Wondering Wednesday: What would you do if you didn't need money?

Welcome to Wondering Wednesday.  Today's question is what would you do if you didn't need money?  What if you won the lottery or suddenly inherited millions of dollars and you didn't HAVE to work.  How would you spend your time?

I frequently ask this question of my clients and the usual answers are filled with such things as travel, spend time with my kids, hang on the couch, work on the house etc.  And then I ask them again, so after the initial 6 months wear off and you just have time, you have traveled some and shopped some and now you just have time--really allowing yourself to expand and imagine your life--What would you do?  And then more individualized answers emerge, gardening, painting, going back to school, reading, or writing.  As people really think about their answers, slowly ideas and activities they haven't thought about in years begin to come to the surface.  The 'i have to's' begin to fade and soon their life becomes full of possibilities and ideas of their unique contribution to the world.

This question allows us to go beyond the usual day to day mindset of paying bills, planning for retirement or the kids college funds and allows us to get in touch with the unique activities that feed our soul.  From the answers, two things can happen.  First, I encourage my clients to start finding ways to add in some of theses activities right now.  If swimming comes up  then start figuring out how to add swimming to your life.  Or maybe it is dance, so figure out how to dance more--even if it is just in your living room.  When we start adding more of these 'uniquely us' activities in to our day to day lives we get out of our ruts and into our souls.  For some of you these activities may be enough to give you the energy to continue doing your day to day 'money earning' job.  But for those that want more you can go to step 2 which is to start asking yourself how can I get paid for these activities that are 'uniquely me'.  Maybe it is trying to figure out how to go back to school part time, getting free-lance writing gigs, teaching people how to dance,  helping people get healthier, becoming a professional baker or becoming a landscape designer.

I love this question, because it is a way to get in touch with the long buried activities that make you happy.  It is a great starter question on the path to figuring out what makes your heart sing.  What would YOU do if you didn't need money?  Feel free to share in the comments section--I'll go first...