and well paid job but that was not me (and there were significant compromises to my family life with hours worked) so I chose to leave and start my own business. It is a decision that I have never once regretted.

So everyone has choices and everyone must take the responsibility for their own lives. Don't blame anyone else for your life so far, just move on and gain from your experiences.

Question 2
It almost certainly is possible to achieve whatever it is that you want to out of your life, you just need to believe that you can. Obviously this is not something that everyone can just 'turn on' but there are many tools available to make that belief unchallengeable.

Question 3
With out a doubt you most certainly are worthy of achieving the best life that you can for yourself - everyone is - but this also needs to be developed like belief does.

You owe it to yourself and everyone you know to be happy in your life. If this means making changes that you are not really sure where to start with, well you need to start at the beginning again - WITH YOU.

I love my music.

I would love to work in the music business. I'm not in anyway musically talented but I would love to be a manager of a group (this could still happen) OR, even better, to be Simon Cowell (unlikely to happen).

To work in the music business and to live in the world that he does would be fantastic. There is also a lot to study and admire about his business acumen as well.

My taste in music is wide ranging and I will flit between different genres and styles depending on how I am feeling at the time.

What I love about music is that it can be appreciated on many different levels. The sophistication and uniqueness of its overall composition, the underlying rift or melody, the meaning and resonance of the lyrics, the delivery from the artist, the feelings of euphoria or melancholy that it has the power to evoke or even the ability that it has to take you back to an exact moment in time, many years before.

But above all it can be very uplifting and inspiring for the human spirit. I don't know how it works but there are songs that can have an amazing mind altering affect on your confidence and self belief.

Listening to inspiring and motivational music can induce the perception that you are capable of doing ANYTHING. For that moment you feel so great about yourself and you know that you are capable of doing whatever it takes to realise your dreams.

But wait, this is not a false perception - it is a true one.

You can do ANYTHING that you want to do, achieve ANYTHING that you want to. You just need to capture that feeling, keep it alive and use it to your advantage.

If music has this self empowering affect on you then this is just one tool you can use in your armoury and to start living the life that you want to lead TODAY.