What is Freedom?

I recently received an email from someone, who asked me some rather pointed questions on how to change his life. Not knowing many particulars about this man, I figured answering some of his general questions via email would also be helpful for you, too.

He, like many people, is working a full time job, but he feels within that is calling him to become an entrepreneur and do his own thing. His primary keyword was “freedom.” He had a number of questions about how to get there, and how Neuro-Linguistic Programming can help him.

First, other than knowing that his current job is not meeting his needs, I am not really sure what freedom means to him.

For some people, freedom does mean having a job. It means you don’t have to do everything an entrepreneur does (i.e., an entrepreneur needs to have an “MBA in life” and understand everything from accounting, cash flow, sales, marketing, project management, human resources and effective outsourcing, etc.) Being an entrepreneur does not necessarily mean success for everyone. I know many people who want to focus on one aspect of their talents, for example a graphic artist who only wants to design and the thought of invoicing someone for their work and doing sole proprietorship taxes is overwhelming.

What does freedom really mean to YOU?

Does it mean that you don’t have to do what other people say? Because if you’re selling your time to clients, you still have to do what they say. And if you’re selling products to the consumer, you still have to meet consumer demand. And if you’re looking to really become successful at sales, you’ll find other people who are successful and do what they do. Is that freedom?

Does freedom mean having a big pile of money? Because everything you own requires that you care for it, including that big pile of money. Money, like energy, goes where it is cared for, and if you want it to stick around, you need to care for it. That’s a responsibility, not freedom.

The freest man I know meditates for days on end, fasts when Spirit asks him to fast, and moves through life following wherever Spirit asks him to move next. For a long time, he has cared for the gardens in the city park at Mt. Shasta, California. Now, however, Spirit is moving to ask him to do something else. He does what Spirit inspires him to do whenever it inspires him. Most of the time, this involves talking to people, sharing his spiritual experiences. Of course, he is not necessarily “free” by the standards you might expect. He is homeless. But I’ve never known him to go without basic necessities.

The “freedom” you seek in financial wealth may be the golden handcuffs that bind you from being really free.

Some people think that freedom comes with success. But the biggest question is, what is success to you? I have a very good friend who worked very hard for success, rose to the highest position in a Fortune 100 company in her field. After watching the Subliminal Manifestation DVD, Attracting Wealth, she realized she was pursuing her family’s idea of success… the title. Even more egregiously, she realized that success in her family meant being busy, not necessarily wealthy or happy, just busy. So she had pursued success… only to find it empty… because she hadn’t done the work to find out what success really meant to her in her conscious and unconscious patterns.

The key to becoming what you want is to really flesh out in your mind what you think you want really is to you. Freedom, success, wealth, power… these things are all charged with emotions, conscious and unconscious images and beliefs.

If you’re going to search for freedom and success, you should first find out what those words mean to you… before you start investing all of your precious time and energy into creating something that you don’t really want.

One thing that I do with people in my coaching practice is to help people discover what is behind the goal, what is behind the desire. Often, it shifts a person’s goals, the words they use to describe their goals, and the images they use to envision their success.

What people really want in life is to be happy, to feel peace, and to feel some kind of fulfillment. It’s different for each individual.

If you’re looking to discover what you really want from life, let me know.