You have little reason to escape the rat race unless your escape is a gateway leading to your long-term and genuine happiness. Finding happiness is not difficult and you only need to look within yourself to discover the key to unlocking it.  Passion is a central key to success and satisfaction at nearly everything you do.  Whatever path you choose to follow, you simply must follow one that you are passionate about and this will enable you to achieve all the success and happiness you deserve.  If you work at something you love, the money and success will follow automatically. 

You will undoubtedly find that in the end, the money and success you crave are not nearly as important as doing something you love every day.  Making a thoughtful decision at this point will ensure you can have both.  A crappy work-at-home job will not do it for you.  You’ll just miss the social life you had at the office and you will have nothing to show for that loss. Before you take the first get-rich-quick scheme that comes your way, please ask yourself if you are willing to sacrifice enduring and genuine happiness for a short-term escape to nowhere?

“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”

—  Rodan of Alexandria

It may also be possible to escape the rat race while remaining in your current job or business as long as you are willing to make some major changes in how you approach what you are doing.  This allows you to turn something you don’t enjoy into something you do enjoy.  The results can be amazing if you know what to do. Check out the Power of Less for a better approach to almost everything.  Maybe your current job is your dream job, but you just aren’t having the success and achieving the satisfaction you expected.  In all of these situations the method described here will work for you.

Also, you may choose to stay in your current situation for a while longer while you decide what you really want to do to achieve your dreams. During this transition phase you can escape the rat race and achieve some success and quality happiness while you work towards your ultimate life.  If continuing with your current situation is simply not an option, even in the short term, you will need to find a better way rather quickly.  No matter what your current situation, discovering your core needs and finding what you require for genuine happiness is the critical first step.

“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”

—  Joseph Addison

The techniques described in this post are based upon Richard Brodie’s  Getting Past Ok: A Straightforward Guide to Having a Fantastic Life. You have undoubtedly had at least some exposure to him if only very indirectly.  He is the original author of the Microsoft Word program.  I highly recommend the $10 book.  That is an unbelievably small price to pay for a great book.  Let’s get moving on your new life!

How to discover what makes you happy:

First you will answer a series of questions.  This is the heart of the process.  When you answer these questions focus on the experiences and feelings and not the event.  Write liberally on the experience with only a sentence or a few words about the thing or activity.  For example if you are describing how being alone in nature made makes you happy, you might describe how you are inspired by the raw power and beauty of nature.  You might describe the feelings of peace and tranquility you feel being in the natural environment… (continue with a lot more experiences).  Please be very truthful.  You are the only one who will ever see this.

• What things give you that feeling of true or genuine happiness?
• What do you want (try to come up with 10)?
• What have been the greatest successes of your life so far?
• What is it about other people that you admire?
• What are your most important values?
• What did you really enjoy doing as a kid at play?
• Describe your ideal job.
• Describe your ideal relationship.
• Describe what life is like from the point of view of your pet, or any other non-human object or being.  When you say “I”, the “I” is the pet.

If you take this to heart and do it thoroughly, the results from the follow-on steps are simply amazing.  This is truly a life changing method.  Spend a few hours at this and take it seriously.  Check back in and the next post will tell you what to do with the results.  I’m so excited for you that  I can hardly wait.  But I want you to take the time to do it right.

Please let me know if you need any help with this process by leaving me a comment or by contacting me through the contact tab at the top of the page.  You can also find me on Twitter by following the link at the top of the left side-bar.  Even if you don’t need that extra help, comment anyway and let me know what you think.

I’ll see you back here soon,

Stephen