How to Build Your Dream Lifestyle: 3 Simple But Unexpected Steps

Inside: You’re way past ready to build your dream lifestyle but it feels farther away than ever. Here’s how to ditch what’s not working and create the God-inspired life of your dreams.

I still get a little teary-eyed sometimes when I read them:

I wish I worked at something I love and not just at a job that pays the bills.
I wish I had a man who loved and accepted me as I am. And because I know that’s impossible, I sometimes wish I didn’t have a man at all.
I wish I loved the Lord with all my heart, soul, and strength, but I don’t know how.
I wish I knew how to make it so that, when the end of my life comes, I’ll go knowing I had a life well-lived.

Those are four of eleven dreams from a secret wishlist I wrote almost 10 years ago. My desperation for my dream lifestyle seeped from each one like blood from an open wound.

Back then, I felt stuck in a well-paying job I’d grown to hate. I was in a relationship where I didn’t feel loved or appreciated. And the distance between God and me may as well have been an abyss.

So you can imagine that—as much as I was yearning for the life of my dreams—I didn’t see how I could ever make my dream lifestyle real.

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Why You’re Not Living Your Dream Life

You’re there now. Your life isn’t terrible but it also looks nothing like your long-held secret dreams. It’s missing the fulfillment you crave.

You’re also plagued by feelings of:

Confusion about why you’re unhappy. Because you have what the world says you should want and you should be bursting with joy but aren’t.
Ingratitude for feeling unhappy in the first place. Because you know your life isn’t bad and lots of other people would love to live like you.

And it’s not like you haven’t tried to make yourself happy.

First, you ignored the tightening coils of unease in your belly, hoping they’d go away and leave you alone. Then you tried different ways to make yourself feel better—less lost in your life—like new hobbies, volunteering, and personal development books.

None of which worked.

Maybe you even talked to a few friends about your feelings. I sure did back when I was struggling with not living my dream lifestyle. And—as happened to me—they didn’t take you seriously. Or they dismissed you with a pat on the head and clichés about counting your blessings.

So you power through each day, faking like you’re happy while underneath you’re drowning in misery. Wishing you knew how to build your dream life while fearing you’ll never have it.

What Is Your Dream Lifestyle?

If you’ve ever tried to find dream lifestyle examples, you’ve been bombarded by the typical images of flashy sports cars with doors opening upward like wings; infinity pools spilling off the top of high-rise condos; and billionaires backstroking through their piles of money.

Or maybe it’s promises of getting rich fast, living on Easy Street, or magically manifesting everything you could ever want.

Sure, it all sounds attractive, except…it’s what the world says should make you happy. It’s their version of how to live a dream life.

Newsflash: as a Christ-follower, the world’s advice doesn’t work for you—and never will.

And anyway, you’ve already followed their advice, and look where you ended up: not living the life of your dreams. Instead, their advice led you straight to misery.

It’s obvious: what works for them doesn’t work for you. But does it mean you can’t build your dream life?

No, it means you need to go about doing it God’s way.

Because, my darling, I can tell you from experience—living your God-given dream lifestyle is the most joy you’ll ever have.

But here’s the problem. When you’ve spent years believing the gurus’ empty promises of happiness, how do you find answers to what makes you happy, so you can get on with building your dream lifestyle?

What Does Living a Dream Life Mean for You?

You’ve chased the dreams that the whole world says should make you happy, and they’ve failed to deliver. Even though other people seem to love this path, it’s not where you’ll find lasting joy.

What’s more—as with all things in your life—God has something to say about going after other people’s dreams.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Let not your [false] prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to your dreams which you dream or to theirs, for they prophesy falsely to you in My name. I have not sent them, says the Lord.
Jeremiah 29:8-9 (AMPC)

See what God said there? Don’t let others blind you to His dream lifestyle for you by letting them sell you theirs.

He even warns you not to get blinded by your own dreams that aren’t in alignment with His plans for you.

Sure, they may look good and feel great in the moment. But you won’t find true, lasting happiness in them.

So you may as well toss out what they’ve said should make you happy. Instead—with divine input and guidance from the Holy Spirit—reimagine your dream lifestyle.

Be forewarned, though. Some people in your life may not like it when you veer away from the “acceptable” path and go after what God shows you instead.

But if your ultimate dream is to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” when you stand in front of God to give an account of your life, you don’t need to care about their opinions and judgments anyway.

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How to Build Your Dream Life

Now, it’s all well and good to be ready to ditch the mainstream advice. But how do you even begin to get a vision for your God-given dream life? Where do you learn how to build your dream lifestyle?

Well, a lot of the gurus say you should start an online business, take on a bunch of side hustles, or become a social media influencer. Sure, you can do those things…if that’s the direction God is leading you.

They’ll also try to convince you that building the life of your dreams can happen overnight.

We serve the God of the universe and He’s the definition of awesome. But miraculous, overnight success is pretty rare. So if anyone tells you they’ve made it happen a gazillion times then invites you to be number gazillion and one, they’re trying to scam you. Don’t fall for it.

Instead, do these 3 simple things to create your dream life.

1. First, identify what’s keeping you from your dream lifestyle.

You may not know it but even now—when you’re still struggling to form the first hint of a vision for your God-given dream lifestyle—you have some things blocking you from living that life. They’re lies you’ve been sold and thought patterns you’ve unknowingly adopted.

If you don’t deal with these wrong beliefs, you’ll never build your dream lifestyle.

