How to live a happier life by making money online!

Have you ever sat at your desk during your work day, and thought, “All I want to do right now is to get outside, live my life doing more of the things I love, be more free, and quit my job, so I can stop working 9 to 5.”

If so, you’re not alone. I spent years feeling this way!

In this post I’ll share more of my story on how I’ve created more freedom in my life by starting an online business to make money from home, – in my case anywhere I choose to call “home”.

I’ll also share how you can do this too (if that’s a route you want to go down…)

Society loves to sell us this one-size-fits-all blueprint for life: work a stable job, climb the career ladder, get married, have the baby, retire at 65, and finally, maybe, start enjoying yourself throughout your retirement.

But in all seriousness – who actually wants to wait until retirement to feel like they are living the happiest life they could be living?

Something I’ve discovered over the past few years is that there is so much more to life than work and unfortunately, by spending 80% of your week working for somebody else’s business in a 9 to 5 job you only really get to experience a little slice of what life could be like if you followed the things you love to do.

If this is resonating I want to let you know that you don’t have to live your life by someone else’s expectations. You have the ability to create a life that feels truly yours, one that’s built around freedom (whatever freedom looks like for you) time freedom, financial freedom, or location freedom 💫

Hopefully, for those of you who are thinking this is me, by the end of this post, you’ll not only feel inspired to start living your dream life, but you’ll also know the exact steps you can possibly take to make them happen.

& if this doesn’t sound like it’s one for you and you don’t want to live a life with more freedom, feel free to click off now – I’ve got some great podcast episodes you can listen to or more blog posts focused around business advice.

So, how did I go from working a 9 to 5 job in fashion to living my dream life in Bali…

I wasn’t always dreaming of a life of freedom. In fact, for a long time, I didn’t know that was possible for me… I spent 11 years working for some of the world’s biggest fashion brands, including Ralph Lauren, Diesel, Burberry, and Kate Spade. I had a “dream job” in many people’s eyes, but I still felt trapped by corporate politics, rules, salary caps, and limited holiday periods.

After starting a job as a Buyers Admin Assistant at Ralph Lauren in 2011, three years in I made my first risky leap: quitting my job to go solo traveling. That experience changed everything. I fell in love with the freedom to explore new places, meet new people, and live life on my own terms. It was then that I knew I had to start designing my life around more travel as that was now a super important aspect of my life, fellow travelers will know that once you have the travel bug it’s a hard one to shake off.

I started to integrate travel with my work, only taking jobs that gave me that option. Diesel I moved to work in their Italian HQ for 18 months, Kate Spade had me flying between New York and London every 8 weeks and Burberry I was wizzing around Europe constantly.

The penny still hadn’t dropped at this point, that I could incorporate more of this into my life, until 2017, when I first saw people living the digital nomad lifestyle whilst I was on my first-ever trip to Bali, I saw people working from laptops in cafes, spending their afternoons surfing or lounging on the beach. I didn’t know how I’d get there yet, but I knew I wanted that lifestyle, so I made it my mission to figure out a way to have it.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve built multiple businesses that allow me to work from anywhere in the world, around the things that truly matter to me – travel, flexibility, and meaningful work.

I launched my e-commerce mentoring business in 2020 during the pandemic, followed by my online courses and digital products. Plus I recently launched an e-commerce/mental wellbeing business that does not require me to be location-dependent. These online businesses allow me to set my own hours, and focus only on things that make me happy. 

One thing to note is that running an online business and becoming self-employed hasn’t always been an easy thing to navigate, but I will say it’s been so worth it.

So, if you’ve been dreaming about one day quitting your job and working on a passion project to create a life you love, let’s jump into how you can do it too. 

How to Start Your Own Online Business To Give You More Freedom…

Step 1: Define What Freedom Looks Like For You

Freedom looks different for everyone. For you, it might be:

• 💆‍♀️ More time for self-care or hobbies.
• 👨‍👩‍👧 Spending quality time with family, your kids, and your partner.
• 🛫 Taking spontaneous mid-week days off.
• 🤯 Being able to take a guilt-free day off your laptop when you’re not feeling well.
• 💸 Having extra money to enjoy life and treat yourself without stress.
• 🌍 A digital nomad lifestyle (if you haven’t guessed – this was mine)

Take a moment to picture your dream life. What does your ideal day look like? What are you doing? Who are you with?

