Wake up to Freedom

Freedom seems to be the latest buzzword in selling all kinds of online training and web solutions to people who want to start their own businesses.

While building my website a year ago, I subscribed to several providers, and I’m still receiving emails from providers that I find worthwhile reading.

Some of them are funny, some of them provide helpful content, and some of them fill me in on the latest technology developments.

Almost all of them are making some type of hint towards achieving freedom in your life by taking the leap and starting your own business.

The quest for freedom seems to be hype these days.

I’ll admit here that my decision to leave corporate life for a while was partially triggered by a desire to create a little more ‘freedom’ in my life.

But don’t we all want to have (more) freedom in our lives?

How many people will answer the question of whether they want more freedom with:

“Hell no, please not more freedom. Absolutely not; I can’t handle all of it. Nope, not for me.”

So why do we keep hearing the word freedom more and more?

I’m not pretending I have an enlightening answer, but I have a thought.

Part of the answer is that we’re (un)willingly influenced by all social media around us of people showing us how great their lives are.

When you start following some of those online developers, you quickly end up with stories from all kinds of coaches living their dream life somewhere in a sunny country while coaching people from anywhere.

Related, but different is the reason that I believe we’re getting fed up with the constant and never-ending pressure to improve our performance, increase our productivity and always provide more and more.

Out of the four CEOs I’ve worked with recently, three of them had increased productivity high on their priority list. The fourth CEO was primarily interested in creating a better customer experience. The pressure to keep up with the world around us is mounting.

Hyperconnectivity and mounting pressure make us more aware of the world around us and our own ambitions, resulting often in a greater desire for freedom.

“I want what they have.”

Deep down inside, that’s our need for self-actualization.

It gets triggered by external impulses and translates into a more profound desire to build a life with more autonomy for ourselves.

Unfortunately, “what they have” is often not exactly what you need.

Needs and wants are not the same.

Those two differ from each other.

For example, people want the latest Dior bag, but they need to feel good about themselves. That’s a short lesson in marketing psychology.

If I translate that to the freedom theme of this insight, we may want to have more freedom in our lives, but what we, in fact, need is to feel good about ourselves.

But, with more freedom also comes more responsibility…

Can you handle that responsibility?

That’s my take on this topic.

Your turn: what do you need?

Do more of what makes you happy!

Erikjan