Rather than thinking about our career in isolation, it’s becoming more natural to zoom out and reflect on what kind of life we want. It was this perspective that allowed me to start designing my ideal lifestyle back in 2016. My best decision ever – it still feels too good to be true!
Are you re-considering the traditional 9-5 set-up, thinking that it must be more to it?
It’s definitely possible to earn a living while still enjoying life. If that sounds like something for you, a lifestyle business might be just right.
What Is A Lifestyle Business?
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While there are different definitions out there, I define a lifestyle business as:
“A business that allows you to live the life you’d like to live. Earn a living while you enjoy life and have time for the things that matter to you.”
I’ve noticed that many refer to a lifestyle business as one that isn’t focused on high revenue, but rather on sustaining the founder’s lifestyle only. I’ve also seen some mentioning that you by definition run it by yourself.
While this could be the case, you can earn very well as a lifestyle entrepreneur. You can also choose to free up your time and/or scale faster by hiring other talents. I have set up my business in a scalable way without a revenue cap. I also work with a team – and if I could go back in time, I would have started to team up with others much earlier!
It’s however not about hustling until you can’t take it anymore. You can have big goals, but you also want to enjoy your life while you’re getting there.
What Are The Key Features Of A Lifestyle Business?
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By design it allows you to enjoy your ideal lifestyle
Do you only want to work a certain amount of hours per week? Do you want to work with your passion, be able to travel whenever you feel like it, or have more time for a hobby? Here are a few questions to ask yourself to figure out what you want. Rather than letting your work take over your life, running a lifestyle business is all about life quality. Automation, outsourcing, and several income streams are just a few examples of how lifestyle entrepreneurs free up their time.
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It should do financially well enough to support your dream lifestyle
Whether you want to settle down on Ilhabela, live a jet-set life in Singapore, support a cause you care about or just have more time with your family in your hometown. Everything is possible with a lifestyle business. Your preferences set the basic framework for how much your business must generate as a minimum. Even if it naturally can take a while to get here.
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It’s often location-independent
Meaning that you can run it from anywhere. If your ideal lifestyle consists of being in a fixed location daily, you can of course choose to set up your business like that, too. Note that you can still run a location-independence and work 24-7. When running a lifestyle business you prioritize balance and time for things that are important to you.
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It’s often passion-driven
Built on the foundation of allowing you to live a life that makes you excited, naturally many lifestyle entrepreneurs are running businesses related to something they are passionate about. If I got a dollar every time someone mentioned they just started out as a hobby, I’d already be financially independent.
If an opportunity doesn’t make your heart beat with excitement (such as selling diapers online), you can still approach it as something that simply allows you to design the life you want. We’re all driven by different motivations! For me, passion is important. It makes things easier when you’re facing challenges.
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It usually evolves over time
One of the best things about running a lifestyle business is the flexibility it gives you! I started freelancing as a marketing consultant. By now, I run an agency and have also started to grow other passion projects to diversify my income streams more. If you experience major changes in your life or simply change your preferences, you can adjust your business to make sure it fits with the current version of your reality.
The Benefits Of Running A Lifestyle Business
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The freedom to design your ideal lifestyle, more time for things and people that matter, the possibilities to learn and develop as a person are just few of the many reasons why people choose to start a lifestyle business.
More details about the benefits and why it might be your best decision ever here.
Who Is A Lifestyle Entrepreneur: Examples Of Lifestyle Businesses
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You can approach the term “lifestyle entrepreneur” from two different angles.
1. People running a business within the lifestyle sector. The lifestyle sector is huge and covers everything from wellness and fashion to finances and experiences, depending on who you ask.
2. Those we are focusing on here: People who want to design a life they love and run a business which allows them to do that. This term wasn’t common for people like us until recently. Over the past years, Forbes and other credible sources have started to throw it around as the most natural thing in the world.
While many lifestyle entrepreneurs make their money online, the way you set up your business depends on your preferences.
Here are a few examples of lifestyle businesses:
- Marketers, content specialists and writers: From agency owners to freelancers
- Developers, designers and SEO specialists
- Photographers, video makers, musicians, and other types of artists
- Virtual assistants
- Online teachers
- Personal trainers: You may still enjoy working with clients in your city, but maybe you’ve set up your business so that you can work less/when it suits you etc.
- Influencers within every area you can and can’t imagine: You don’t have to be the best at something to become an influencer. You just need to know more than your target group.
- Investors and traders: From stocks and real estate (air bnb entrepreneurs is huge!), to crypto and now NFTs.
As new technologies are being introduced, the number of opportunities will only continue to grow. This guy who turned his personal selfie project into a $1 million NFT enterprise is just one example of how you can earn well without following a traditional structure.
Work Is Important, But It Doesn’t Need To Take Over Your Life
Photo by Nathan Dumlao at Unsplash
As more of us are coming to the realization of how fast time passes by, we start to reflect on what’s important. Even if you love what you do and work is a big part of your life, it doesn’t have to be your everything. When you’re 80 years old and look back, what would you like to remember? What matters most to you? How would you like to spend your time?
Being able to live your life on your terms is what makes more and more people go after their dreams and design a lifestyle business. Making the change comes a lot down to challenging your assumptions of traditional structures and truly believing that you can earn well while enjoying life.
Just as with any business, it can be tough in the beginning. Make sure you validate your idea, experiment your way forward, and most importantly, get started! If things don’t work out, you can always try a different way.
If you stay consistent results will come. And once they do – if you’re the entrepreneurial type passionate about living life to the fullest, it will likely be hard to imagine have it in any other way.
Thoughts or questions? Let me know in the comments. More content like this? You might also like: How To Design The Life You Want To Live.
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