If you’re currently a little itchy, uncomfortable or calling out whats wrong in your day-to-day then you should consider buying a life wave.

Desire is suffering as it is known but I’m a firm believer in understanding what you are and where you want to go. Morning Pages helps you align your desires so it feels less like a mountain and more like river that you’re steering yourself down avoiding potential obstacles that could sink or put you off course.

I first heard of the notion of living in waves last year. It’s trading your time in exchange for a period of unchained time to pursue what you really want to achieve or do. Usually what you truly want to achieve or what you’ve said you’ll do later on in life does not align with your current day-to-day proceedings.

For example, if you’d like to be an actor but you work as a stock trader, your day-to-day may not allow you to spend much time nuturing your creative energy nor will your desire for high earnings allow you to jump ship to go all in. Moreover, you may want to create something, re-design the future or start a business but you currently work in sales and you’re edging ever so closer to a new promotion and you wouldn’t want to risk that right now. Maybe you’d like to work remotely and have the flexibility to travel whilst doing jobs that have more meaning or allow for more creative input.

Living in life waves is using your day-to-day now to buy yourself time to do what you’re putting off until later on in life sooner.

It’s essentially saving to buy a extended period of time where you focus on you.

A life wave is a defined amount of time committed to focused and deep concentration of learning a new skill or execution towards an achievement.

Time is, and will continue to be the most valueable thing you own. Spend it wisely because money will always come and go, when have you ever really not had any money to your name? I believe we are all capable of getting by if we have to.

To live in waves is to view your life roadmap as a series of waves that you break, and when the wave breaks, you make a contract with yourself to pursue something that you’ve been putting off for a defined period of time.

When the wave comes to a close you can either go back to your old self or get into something new, you’ll need to go back to something that allows you to live and get by.

How to break a life wave

It works by first learning how to save: save, save and save more.

Treat yourself sporadically and make decisions rationally about where your money is going. Re-consider weekend trips, nights-out and most importantly material goods that will deepen your need for short-term indulgence and take you further away from those meaningful things you actually want.

When your savings are aligned with saving to buy time then you’ve taken the first step towards living in waves.

If you are currently saving for something bigger like a car, deposit, material good then consider that this will probably anchor your life deeper to your current day-to-day. Ask yourself if thats truly what you want or what you think other people want you to do, like your parents. If it is then perhaps life waves aren’t for you.

You hear alot about the world changing and rules being broken but the world has already changed. The rules have already been re-defined, families are raising families whilst travelling, education is online and shared, houses are co-owned and cars are used by the minute on demand whenever you need it.

The only thing you need to own is your time.

Owning time means making your finances orientate around time which is first next step to breaking a life wave.

Plan your money: You’ll need to be aware of your outstanding rent contracts, debt obligations, commitments to important social and family events and where you see yourself in 3–6 months now both geographically and mentally.

You’ll need to define how much money you need per month to actually live which may include rent, bills, tax, debt, phone, groceries and indulgence spend which is money for going out and buying new things.

Once you have that figured out then you need to subtract it from your monthly earnings after tax to understand how much money you can actually save.

This will be your wave savings income or WSI (Prenounced wa-see)

If your WSI it isn’t much thats okay, you’ll have to hold out longer but the mindset doesn't change which is making every penny count towards buying your first wave.

If you are in a expensive city like London, New York or LA then chances are your savings may only last 3–6 months once you break the wave.

If you plan to stay in your current city then you would need to live a ultra essential lifestyle that may not align with what you’re used to or what people around you are doing. There are benefits to staying in your current city because you are familiar with it and you can leverage your network for opportunities in what you are doing.

I would favour saving to break your wave in a foreign country where your savings will be worth more and could make the duration of the wave 6–12 months or longer. This will allow you to live a more remote lifestyle where you can cultivate deep focus and concentration on what you’ve made the break for.

An important note here is that a wave in a foreign country should not be viewed as travelling. It is not a time to party and relax, it may happen as a by product of having a lot more time but the commitment you’ve made is to focus the time on what you want to learn or achieve.

Think of it like a mini heroes journey where you step into the unknown to come back with gifts to share from the new you.

