What 2015 Taught Me About Making A Life vs Making A Living

I think I may be in love with Goa, which is weird because I always thought Cape Town was the only city I could really love with such intensity. 

This is just one of the many things I've learned about myself this year.

At the end of every year I take a look at my 5 year and 12 month visions and reflect on how well I did and then I proceed to set the vision for the next year.
 

After doing all my calculations for the year I give myself 65%

This is very different from last year (2014) where I gave myself 90% because I more than exceeded my goal to become debt free, increase my savings portfolio and nurture my personal relationships.

This year was the exact opposite, in fact many things fell apart in various areas of my life and at times it felt like I was swimming upstream. 

So why did I give myself 65%?

I learned to make a life instead of making a living

This year has been the most incredible in terms of living - I gave up so much (financially, emotionally and psychologically) for my happiness and joy.

There were times I was so sad, scared or anxious that my intestines locked together, I stopped eating and could only focus on breathing and calming down.

I used everything I know to coach and heal myself, which  set me up for some of the most intense joy, serenity and gratitude I've ever felt!

Honestly, I feel like this is the year I came to life because I felt a spectrum of emotions and instead of hiding I embraced it all.

I've been to 4 different countries, broke up incredible once in a lifetime friendships and relationships that weren't working for me which broke my heart into a million pieces.

I pulled the people I love closer to me and they mended me in every country I found myself in, I let them hug and kiss me whole, I made new friendships and challenged myself on my abilities.

I told the truth about my spiritual journey and how it links to my financial journey and hosted workshops and teleclasses on it.

But most of all, I stopped playing to lose, got into the boxing ring and I'm going round to round with my demons (and there are many - I was in therapy from the age of 13 for a reason).

This was also the year when I've received an "I Love You" text message, email, phone call or gift from someone in my life almost everyday.

I went on a journey of self love, learned to really love my own company, started to really see my worth, released my obsession with perfection and have come out with nothing but compassion for myself. 

I stopped being grateful for the scraps that people gave me and started seeing that I was worth so much more and started speaking out on personal and business deals that wouldn't benefit me.

I walked away from many opportunities because my gut told me the money wasn't worth the spiritual blocks I'd have to deal with at a future date. I cleaned up my future karma.

So yes I gave myself a 65% because I feel like I made a major shift this year - I went from making a living to making a life which will reap many financial rewards faster.
 

I didn't reach my major personal financial goal

My personal finance goal for the year was to pay off 75% of my mortgage. I didn't even pay off 10% but I'm still working on it.

I know I just bought my apartment last year but interest rates keep going up and I'd feel more comfortable if most of my rental income from my tenant went towards my investment portfolio instead of the bank.

I made quite a few business mistakes which cost me my savings
 

I'm still debt free and I still have my investment portfolio which consists of my retirement investments, and my 5 and 10  year endowments which I can't easily get to.

But as of last month I have no emergency savings (usually I prefer to have 3 - 6 months income in my savings account).

I launched too many products at once, increased business expenses radically, invested in services that didnt add value to the business in the long run and invested a lot of my personal savings in business ventures. 

So I lost a lot but I also gained a lot of experience and have spent the last few weeks making major changes. 

That's led to some interesting opportunities that weren't there 12 months ago and to me....
 

1. Hosting 2 workshops in Goa

Yes! I'm officially doing international workshops the next 2 Sundays. And depending on how everything goes, the venue wants to talk to me about hosting week long retreats, which a huge dream for me. 

And the only reason this happened was because of all the "mistakes" I've made recently. 

Click here to learn more
 

2. International collaborations

I've spent the last 4 years focused on making a living and getting out of debt and the journey has been lonely at times - it's been all work and very little play.

I'm blessed with the most incredible friends and family who listen and brainstorm with me but Goa helped me understand the importance of collaborating and working with other people who are on the same path as me.

Thanks to my life coach, I recently met up with another coach - Maria Karpasitis (she's the one in the picture with me), here in Goa who runs an amazing podcast called: Upgrade Your Life With Maria K and we put together some awesome podcasts to help you uplevel your life and get you all set for 2016.

I won't tell you too much about the podcasts except to say click on the links below and listen:

Episode 1- Money! Dirty or Divine?

Episode 2- How can spiritual people charge their worth?

Episode 3 - Practical money tools for daily thriving


Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.