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4 Steps to Define Living Fabulously on Your Terms

  February 5, 2018  |    #Live Fabulously

Living fabulously on your terms

What do you want to achieve? Who do you want to be? What does a successful life look like to you? Follow these four steps and get the free Fabulous Life Worksheet included with the Fabulous Life Combo below to define living fabulously on your terms.

Living fabulously on your terms, not living fabulously broke

Want to know the inspiration for changing our tagline ‘Living Fabulously, Not Fabulously Broke?’ Several months back, we were speaking at Prudential’s LGBT Financial Experience Symposium in Newark NJ. Prudential invited us to this one-night event to tell our story of getting into and climbing out of debt as a gay couple.

While verbally telling our story, as we’ve done in writing many times, I described how even though our lives looked amazing on the outside with our fancy dinners, expensive cocktails, destination vacations and designer clothes, we were in debt up to our mascara-lined eyeballs.  I concluded, “We were the gay cliché of living fabulously, but being fabulously broke,” and the audience reacted.

Until then, we had never said that in public. We also knew that it could rub some the wrong way. But, it’s true, and we felt it had an all-too-familiar contradiction.

The audience agreed. People clapped. They got it! It was then that we both realized that we had to change our tagline to that all-too-familiar contradiction with which our community balances.

We later saw that several attendees retweeted that quote.

What does living fabulously on your terms mean?

Too many of us, gay, straight or otherwise, get duped into living life on other peoples’ terms. We pursue the careers our parents think we should have. We buy our homes to keep up with our friends. We buy the car our neighbor has. We dress to impress people we don’t know.

That’s not living fabulously on your terms. Living fabulously on your terms means understanding what’s important to you and designing a life about that.

Contrary to what others or society think you should want, living fabulously on your terms could mean not having a high-stress, six-figure paying job and having a job that helps others.

It could mean not owning a home but traveling the world instead.

You might not want to be a gym bunny or a muscle god.

For you, it could mean hiking the hills of Palm Springs and posting videos of it on Facebook.

When explaining his hierarchy of needs, Abraham Maslow is quoted as saying, “Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinions of others.” So, the definition of living fabulously on your terms is 100% your own definition.

1. Become self-aware, and

The first step in defining living fabulously on your terms is to become aware of who you are and what your feelings are.

Even though by all outward appearances, we looked like we were living fabulously when we weren’t, we realized that we were 1) making up for feelings of inadequacy and inferiority when we were younger because we were gay, and 2) hoping that our new, gay community would accept us.

We realized that we weren’t happy living that way, despite how it looked. Becoming aware of this contradiction was important in being able to define living fabulously on our terms.

2. learn your values.

After you realize you’ve been living a contradiction, the next step is learning what your values are. This may sound like a step you can skip but don’t.

If you just realized that you’ve been living a contradiction, then you haven’t been living according to your values and that could be because you don’t know what your true values are.

You might also not be clear how your values affect your financial life. “The hierarchy of your values dictates your financial destiny,” says Dr. John Dimartini. He means that you spend your money on what’s important to you and if what’s important to you doesn’t provide financial security, you won’t be financially secure.

If looking and living fabulously is important to you, that’s how you’ll spend your money. If saving and investing is important to you, you’ll put a priority on saving and investing. You’ll then have more money saved and invested.

Whatever you value is fine if it’s not hurting you. Just know how you spend and why you spend that way. If it’s risking your financial security, then understand why you’re sabotaging yourself.

Get all the tips to live fabulously without breaking the bank:

3. List your happiest moments, then

If you’re struggling to decide what living fabulously on your terms means, whether it’s your personal life, material life or work life, then think of the moments in each of those areas of your life when you were proudest.

What moments made excited you? What were those experiences you couldn’t wait to tell someone? When were you happiest?

It’s in those moments where you’ll find your true happiness. They’ll inform you of your true calling and what will help you live the best version of yourself.

Let those experiences define living fabulously on your terms, not someone else’s.

4. dream bigger!

Okay, we all way too often fall prey to living lives of mediocrity. We think the center stage, exciting success is for others and not us.

“They’re so successful they’re not real people, and I’m just over here being real people.”

Bullshit! You can have every success; however, you define it, that you want. So, after you lean your true values and define what living fabulously on your terms means, tens times it.

Break down self-imposed limitations. Ignore the naysayers and trolls. Forgive your past and step out and up to be the person you’re meant to be. As Lisa Nichols says, “Step into your greatness.”

Yes, it’s easier said than done, but you’ll never live up to your full potential, you’ll never live fabulously on your terms unless you know what your terms are.

Here are more cool tips on living fabulously:

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