The next thing to get a handle on is the lizard brain and the homeostatis in your body. These two things will hold you back as you make this change in mindset.

The first thing you’ll do when you consider saving for your first wave is you’ll become obsessed with the idea of it for around a week. You’ll be completed committed in your mind and a surge of positive energy will flood your body as you prospect your days spending the time pursuing something you’ve wanted to do.

The proceeding weeks swiftly move into the excuse mindset or the lizard brain which is the first obstacle you’ll need to get through.

Trust me, this is not fun and it will test your integerity in a big way.

Your mind will begin to question the rationality of it all: what about my job, what about this and that, what if I can’t get the same job upon my return, what If people think I’m different or weird, what if i can’t get any new matches on tinder, what if I can’t snapchat this overpriced cocktail, what if I can’t make what I want to do pay for my bills, what if it doesn’t work out.

You’ll be bombarded with these what ifs all day, probably throughout your dreams and throughout most of the time you’ll be saving for your wave.

You need to face these questions and answer them by holding yourself strong as if if you were explaining this decision to your boss.

You must answer every question your mind throws at you, if you don’t then it will turn into fear of the unkown and that fear will take hold of you eventually and make you sabotage the whole plan.

The reason why this happens is because we are programmed to avoid danger so anything that may turn into possible danger or discomfort triggers some sort of process where your mind tries to get you out of the potential danger.

If you manage to get hold of your lizard brain then your physical body will go through a stage of homeostatis change which will be an even stronger challenge than dealing with the lizard brain.

This time, you’ll be in a positive and proactive mindset because you’re answering the what ifs in your mind but your body will try to sabotage it by pulling you towards activities that are deemed as indulgent, procrastination and misleading.

For example, you return home from work and you want to spend the evening planning what you’ll be doing when you break the wave but your body steers you towards doing anything but that. For me, it’s taking a hot bath. Because it takes a while to run the bath, soak in it, browse social media, get out, dry and so forth, it usually takes up half the evening in most cases.

In your case it will be something different so being aware of it and being able to label it as homeostasis (your body fighting against the change) will help you manage it better.

Be aware of both these initial hurdles and find out your own methods to manage them. Ultimately being aware of them is a sign that you’re making progress anyway.

The third step is outlining what you will do and what you’d like to achieve during the wave.

I want to highlight that it will probably take multiple waves to achieve what you want to do so breaking it down into more manageable goals will help.

Let’s take the acting example again, your vision of achieving it may be to star in a blockbuster film but you probably won’t achieve that in the first wave. Your first wave may be focused on getting a part in a play or being an extra in film with one line.

This way your wave is focused on something manageable and achievable.

I gaurantee that after reading that your lizard brain is already saying no this won’t work for me, that is just not enough for me, I need a massive upside to warrant this. This is already your first challenge, can you accept that it will take multiple waves? Your life will be a little back and forth between jobs getting to where you want to get to with no gaurantee you’ll do it anyway.

I bet your body is repulsed by the idea of it: No no let me reside to my comfortable desk and I sip my £3.00 latte.

To break a life wave is not going to be easy and it is going to be a pretty big step if its the first one. It will go against everything you know because it requires taking massive risk.

However when you feel you are ready to do it, you’ll need to act swiftly.

You’ll need to hand in your notice when you’ve saved enough to buy 3–6 months of time in your current city or longer in a foreign country. Ensure you’ve got everything in place to do it fast, pay off the remaining rent upfront so its done, get the plane tickets in advance, know how much you’ll be spending day to day and indulge when needed by prioritisng essential living.

Upon breaking the wave you’ll immediately feel extremely free and powerful but it will be coupled with a strong sense of complete and utter confusion, then fear. This is good, channel this energy into forming habits you take everyday that are orientated around doing, learning and sharing. Finish the wave and evaluate where you ended up. Do you need to buy more waves? Go back to work and save again, are you on a new path that is different from the last one where you feel less itchy and more settled? Good the wave worked.

Fortune favours the bold and everything you want is on the other side of fear — two popular sayings that ring true for this note.

Hope to see you breaking your first wave soon 🌊

Thank you and always keep it open.