I love living in my dream home.
We’ve been here just over three years and I swear time has sped up since we moved in.
We live just outside Canterbury on a 4.5-acre plot, with 7 alpacas in the garden (I’m sure you’ve seen the photos!).
For a long time, this home was a massive dream – the life that we talked endlessly about living one day. And now we’ve made it our reality.
So what next?
When you’ve achieved something that big that you really wanted and worked hard for, ‘what next?’ can feel like a tough question to answer.
It can feel difficult to justify why you should be entitled to anything else, now you’ve already got so much.
And while practising gratitude is brilliant and powerful for your mindset, we also need to give ourselves permission to want more. To dream bigger; to have more things in your life that make your lifestyle feel amazing.
So today, I want to chat about 3 simple steps you can use to bring whatever you want within reach!
Step #1: Get clear on EXACTLY what you want to achieve.
The first step is always getting a crystal-clear picture of what you want. We’ve spoken before about vision boards, but they really are a brilliant place to start.
Of course, creating your vision board doesn’t mean the dream home or lifestyle will magically drop into your lap! But putting one together is a great exercise to feel clearer and clearer (and can be a powerful motivator, when you look at it every day).
I use Pinterest for my vision board and have it saved on my phone. But you can go old school with magazines or printing stuff off and sticking them to a cork board or large piece of paper, if that’s what works for you.
Step #2: Put a date on it!
Once you have a solid picture of what you’re looking to achieve, the next step is to put a timeline on it, so you know when you want to achieve it by.
It’s important to be realistic here. If you’ve got several B-I-G goals, the chances are you’re not going to be able to do them all at once.
Pick the one that you want to focus on first and make sure you’re moving forward significantly in that plan, before you try to start anything else.
‘Focus’ = Follow One Course Until Successful.
I’m sure you’ve heard that before! But there’s a whole lot of truth it it. So make sure you are well on your way before you shift your focus away from that first goal on your vision board.
Step #3: Milestones and Markers!
Honestly, I can’t stress Step #3 enough – how important it is to put some milestones and markers in place, as you work towards your goals.
Not just so you know if you’re on track to achieve them (or rather, if you’re veering off track so you can steer yourself back on) but because each milestone is a mini win you can celebrate along the way.
When you feel like you’re making progress towards your goals, it’s so much easier to stay focused and motivated!
Maybe your next big goal is moving into your dream home.
It’s something you really, REALLY want – all that space; light flooding in; close to amazing schools or the sea or with a pool for the kids (whatever it looks like for you!).
You’ve spent hours on Rightmove, it’s on your vision board and you know how much you’ll need to spend.
So if you want to bring that dream home into reach, let’s see what you need to do!
Firstly, you’ll need to work out how much deposit you have available.
It might be from the house you’re living in now, that you’ll sell to raise the deposit. It might be money from savings you’ve been putting away, money you’ve inherited or money that’s currently within your business, that you’ll pull out as a dividend.
Next, it’s getting clear on how much you can borrow, if you’re going to take a mortgage to finance your dream home. So you’ll need to speak to a Financial Advisor who specialises in working with business owners to find out how much you can borrow, based on the income you have.
It might be that you can use retained profits in your business – which is why I’d always recommend speaking to a specialist (most high street banks won’t let you use them!).
It’s also worth talking to your accountant at this point, even if it still feels like early days in the process. Tell them you’re planning the move and ask them to make sure your accounts accurately reflect the amount of money flowing through your business and that your paperwork is ready promptly.
Once you know how much money you can borrow, and how big your deposit is, you’ll know if you’ll be in a position to afford that dream home.
And if not? If the figures this year won’t be sufficient?
Ask your Financial Advisor what your income needs to be, to get the mortgage you want.
Then you can work backwards from there. Work out what your turnover in your business needs to be, to create that level of income, to prove for your mortgage to buy the house you want.
It might be that it needs to be a plan for two years, three years or even further down the line, depending on how many years accounts you need and what your figures look like now.
But the point is if you don’t know, you don’t know. Tracking it is vital.
It’s about working out where you are now; where you want to get to and the plan to get there.
And that’s something that I can help you do, with my signature 1:1 Wealth Builder Experience!
We start with a fabulous in-person day together, where we map out exactly that – what you want to achieve; the target dates you want it by and your personal plan to get there. Followed by meetings over the next 6 months to support you to actually get things implemented!
I’ll be in your corner every step of the way, supporting you to turn your vision and your dreams into your reality.
Get clear; set a timeline; know your plan; take action and get the accountability to make it happen.
That’s how we made our dream home our reality…and I’d love to support you on your journey!
Until next time,
Claire