The first step in being simply happy and debt free is to determine where you are in your pursuit of life today. Once you recognize the need to make changes, you can begin the process of assessing and evaluating your current situation.

Whether you realize it or not, your goals and values are dictating the way you spend your time, money, and energy. If your values and goals are aligned with your priorities this can be a good thing. But sometimes life gets in the way and we lose our pathway and find that our lifestyle isn’t really reflecting our true values.

Think for just a moment about what your goals are. If your goals are to own the biggest house in the most prestigious neighborhood and drive the sleekest car possible along with amassing a great amount of material possessions even when that means you have to go deeply into debt to acquire these things, you will probably find yourself working a great deal of the time and neglecting other aspects of your life, such as your friends and family or your physical health.

On the other hand, perhaps your goals are more closely aligned with providing for the things your family needs, being debt free, and living a simply lifestyle. If this describes you, you most likely take the time and energy to nurture relationships with family and friends and you also take time to see to your own personal, physical, and spiritual needs.

Sometimes we think our goals and values are aligned with living a simple lifestyle yet upon close and honest inspection, we discover we have fallen into the trap of materialism and then all of our time and energy and focus goes toward paying for those things instead of nurturing the things that are really important to us.

Most people think they have to have two incomes and two cars to make it in today’s world but that isn’t always the case. It really comes down to what your priorities are. Start today to assess where your lifestyle is currently and ask yourself if that is the path that you chose or if it is the path that you “fell into.”

If you find that you are so far into debt that you can’t see your way out, take heart. There is always a way out. It takes hard work and dedication but if you strive to live a simple and debt free lifestyle, you can do so with pride and with a lot of hard work. For some people, change might mean laying off the daily $5 cup of coffee or taking their lunch to work. Others might determine they need to sell a car they didn’t really need in the first place.

The important thing is learning to align your lifestyle with your true values and goals. In doing so, you will find that you have plenty of time, energy, and money for the things that are truly important to you.

If you have discovered that your lifestyle is not in line with your values and goals, you can change your pathway today.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Debt Free Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.