Pro Tip: Write it all down in a brain dump journal session. Clarity is everything when you’re setting goals.

Step 2: Identify Your Passions & Strengths

What is it you are truly passionate about or good at in your life and you’d love to focus on more?

Maybe that’s:

• 😋 You love cooking and you really want to teach more people how to cook.
• 🐎 You’re a horse rider and you want to share your passion with more people.
• 🗣️ You’re naturally very good at building relationships with people and want to work more face-to-face with people that you resonate with.

Step 3: Pull These Together

So you know what you love to do, you know what you want your life to look like, now it’s about making choices about how you bring those two things together to allow you the build a life you love through starting an online business.

Now maybe for you going all in isn’t an option financially or time-wise, which is totally cool – start off by finding a side hustle idea that could work for you.

IMO there are three options if you want to build a sustainable long-term online business that is going to support you financially for years to come and allow scalability also and they are:

• Starting an e-commerce business where you sell a product that resonates or solves a problem based on your passion or skill set and outsource the distribution for it.
• Create a service business offer that you can facilitate the work for, something you know you are really good at or passionate about.
• Launch a digital product like a course or membership that packages up your knowledge and passion in one place.

Side Note: There’s a HUGE trend right now about how to sell digital products and earn passive income through an online digital marketing business where you sell a pre-made course that teaches more people how to earn money online by selling that same course on to more people… Now I have a lot of opinions on this business model, which I’ll share another day, but one thing I will tell you is that I will NEVER teach you how to sell someone else’s product with MRR (master resell rights), everything I share with you is with the aim for you to create a long-lasting business that will be fully YOURS and not for re-sale (unless you choose it to be).

& also I need you to know that there is no such thing as fully passive income – any business you launch is ALWAYS going to require some setting up of foundations, and promotion, so please be prepared for that whichever route you decide to go down.

I’ve actually ventured into all three of these business models and when I started, I had no clue what I was doing. I made mistakes, learned lessons, lost money, and eventually figured out how to create businesses that aligned with my version of freedom and make money from anywhere in the world. Now my goal is to teach others how to do the same and make money online without making all the mistakes along the way.

Step 4: Expand Yourself

Fear of failure, imposter syndrome, perfectionism – they’re all normal, but they’re also what is going to hold you back when it comes to moving away from your stable 9 to 5 job and embracing entrepreneurship by building your own online business.

One thing that is super important at this stage is that you start expanding yourself to see that this reality could be true for you. Start following people who already have what you want, start engaging with content that resonates, and start putting yourself out there to connect with people who have already been down the path that you want to walk down.

That’s something I really want to be for you if you are considering starting your own online business to create more freedom in your life – ultimately I have done this for almost 5 years now. I know it is possible, but I also know that when you start it will be messy. You will make mistakes and learn as you go along, which is part of the process.

But if you want support through that journey my new services (launching soon) will be there available for you. Join the waitlist to find out more about them here!

Step 5: Take Action to Start Your Online Business

Let’s be real: building a business takes work. But here’s the good news, I’ve been there and done it and am ready to help you build your online business and start living your dream life.

Whatever that dream life looks like for you!

I won’t lie to you though there will be a period of “hustle” at the beginning while you’re setting things up, again I’ve been through this I know how to help you balance your busy life and focus your priorities on the actions that are going to move the needle and get your side hustle or full-time online business earning you money whilst you are working from home pretty quickly and efficiently.

& remember the “hustle period” is temporary, and it’s what is going to set you up for long-term success. Ultimately you just need to remind yourself that you’re building a life where you’re in control. A life where you can work fewer hours, earn more, and spend your time doing something you love.

So, What Does Your Dream Life Look Like?

I hope this has inspired you and expanded your mind into realizing that there is more to life than your 9 to 5. Not everybody has the goal to leave their 9 to 5 job and I certainly am not encouraging that if it’s not for you or if you don’t want to take risks, I am here, however, to help you see what could be possible if you do want to find a way to spend more time with family, travel the world, or finally have more space for self-care. Whatever your version of freedom looks like, I promise you with some hard work and the right mindset – it’s 100% possible.

So, are you ready to take the leap?

💻 Learn how to start your online business: Sign up for the waitlist to be the first to hear about my new services designed to help freedom seekers like you make your dream life a reality.