Think of all the things I would do if I won the lottery, and then look for ways to work towards them now, even without a multimillion dollar bank account

I went to the high school graduation of a family member last night, and one part of the graduation address stuck with me. The presenter implored the graduates to frequently ask themselves, “what would I do if I weren’t afraid?”

I guess that’s the spirit of this goal for me. Thinking bigger and not focusing so much on the wall right in front of your nose, but on the big picture. “What would I do if I weren’t broke?” “What would I do if I had all the time in the world?” “What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?”

I’d hire an architect to design my home, and an interior designer to help me clarify my design ideas. I would so love to have a beautiful home. I’d hire someone to clean it, or maybe since financial necessity wouldn’t force me to hold down a full-time job, I would take all the time I needed to clean and organize it myself.

So, once I wake from that pleasant dream and realize that I haven’t won the lottery, what can I take from that dream and manifest now? I have plenty of vacation time that’s going unused—even if I do take a weeklong vacation this year, I’ll have many additional days. I think I’ll take a few days off to work on my spring clean goal.

(P.S. My home would also be a super-low impact eco-house, but that’s something for another entry)

Without a multimillion dollar bank account, it would be a lot harder for me to afford to live a life of leisure touring the world indefinitely. However, I do have several weeks of vacation time per year that generally get used one day at a time for mental health days, instead of for real rejuvenating vacations!

My new goal is to plan for and take a week-long vacation this year. Even if it doesn’t happen this year, my efforts have already resulted in plans for several weekends out of town, which is a fantastic start. I’ll be out of town the next two weekends! And several more long weekends are likely this year. Not to be so easily diverted from my original goal, but I think I would be satisfied (in a slightly different way) with this.

And study whatever interested me until I found a career that suited me better. I was just noticing yesterday how my current job does not nurture my initiative at all. I waste so much time at work, and it often makes me feel guilty and/or uninspired.

I am so uber-responsible and practical that I generally don’t even consider quitting my job unless I think about what I would do if I won the lottery. I see myself as my household’s primary breadwinner, however warped that perception might be.

Quitting my job and going back to school without a plan of any kind probably wouldn’t be time- and cost-effective, given the fact that I still haven’t won the lottery. But I do plan to re-take the Strong Interest Inventory very soon and do some more career research, including considering going back to school.

Further entries about job-quitting, dream cultivating and asking more from my job (not to be bored at work, or example) will be made under these goals:

Be paid abundantly for doing what I love

Reinvent My Career

Twenty or so of us bought a pool of tickets.

Normally, as a fiscal conservative, I would never touch such things with a 10-foot pole. But I have been told to lighten up and have a little fun, it’s only a few dollars.

The most interesting part of the experience for me has been imagining what I would do with millions of dollars, after all of the little things I worry about and strive towards were taken care of. I had to keep reminding myself to think BIGGER; I would have a lot left over even after all my current financial goals were achieved! Once I got to dreaming bigger and bigger, I wondered if my lottery winnings would be enough to cover these ambitious projects. “That’s OK, I could probably get some investors,” I thought. So why wait for my lottery numbers to come up?