The Art of Personal Freedom: 7 Transformative Secrets
Everyone has the right to achieve personal freedom, but the sad truth is that not everyone is going to get it. In one form or another, we’re enslaved by our jobs, by our finances, by our health, by our family, and many other reasons.
We may not realize it, but the things we hold near and dear are often the factors that imprison us. It prevents us from doing what we want to do in our life.
But what exactly is personal freedom?
Many of you may say it’s the freedom to do whatever you want in life. Some may say it’s the freedom to eat ice cream in the middle of the night or whenever they want without getting judged by others.
Others may say it’s their financial independence – being wealthy enough to never have to go to work again. Some may say it’s the freedom to come and go as they please without anyone stopping them.
You’re free to define your own definition of personal freedom. It’s personal after all. However, let me just be clear here: personal freedom still has boundaries.
You can’t go ‘borrowing’ someone else’s car without asking for permission first simply because you’re ‘free’ to do what you want. You’re not free to enter other people’s houses and take whatever you can get your hands on.
If that’s how you define personal freedom, then that’s not right. Imagine a world where we all go do as we please without regard to other people’s rights. That would be anarchy, plain and simple. There would be no law and order, just chaos and mayhem.
As civilized people, we observe human rights, and we respect freedom of speech. Just make sure you don’t go beyond your personal space. You need to recognize that you’re not always entitled to get what you think you deserve.
Personal freedom, in the context of this short report, is all about having the freedom to pursue your passion and living the life you’ve always dreamed of. All without infringing or stepping on other people’s rights.
It’s also important to mention here that being financially free is not necessary for someone to achieve personal freedom. You can be happy without being rich. Likewise, you can have all the money in the world but be neither happy nor free.
For instance, would you feel secure and happy if you know you’re earning your money through illegal means? I think not. You’d most probably be paranoid, and you’d be looking over your shoulder all the time. In short, you won’t have the peace of mind necessary to achieve personal freedom.
With that said, here are the 7 secrets to achieving personal freedom:
Live with integrity
Knowing and doing what’s right are two different things. At first glance, it may look like they’re referring to the same thing, but nothing can be further from the truth.
For instance, when people are faced with tough choices, they’d often choose something that will benefit them even though they know they’re doing the wrong thing. That’s not integrity.
When you have integrity, you always do what’s right whether someone’s looking at you or not. You strive to live your life according to your moral principles. You don’t let your actions be dictated by negative forces even though most people would be happy to.
To enjoy personal freedom, you need to have integrity. Otherwise, you’re going to be living life on the edge – constantly afraid someone’s going to come and burst your bubble. Or that someone’s going to come and take away what you stole from them.
When you have integrity, you don’t become defensive when someone questions your decisions and your actions. You don’t make excuses and point fingers when your shortcomings are exposed. You face everything head-on, and you remain honest even though you know it’s going to lead to negative consequences for you.
Your integrity is going to save you from a lot of headaches, you’ll sleep far better at night knowing you did the right thing and you didn’t step on anybody just to achieve your goals in life.
You’ve got nothing to hide, you’re literally an open book. Your reputation is beyond reproach and others will view you as someone they can look up to. When you embrace honesty, you can live your life fully and freely.
Think positively at all times
Positive thinking is an important aspect of personal freedom. Without it, you’re never going to believe that you can, in fact, live freely. You’ll always be held back by your doubts. Your negative thoughts are going to consume you, and you’ll find it hard to get out of your comfort zone to go and chase after your dreams.
How can you be free if it’s you yourself holding you back? You’re never going to achieve greatness if you listen to all the naysayers out there. Your confidence will be shot, and you’re going to wallow in self-despair.
To break free from negative self-talk, you’re going to need help. Surround yourself with positive people and let them help you build your self-confidence. They’re going to cheer you up and encourage you to reach for your dreams.
They’re not going to give you a detailed list of why you’ll never succeed. If you don’t have any positive influencers in your life, you can read up on self-help books. Follow motivational and inspirational speakers. Let their wisdom guide you.
To become a positive thinker, you need positive influence. Seek that influence, and over time you’ll slowly improve the way you think.
When you start thinking positively, you’ll be optimistic, and you’ll then learn to envision a positive future where you have personal freedom.
Be happy for other people’s success
When you hear other people’s success stories, your initial reaction is probably one of envy or jealousy. Here you are working so hard to reach your goals, and you meet someone who’s a relative newcomer suddenly stealing the spotlight with his ‘overnight’ success.
