dream life podcast financial freedom freedom number how much is enough Kristina Karlsson money mindset personal finance podcast episode time freedom

#474: The Number That Sets You Free

Ever stopped to ask yourself, "How much is enough?"

It's such a simple question.

Many spend years working harder, earning more, striving for the next milestone, believing that one day we'll finally feel secure or free.

But what if the real answer isn't about having more at all?

In this week's episode, I'm sharing one of the most powerful mindset shifts I've had around money, freedom and creating a life you truly love.

Instead of chasing an endless idea of "more", I want to help you discover the number that would genuinely set you free.

In this episode, you'll discover:

  • Why chasing "more" often leaves us feeling anxious, no matter how much we earn.
  • The difference between your security number and your freedom number, and why both matter.
  • How gaining clarity around your finances can reduce fear and help you make more intentional decisions.
  • Three simple steps you can take today to start creating greater financial and time freedom.

This conversation isn't really about money. It's about choices - and designing a life that's aligned with what matters most to you.

Join us in Coaching - this month we explore Money and time, designed around the life you actually want - and a simple, courageous plan to start building it this month.

As always, I’d LOVE to hear what resonated most with you - so please share and let’s keep the conversation going in the Dream Life Podcast Facebook Group here.    

Have a wonderful weekend …and remember, it all starts with a dream 💛

Dream Life & kikki.K Founder

SHOW NOTES:

RESOURCES:

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00]

[00:00:09] Kristina: Hi there, and welcome back to Your Dream Life Podcast. I am so happy you are here with me today. Today's topic is one that I wanted to bring to you for a long time because I think it sits underneath so much of what we worry about, mostly without even realizing it. I want to start with a question.

[00:00:33] It's a really simple one, but stay with me because most of us have never actually stopped to answer it. What is the number that would set you free? I'm not talking about the number that would make you rich or wealthy, and I'm not talking about a fantasy lottery figure.

[00:00:54] I'm talking about the number that would actually set you free, the amount that would actually let you breathe out and [00:01:00] live the way you really want to live. Most of us cannot answer that question, and it's very common. For most of us, it's just one that no one ever taught us to ask ourselves.

[00:01:14] we were taught to want more, but we were never taught to know our number. I had a conversation a while ago that I have been thinking about a lot. it was a woman I was speaking with, super smart, successful, working incredibly hard, and she told me she wanted more: more money, more security, more breathing room.

[00:01:40] And then I asked her, " How much more do you want, and how much is enough?" But she actually didn't have the answer because she never once really thought of that, and I get it. it's not very common. and especially because she has been running for years towards a number [00:02:00] she actually never defined.

[00:02:03] And then I thought, how many of us are actually doing exactly that? Chasing more with no idea where the finish line is

[00:02:13] And I think this is very common because a lot of people just work so hard without thinking about the number and working hard for a freedom we have actually never even let ourselves picture. And I wanna be really clear before we go any further, this is not about being good with money or bad with money 'cause I, I often hear, "Uh, I'm not good with money."

[00:02:37] That's not what I'm talking about here. It's not a character test. It is just a question most of us were never once invited to ask. So let us ask it together this morning. so today I actually wanna talk about the number that sets you free, what it is, why knowing it changes everything, and howto begin [00:03:00] finding yours Let us start with the trap, the trap of more.

[00:03:06] More is the most expensive word in the language because more never arrives. More is a horizon. You run or walk towards it, and then it moves. You earn more, and your life quietly expands to swallow it, and then you need more again. um, you get the pay rise, the better year, the thing you were sure would finally do it, and within a few months, it's just the new normal, and you are already reaching for the next more. and let me just say this, there is nothing wrong with ambition. I am very ambitious, and I will always hear you on to want a big life. But ambition pointed at a number you have never named is not freedom. It's a treadmill. You can run on it for 30 years and never once feel [00:04:00] free because freedom was never a feature of more. freedom is a feature of enough, and enough is a number, a real one, one that you can actually know And You can see it everywhere once you start looking. The bigger house that came with the bigger mortgage and somehow show a little less peace.