Instead, it’ll stay a list of bittersweet wishes, throbbing like a fresh wound every time you remember what could have been.

2. Next, define living the dream for yourself.

Forget what the whole world says should make you happy. Instead, get in touch with the real dreams in your life.

How? Go to God in prayer with an open heart and mind, ready to receive the vision He has for your dream lifestyle.

This may mean doing a personal retreat alone so you can get rid of all the distractions. You can even prayerfully journal through the major areas of your life, fleshing out your dream lifestyle meaning and vision for each one.

For example, consider what God wants for you in the areas of:

Work
Romance
Lifestyle
Relationship with God
Money

3. Finally, prayerfully make a plan for your one next best step.

Don’t be like the people who wish and hope for their dream lifestyle but never live it because they get caught up in:

Looking for the perfect dream lifestyle calculator then throwing in the towel at the hefty price tag it spits out.
Frantically searching the internet for how to afford their dream life.
Going down the rabbit hole of one ‘my dream life’ quiz after another.
Pinning all the dream lifestyle quotes they can find on their secret Pinterest board while wishing they had the life they dream of.

The result? They get overwhelmed, stay stuck in unhappiness, and miss out on the joy of living their dreams.

The good news: you don’t have to create your dream life tomorrow. It’s impossible anyway because establishing the life God wants for you takes time…usually, God’s time. And that’s almost never your timetable.

Instead, once you have a clear, God-given vision for your dream lifestyle, decide on the one thing you can do next to bring it to life. Take that one step then decide on your next one.

And before you know it, you’ll be well on your way to building your dream lifestyle.

What If You’re Not Living the Life You Dreamed About?

As long as you continue pursuing a lifestyle that displeases God or dreams that were never in His plan for you, you’ll keep being unhappy.

The truth is, your God-given dreams are buried in your heart. And until you start going after them, the feeling of missing something important will keep plaguing you.

So kudos to you for recognizing the truth: no matter how great your life looks, it’s not the life you dreamed of living. And you’re done with that.

Now that you’ve recognized it, these questions will help assess where you’re at with your dream lifestyle. Then you’ll know what you need to do to get closer to it.

1. Do you know what you want?

A wishlist is great and all. But you won’t build your dream lifestyle if you don’t have a crystal-clear vision for it. Because wishing to be in some other hazy, happy, “more” and “better” place won’t get you to the life of your dreams.

As it turns out, your wish list is a Band-Aid you’ve plastered over your misery. Under it, your unhappiness will keep festering until you get so clear about what God wants for you that it becomes a vivid painting, waiting to leap off the wall of your mind and into real life.

2. Are you living on wishes?

Wishes are all well and good. But they belong in enchanted stories with genies and fairy godmothers.

Out here in real life, Prince Charming isn’t going to swoop in and, with a snap of his magical fingers, deliver your dream lifestyle. Crossing your fingers while you wish and hope also won’t magic up your God-given dream life.

But having a solid plan for your next best step sure will.

3. Are you letting the lies win?

You won’t build your dream lifestyle with determination and commitment unless you confront the lies mucking up your mind. Heck, you won’t even let your God-given dreams surface enough to recognize them until you first confront these lies.

The world planted these lies in your mind when you weren’t looking. Lies like, your dreams are stupid because they don’t look like everyone else’s.

Get Your Free Guide to Finding Clarity (With 7 Revealing Questions!)

When you’re eager to live your dream lifestyle, you don’t need to waste time getting distracted by what the world says. Use this free guide to decide your next step.

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Put the coaching-style questions to work. Use the 7 revealing questions to break through your fog of confusion and decide what to do now.
Act on your decision. Keep your eyes focused on what you’ve decided and go after it.

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What’s Your Dream Lifestyle Worth to You?

My darling, you can keep your wishes nothing but a bunch of words in your secret journal. You can keep chasing the dreams the whole world says you should want. And you can keep buying the empty, dissatisfying pipe dreams they’re selling.

If you do, you’ll keep paying for it with your precious time that you’ll never get back. And you’ll squander the opportunities God sends your way for true happiness.

Or instead, you can invest your time in:

Cleaning up your thinking so you can stop believing the lies they’ve sold you. Why keep them anyway? They’re why you’re stuck in unhappiness instead of passionately pursuing your dream lifestyle.
Clarifying your vision for your God-given dream lifestyle. Because chasing what others say you should want will get you their dream life, not yours.
Deciding on and planning for your single next best step towards the life of your dreams. So you don’t let overwhelm drag you down and—along with those sneaky lies—keep you stuck in unhappiness.

When you do these 3 things, you’ll find that—little by little—you know how to build your life in a way that reflects your God-given dreams.

When you do these 3 things, you’ll create a life that reflects your God-given dreams.

One warning, though: it won’t be easy, and anyone who says differently is lying to you. Because you’ll have to make choices that the people you care about won’t get. Plus, you’ll have to sacrifice your pride at some point, which means caring more about God’s opinion than about what others think.

But guess what’s waiting for you when you go after and stick to God’s plan for your dream lifestyle?

Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
James 1:12 (MSG)

Ten years on the other side of my wish list, I’ve ditched three of the eleven wishes I made back then. I did it because I came to realize they weren’t what God wanted for me, and—as painful and hard as it was—I let them go. Because I finally knew and accepted one truth: His plan is infinitely better than mine.

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As for the other eight wishes, I’m living five of them right now because, as it turns out, those were God-given dreams. And the other three? God and I are working on them.

Just as He’s waiting to work with you on the big plans He has for building your dream lifestyle.