Your Money or Your Life Summary: Chapter 4

“Your Money or Your Life” is not about getting rich.

It is a self-help book with the aim of helping you achieve fulfillment in life.

In this chapter, you define your values and purpose and align them with your spending habits.

As stated in the book:

“Financial Independence is built on Financial Integrity, and Financial Integrity is built on alignment of vision and values with action.”

Values are the principles and qualities that matter to you. Happiness doesn’t come from external forces such as new cars or popularity. It comes from integrating your values with the way you spend your time and money.

There are six questions you can ask yourself to help define what truly matters in your life.

Take some time now to ponder these questions and write down your answers somewhere. Be honest with yourself. This is just for you. No one else will see it if you don’t want them to. You can throw what you write away after you complete the exercise if you want.

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?

2. What have you always wanted to do that you haven’t yet done?

3. What have you done in your life that you are really proud of?

4. If you knew you were going to die in a year, how would you spend that year?

5. What brings you the most fulfillment, and how is that related to money?

6. If you didn’t have to work for a living, what would you do with your time?

Your life purpose is something you dedicate your life energy to. Something which you believe to be more important than your existence. It is your commitment and your identity.

Finding your life purpose is no easy feat. Most of the people in the world live their entire lives without one.

Joanna Macy suggests three places to look for your life purpose.

1. Work with your passion, on projects you care about. What work would you do even if you weren’t paid to do it?

2. Work with your pain, with people whose pain touches your heart. For example, perhaps you have been through some tragedy and have learned to work your way through it. Can you share what you learned with others going through similar circumstances?

3. Work with what is at hand. Your purpose does not have to be you finding the perfect job or project. There are opportunities to live out purpose by responding to the simple needs of others in daily life. There is no single act of greatness, just a series of small acts done with great passion or love.

Another concept closely related to this is ikigai. Originating from Japanese culture, ikigai represents the intersection of what one loves, what one is good at, what the world needs, and what one can be paid for. This intersection is not merely a philosophical ideal but a practical framework for discovering and embracing one's true calling.

I wrote a book about it called “Everyday Ikigai.” You can get it from www.SFNonfictionBooks.com/everyday-ikigai

Take some time right now to write down your purpose in life. It may not be clear for you at the moment and may not be related in any way to how you currently spend your time. It’s fine. Just do the best you can.

Living your life in accordance with your values and life purpose can be difficult, or even impossible, if you don’t have financial security, so money is important. You don't need excessive wealth. All you need is enough, and to get enough, you first must know what your enough is.

This program aims for you to earn enough and then some. Enough for survival, for your comforts, and even some luxuries, without additional excess.

“Enough” has four components:

1. Accountability: If you don’t know how much you have or where it is going, you can never have enough. You solve this by tracking your money.

2. An internal yardstick for fulfillment: You can never have enough if you are measuring yourself in comparison to others. There will always be someone else with more, or someone that thinks less of you. Be your own judge of what is enough.

3. A purpose in life: You can never have enough if every desire becomes a need to be fulfilled. Your life purpose goes beyond satisfying your own needs and wants.

4. Responsibility: A sense of how your life fits with your community and with the needs of the world. It is ultimately about living your life in a way that aims to help everyone receive enough.

Now that you have some clarity on your values and purpose, you will start to align your spending habits.

To do this, each month you will ask three questions with regard to how much you spent in each of your categories.

1. Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction, and value in proportion to life energy spent?

2. Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and purpose?

3. How might this expenditure change if I didn’t have to work for a living?

Look at each category with question 1 in mind and mark it a +, -, or 0 depending on how you feel about the amount you spent.

If you feel a lot of fulfillment from that expense and would like to increase it in the future, use the + symbol.

If you feel little or no fulfillment from it, use the - symbol.

And if the expense feels okay as it is, use the number 0 for neutral.

Repeat this grading exercise in a similar fashion with questions two and three. Eventually, you want to adjust your spending so you have neutral or + signs in all the columns.

By doing this simple exercise each month you will clarify and deepen your understanding of fulfillment and purpose.

Read the next chapter here.

Buy “Your Money or Your Life” here: https://amzn.to/4gqQj94