[00:04:21] The promotion you really wanted

[00:04:24] that quietly ate the very evenings you took it for. We keep upgrading the outside of our lives and then wonder why the inside still feels the same. That is more doing exactly what more always does. The hard thing about more is that it keeps you anxious no matter how much you have. I have met people with very little who feel genuinely free, and then I have met people with a great deal who feel completely trapped, and the difference is almost never the [00:05:00] size of the number.

[00:05:01] It is whether they know their number at all. SoSo here is the reframe I want to give you today. The number that sets you free is not the biggest number you can imagine. It is the right number for your life you actually want. and I think it has two layers. Both are worth knowing. The first layer is your security number. This is the amount that covers your real life, the roof over your head, the food, the basics, the things that let you sleep at night knowing, you and the people you love are safe.

[00:05:33] So for many of us, just knowing this number, just seeing it clearly takes an enormous weight off because so much of our money fear is not really about money, it's about the unknown. And the moment you put a number onto the unknown, it stops being a fog and starts being a fact, and facts that you can actually work with

[00:05:54] The second layer is your freedom number. this is the more beautiful one. This is [00:06:00] the amount that funds not just your survival, but your dreams, the life you could choose if you let yourself choose. The work you would do or stop doing. The time you would take and the time you would take back.

[00:06:14] The trips, the giving, the space, the people. This is the number that once you reach it, hands you your choices. And here is a part that I think surprose- surprise most people. Your freedom number is almost certainly smaller than you fear and more reachable than you think.

[00:06:34] Because when you actually define it, when you cost out the real life you want instead of the vague ever-expanding more, it usually turns out to be a specific human-sized number, not infin- and not, you know, millions of dollars in the bank. And a number you can move towards. And please don't let the word 'number' frighten you.

[00:06:59] if [00:07:00] money has always felt like a stressful place for you. we are not doing math this morning. We are doing clarity.

[00:07:07] The number is simply a way of making your dream specific enough to actually chase. That is all it is, a dream with a price tag so you can finally know what you are aiming at. So why does knowing your number change everything? Because clarity is the antidote to fear. Almost all of our anxiety about money lives in the haze of not knowing.

[00:07:33] we avoid looking because looking feels scary and so the fear just sits there in the background, humming away, coloring our decisions, and keeping us up at night. The number breaks the spell. You cannot move towards a target you have never named. But the day you name it, the whole game changes.

[00:07:54] You stop drifting, and you start aiming. I have watched this happen in [00:08:00] real time many times. When we finally sit down,

[00:08:04] Look at the real numbers, names what enough actually is for us. Something in our shoulders just drops. The fear we have been carrying for years perhaps that we could not even put into words turns out to have been mostly the fear of looking. And once we look,

[00:08:23] It loses its grip. That is the quiet power of a number. It gives the fear somewhere to land and something useful to do. Knowing your number changes your decisions, too. When you know what you're actually working towards, you say your yes and your no differently.

[00:08:42] you stop spending on things that do not move you closer, not out of guilt, but because you finally know what closer even means. Every choice gets a reference point Is this taking me towards my number or away from it? That one quiet question reorganizes [00:09:00] the whole financial life.

[00:09:03] And perhaps most importantly, knowing your number changes your relationship with money itself. Money stops being the thing you fear or chase or feel guilty about. It becomes what it was always meant to be: a tool that buys back your time and hands you your choices.

[00:09:23] You stop serving the money, and the money starts serving the life that you wanna live. So how do we begin to find yours? Let me give you three steps. Let's keep it simple. You don't need a spreadsheet for this, you just need to begin. Step one, start with the life, not the money.

[00:09:42] This is so important, and most people do this backwards. Do not start by asking how much you can earn. Start by asking what life do you actually want? Picture it properly. Where are you living? How are you spending your days? Who is around you? What have you finally stopped [00:10:00] doing, and what have you finally started? What will your dream life look like? Here's one of my favorite questions to sit with: What would you do if you had all the money and time you need? Answer that one first, because your number is really just a price tag on that life, and you cannot price a life that you have not let yourself imagine.

