What Your Home Doesn’t Say About You

Living an ageless lifestyle after 50 for many people begins with a process of shedding the old lifestyle to create the new. How you live and where you live is a symbol of who you are, or at least it could be. Let’s take a look at what your home doesn’t say about you.

For some, the neighborhood they live in and the house they chose was decided more by the image they felt they needed to project then what they would pick if nobody would ever judge where or how they lived.

If you were dropped into another city or another country today and nobody knew what you did or anything about you, how would you really enjoy living? Be honest with yourself.

It might take a lot of stripping away to get down to who you are and what’s important to you about the environment you live in, because without even thinking about it, you’ve been influenced to appear a certain way.

Your home is your biggest statement piece. Whether you rent or own, most people will stretch their budget to the limits to live in the biggest, best house in the most impressive neighborhood they can afford. In fact the biggest chunk of your budget goes to your home and it’s upkeep.

For the average person, they work more than half of the month to pay for their home!

So ask yourself, why do you live where you live? What would prevent you from moving to a smaller place, a different neighborhood, maybe something that only required you to work half the time to pay for it?

What kind of anxiety did those questions create in your body?

If you can confidently say you are not stretching your budget, aren’t feeling any need to fit in with the image your clients, boss, friends or family think you should have, then you are well on your way to creating an ageless lifestyle.

The image of your home and what it represents is one of the hardest things to walk away from. Sometimes it takes a long period of time to come up with a good story to tell all those people you need to justify yourself to as to why you are downsizing or moving out of your neighborhood.

You certainly don’t want them to think you can’t afford it or that you have some illness that’s forcing you to move. Isn’t it funny how those are the first things people think of? Because for most people the image of their home is a big anchor in the story of who they are.

If I asked , “Why do you live where you live?”, most people would say because they can afford to. They want the best and this is the best. In fact, that’s one of the 5 questions in the personal inventory I do with my private clients.

But what does that say about your lifestyle and who you really are, what your soul is crying out for?

What would be different in your lifestyle if nobody was watching, nobody was judging you?

Have you ever said you wished you could just leave it all behind and go live (fill in the blank) in a little (filling the blank)? You know you have.

What could you do with all the money you wouldn’t be spending on your home? Travel, hobbies, work less, have more freedom?

When I started hosting high end mastermind events in my home in Scottsdale years ago, people had a much different expectation of where I would live. One man even said I was frugal! At first I took offense at that, but it was true. I preferred to look at it more like the ‘Millionaire Next Door’ lifestyle.

I lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in a house that looked quite ordinary on the outside. People always stopped in their tracks when they stepped inside. It was not at all what they expected from the exterior.

I had completely remodeled this house into my own personal retreat. It screamed me. It reflected my style and personality perfectly. Indoor/outdoor living that felt like a resort spa, a tranquil, causally elegant environment people hated to leave. I was very happy there. I didn’t care what anyone else thought.

I don’t buy into the fact that you have to put on all the trappings of ‘success’ for people to want to do business with you. I decided to be me, live where I wanted, drive what I wanted and spend my money on things that mattered to me.

I love to travel, so I had no limits on what I felt comfortable spending on travel. It may be something completely different for you.

What would really make your heart sing if you weren’t shackled to the idea of your home?

A bigger question is what are you trying to prove, if you are stretching to afford your home?

And who are you trying to prove it to?

Is their opinion worth tens of thousands of dollars a year? Or is there something else you’d really like to do with that extra money?

“What would people think” is the biggest anchor that keeps people tied to something that deep down, really doesn’t matter to them.

The question is, is this happening to you?

Bottom line, living an ageless lifestyle after 50 is about stripping away all the garbage that has tied you down, and taking off the masks that you’ve worn for so long. It allows you to listen to the true desires of your soul and act on them. It’s all about doing what makes you truly happy, so happy you can’t get rid of the smile on your face when you fall asleep at night.

Getting real about why you live where you do might just be your first step. It’s one I took many years ago and I’ve never regretted it. Ask yourself the questions, see what your real answers and and if you need help formulating a plan to create your own ageless lifestyle, I’m here to help!

Photo of Villa La Roca courtesy: http://www.caborealestate.com