Struggling with purpose? You are it! Your purpose is to live, to work and get by, to work and enjoy it, work isn’t just what you do every day to make money to spend on things; it’s internal, it’s the working out, it’s creating a beautiful garden!

It takes two to tango; often a task needs two people to perform. To take things to the next level, we must collaborate. I was collaborating with a friend and still am; we are planning, strategizing, and facilitating events around our locality to socialise communities through creative endeavours. Our goal is to help other people; we realise that to lead a happy life, we need meaning, and a normal job just doesn’t cut it! We like to be our own boss, do things on our terms, and have freedom. The only way to get that freedom is by scheduling tightly. It’s by being disciplined and doing hard work regularly, not in small, big bursts but a series of small steps. Preparation is key, and feedback from a partner makes the ball roll faster.

My perspective on freedom used to be about escaping laborious tasks, but I soon learned this leads to not just boredom but also apathy. I was in a deep pool of apathy, existential waves getting bigger and bigger until WOOOOSH it hit me: get to work! We need to do work to have a purpose, to feel of value, to have worth. This work can be anything; it can be writing, building, engineering, teaching, cutting hair, making art, but it must somehow have a positive impact on humanity. This positive impact could be mood elevation in people through comedy or writing or therapy. It could be a vital necessity people require to live, like building houses or farming, so people have food to eat. What you do matters. If you feel it doesn’t, you need to sit down and introspect. You need to think hard about what brings you joy and figure out whether that can be a job. The way I see it, anything can be a job that brings in money to sustain your life if you work hard enough towards the goal.

To escape, to want that isn’t a good sign. We should instead be in a mindset where getting up every day gets us closer to our goal. We won’t take no for an answer; we will get there, one step at a time. We will get there, leapfrogging from one job to another. You don’t need permanent employment. To tackle the issue of the cost of living, we must rein in our spending and budget according to our means. Within the budget, there needs to be savings, even if you put away £25 a month. This practice will become habitual, serving you well when you come into more wealth. What is important is to think about spending carefully. We don’t want to impulse buy, to get instant gratification; those are often regretful buys. But we do want to invest in things, like good quality ingredients for meals we make ourselves, or clothing that lasts (buying second hand is very smart). I would also advise selling things online. Apparently, the average person has around £1000 worth of things around their house they could possibly sell. This is something I did recently to lower stress. I did an audit of things I don’t use anymore and realised I better sell these things quickly. This impacted me positively.

When we have more, it is tempting to spend more. This is where a tight spending budget needs to be applied, at least until you have emergency savings. A lot of people don’t. Have boundaries; tell people no. Let’s do something free; let’s do it at home.

Reduce spending, expand incomings, budget to save, invest in yourself. Frugality and hard work both take discipline; they both take having boundaries around spending. Remember that to have is not really to have, but often just to say we have or to boost the ego.

There is an abundance of wealth; there are many streams of revenue. To find them takes regular detective work, brainstorming, and most importantly, collaboration. To get things done, we need others. If we support one another to conquer our lives, to conquer debt, we will all come up together, stronger, and healthier than going at it alone. Not to say that part of the journey isn’t internal and about looking within, but in life, we mustn’t stray away from collaborating as a team!

We often think we are not good enough when we don’t feel like we are where we are supposed to be. But this is a comparison of other people’s lives, which are all very different from yours. We must remember to enjoy the process and grow from pain. Embrace the pain. Pain is temporary. I like to embrace it.

Get it.