[00:10:24] Step two, name the number. Write it down. It does not have to be perfect. A rough number beats a beautiful fog every single time. Sit down even for 20 minutes and put some real figures to the life you have just pictured. what does it cost roughly to run that life for a year? That is your freedom number in its first rough draft.

[00:10:47] The act of writing it down is the act of taking it out of the land of someday and into the land of plans. You will refine it later. Today you simply name it Step three, [00:11:00] take one courageous step towards it. Just one. Because there are really only three levers, and you have far more power over all of them than you think.

[00:11:10] You can earn a little more, you can keep a little more of what you earn, or you can want a little less of what does not truly matter so there is more for what does. you do not need to pull all three. This month, choose one and take one small brave step. Momentum with money, like momentum with anything, is built from small, consistent, courageous action, never from one dramatic leap And those step can be so ordinary.

[00:11:41] Earning more might mean finally asking for what you're worth. keeping more might mean one clear, calm look where it quietly disappears each month. Wanting less might mean letting go of something you only ever bought to impress people you do not even like. Small, brave, [00:12:00] specific, that is how it works.

[00:12:02] Define the life, name the number, and then take one step. That's how the number that sets you free stops being a fantasy and starts being a plan. But let me step back because I do not want you to miss the heart of this. The number is actually not the point. The number is just a doorway. What's on the other side of it is the only thing that ever really matters, and that is choices, the freedom to spend your one precious life the way you choose, to be there for the people you love, to do the work that lights you up, to travel and do all the things that really gets you excited, Or let go of the work that does not light you up. to say a wholehearted yes to the dream you keep putting off until one day. That is what we are [00:13:00] really doing when we find out our number. We are not getting obsessed with money.

[00:13:06] We are getting free of it. we are turning it from a worry into a tool so it can quietly do its one job, which is to give you back your time and your choices and your life. Because I think a lot of us are quietly waiting, waiting until the money somehow sorts itself out before we let ourselves want things.

[00:13:29] Or rest or dream too big. But money does not sort itself out on its own. It sort itself out when we turn and face it gently with a number in our hand. The waiting is the one thing that cost us. The number is what ends the waiting. For me, a dream life was never about being rich. It was always about being free.

[00:13:55] And freedom, it turns out, has a number, and that number [00:14:00] is knowable, and it might just be closer than you think. And I want to gently say one thing before I let you go, because the timing of all this feels just right. This is exactly what we turn to this month inside the Dream Life Coaching program. The whole July is about freedom and your relationship with money and time. Not in an anxious, restrictive spreadsheet kinda way, but this kinda way.

[00:14:29] Getting clear on the life you actually want, finding the number that would fund it, and taking the brave, beautiful steps towards the freedom to choose. We do it together in a small group, each one working towards their own version of free. I'm gonna run a workshop, and we also got the inspiring Mel Brown to, to run a Dare to Be Wealthy workshop, so you can get some help with actual money as well.

[00:14:55] If something in you has been lean-leaning in while I've been talking about [00:15:00] this, Just trust that, because there is a seat for you if you would like to join us. And of course, if it feels right for you, I would love for you to come and find your number alongside all of us working on our own financial and time freedom.

[00:15:18] But for today, here is the one question to take to your journal or into your thoughts today. What is the number that would set you free, and what is one small step you could take this week to move towards it? Be brave enough to actually name the number because the people who feel most free are almost never the ones with the most.

[00:15:42] They are the ones who got clear, who stopped chasing more and started moving towards enough on purpose. You can be one of them and you can start today. The number that sets you free is not a fantasy. It is a decision quietly waiting [00:16:00] for you to make it. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today.

[00:16:07] I'm so grateful you are here. I love supporting you to create your dream life, whatever that is for you. And to create our dream life, we need choices. So hopefully I'll see you on Monday when we start working on financial freedom and time freedom in July. And as always, I'll be back on Monday with another Monday Morning Motivation episode.

[00:16:33] I'll see you then.

[00:16:34]

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