We’ve all got different journeys ahead of us. We may be in the beginning stages, or the middle, or maybe even close to the end. We all didn’t start at the exact same time, so it’s futile to compare your growth to someone who’s been at it for the last 5 years. Or maybe you’re bootstrapping, and you’re comparing your progress to someone who’s had access to resources you didn’t have.
When you put things into perspective like this, you’ll feel a whole lot better. Sure, you may feel sorry for yourself, but don’t let it affect you for far too long. Remember to control your thoughts and always look for the positive side of things.
Jealousy and envy are not going to get you anywhere. It’s not going to bring you closer to achieving your goals. What you can do instead is learn from other people’s success.
Be genuinely happy for others’ success. Use it as inspiration to carve out your own path to success and ultimately, freedom. If they can do it, then so can you!
Always be grateful
One of the secrets to achieving personal freedom is gratefulness. You may not have much in the way of material possessions, but you’ve still got a lot to be thankful for.
You’ve got the gift of life, the gift of family and friends. As we’ve mentioned earlier, you don’t need money to feel free. It’s all about your state of mind really.
When you’re grateful, you exude positivity. The people on the receiving end of your gratefulness will feel better about themselves, you’ll help boost their self-esteem. You’re basically spreading positivity around you.
When you’re grateful, you don’t take things for granted. You live in the moment. You don’t look for what you don’t have and ignore what you do have.
When you’re grateful, you don’t go whining about something that’s not in front of you when what you do have within reach is just as good, maybe even better.
Being grateful is a manifestation of your positive thoughts. You look for the good in every situation. It takes your thoughts off of looking for whatever you think you’re lacking in life and focusing on the present.
Try doing this now – write down the things you’re grateful for and think about how you’ll feel if all these people/things were suddenly taken from you. That will help shift things into perspective. You’ll have a much deeper appreciation for life.
Don’t take anything personally
When someone says something negative about us, we often take a defensive stance and react negatively. It is but natural for us to want to protect ourselves.
Learning how to let criticisms and perceived slights towards you slide is probably easier said than done. But calm down and think for a moment.
Are you sure that the criticism was directed towards you? Or are you just making an assumption? Maybe the other person just mistook you for someone else. Or maybe it was directed at you, but it was just a reaction to something you’ve said or done.
Whatever the reason, you’ve got to learn how to stop worrying what other people think about you. Don’t waste too much energy trying to come up with a good explanation why someone would say something negative about you.
Whether you deserve it or not, people are entitled to their opinion. You can’t do anything about what goes on in their minds. You can only change what you can control – you can prove them wrong and help them reframe their opinion of you.
When you don’t take things personally, you’re able to move and act freely. You don’t particularly care about what other people think of you though, of course, you’re careful to live your life above reproach. Again, this is why living your life with integrity is important.
Stop sabotaging yourself
You may not know it, but you could be sabotaging yourself and all hopes of ever achieving personal freedom.
For one, there’s your negative thoughts. Doubting yourself is the number one form of self sabotage. There’s no getting around it really, if you want to succeed you’re going to have to trust in yourself. You’re going to believe that you can, in fact, succeed if you put your mind to it.
Personal freedom is all about living the life you want to live – peacefully and happily. When you actively sabotage yourself, then you’re not going to be happy.
You may fool yourself into thinking you’re happy, but deep down you know you’re not. You’re only hurting yourself – the longer you suppress yourself, the more you feel miserable.
When you sabotage yourself, you literally imprison your hopes and your dreams. You’re not giving yourself the chance to succeed, to rise up from the ashes, so to speak.
You’re letting yourself get stuck in your negative thoughts. Your fear will stop you from going where you want to go. Free yourself from self-sabotage, and you’ll find your personal freedom will soon be within your reach!
Always do your best
Doing your best is the seventh secret to achieving personal freedom. When you do your best, you give your all. You leave nothing out. You can’t berate yourself for not achieving something because you know, deep down, that you’ve done everything to the best of your abilities.
When you learn to do your best, you learn not to compare yourself with how your peers are doing. You learn to stop judging yourself and your abilities. You learn to keep your head down and be happy if your friends reach their goals first.
When you’ve got that fire burning within you, and you truly believe in yourself, then you can overcome all obstacles that come your way. You’ll always see the good side of things, you’re not going to be afraid of failing.
Remember, you’re not aiming for perfection, but you are aiming to be the best version of yourself. When you give your all, you have no regrets.
You don’t look back and say, I wish I could have done more because you’ve done everything within your power. That’s how greatness is achieved. When you become great, achieving personal freedom will come easily to you!