Building the life you want is a sure step towards self-sufficiency and independence. But what if you don't know what you want that life to look like? What if the question of "what do you want" is too big to answer? Let's work through the how-to of determining what you want, as well as the importance of being able to say no in order to make that life a reality.

Listen to the podcast episode by pressing the play button on the black bar above.

I recently shared the following image on social media: decide what kind of life you really want...and then, say no to everything that isn't that.

There was a lot of support and cheering to the image, but one gentleman gave this response:

Serious question, I’m 49 and I have never figured out what I want to do. What can I do to help the process out, or is this it? If so, I did complete my mission to raise my kids...but I mean [I'm asking] for me.

That's a good, valid question. What if you don’t know what you want? What if you’ve never been asked? Or what if you knew what you wanted but now you’re in a different stage of life, looking around with some freedom and thinking, wait. What is it that I want?

How do we figure this all out?

Sometimes the Big Picture helps, sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes when we think about what we want life to look like, we can make it really complicated. We think big picture, and we think far off into the future—almost like we're answering "what do you want to be when you grow up" all over again. That might be the exact approach you need to take, but it can also be overwhelming.

Sometimes in order for us to get the concept moving, we have to start small. Maybe what you know right now is that you don’t want to have to get up at 430 am anymore. That simple statement is a really great place to start in order to grab some ideas of what you want life to look like.

Making a list helps

A great way to attack what you want your life to look like is to make a list. Start with little bits of what you want. Add little bits of what you don't want. (Believe me, once you get started, you won't need any help continuing.)

After you've made that list, take a look at the items you want and don't want. Your next step is to determine how you get there. As in, how do you bring about the things/situations you want? How do you get rid of the things/situations you don't want?

And remember, this doesn't need to be all long term, especially if that's too overwhelming to think about. You can make lists for today. Tomorrow. Next week. By Christmas. Five years from now.

Deciding on the life you want is really just setting goals

In a way, it’s like the goal setting conversations I used to do with my teens every Monday. We'd all write down our goals for the week and post them for everyone to see. Not only did it put our commitments out there "publicly", but it also helped us keep each other accountable. Knowing each other's goals meant when we saw each other doing stuff that really wasn’t helping us reach those goals, we’d call each other on the carpet about it.

Calling each other on the carpet meant poking each other to say no to the things that weren't pushing us towards the goals we'd set—i.e, the life we wanted.

Reaching those goals means saying no - sometimes to a lot of stuff.

Recently, a friend from Minneapolis decided it was time to move. The stuff had hit the fan, he felt it was no longer safe to live where he lived, and he announced, “we are out of here”.

Saying you want to move is not as easy as just moving. It’s a whole process. It disrupts your life, your work, the plans you previously had. But my friend's end goal was to move as quickly as possible. There were a lot of things he had to say no to in order to make that happen. And a lot of those things frustrated him. But to reach the goal, you have to stay on track.

Decide the life you want, and say no to what isn't that.

You have to keep asking the question. And it's tough.

All through my teens,