If you’ve been around these parts for a while, you’ve heard me talk about sovereignty, but you may not have a clear understanding of exactly what I meant.

When you are sovereign, you are fully responsible for your own life experience. You are not dependent on the government, a corporate job you secretly hate, your parents, or anyone else for your income.

When you are sovereign, you make your decisions from a place of desire, not fear.

When you are sovereign, you own yourself.

You are not a slave.

Except that, right now, you might be.

Many people today are slaves.

Slaves to a system you don’t even believe in because we have allowed ourselves to become convinced that we need to do things that are not in alignment with who we are because otherwise we will …  starve, be homeless, be outcast, die alone, not be able to educate our kids, not have enough to care for ourselves throughout life … fill in your own biggest fear.

I came across it blatantly this weekend.

We were on a camping trip with a new friend and got around to talking about her work. Turns out she works for big oil. She negotiates land leases on behalf of the companies that do fracking. She knows that fracking is destroying our water supply. She knows that the land leases she is entering into aren’t good for the homeowners. Yet, she is investing her life doing it because it pays the bills.

It pays the bills.

She KNOWS it’s hurting people, our water supply, our planet.  But, she’s stuck.

A slave.

Another friend works as a project manager for a major ad agency, working on ads for big pharma. She hates it. She hates that she’s investing her life energy to persuade people to take medications she would never consider putting in her own body.

But, it pays the bills.

A third friend has a company she knows is spreading a message of half-truths and flat-out lies. She has convinced herself it’s okay because it not only pays her bills, but the bills of 20 other people and the revenue will make it so she can repay her investors.

As if that makes it okay.

She’s a slave too.

Even though she has her own company, she sold out to pay the bills.

Are you too working a job or doing business you not only hate, but you know (even if you wouldn’t admit it to anyone out loud) is actually hurting our planet and your community?

Because it pays the bills? Because it feeds your ego?  Because you think you have to?

If so, I imagine you want to break free, but you’ve convinced yourself you can’t. It’s too secure. It’d be too scary to let go.

I understand.

I was there myself once.

I had built a business I began to hate. I got disconnected from the reason I had started it in the first place and trapped by a business model that didn’t serve.

I found myself on Nancy Grace gossiping about Tiger Woods’ divorce and it hit me like a hard slap in the face, I not only wasn’t impacting the world in the way I knew I could, I was actually adding more negativity.

I found myself frequently hiding.  I repeatedly heard from members of my business team  “Alexis … you can’t do that. You can’t say that. You can’t write that. You can’t wear that. You’ll hurt the business.”  And so I shut up.

I was a slave.

You didn’t come here to slave away each day so you can pay the bills.

Your life is worth more than that.

YOU are worth more than that.

You have a unique gift to give that we are all missing out on when you sell your soul for so little.

If you are going to sell your soul, at the very least do it for something meaningful. Something worthy. Make it a game-changer.

But where do you start? Especially, when there is the reality of all those bills. And the people you support. And the debt you owe.

I faced exactly that question myself. Here’s a three-step action plan you can begin on now:

Step 1: Discover how much money you really need NOW to live the life you want.  

Drop the idea that you need to save for retirement because you know you aren’t going to have enough saved up even if you keep doing exactly what you are doing … and instead shift into a vision of financial liberation, in which you know how to make what you need, when you need it, doing work you love that you can do until you die.

Stop focusing on paying off your debt and instead consider how you can use your good credit score to acquire more of the resources you need to build yourself that income stream and stop doing work you hate

-OR-

if your credit score is already bad, consider how you can deal with the debt you have with as much ease as possible without you continuing to let it hold you back from living your dreams right now. In any case, let go of the belief that your debt is keeping you stuck. It’s not.

Get into right relationship with how much money you actually do need now and out of the false ideas of what you think you need that are keeping you stuck.

Step 2: Identify your entrepreneurial archetype and the business model that is right for you.

Get clear that you can be in business for yourself, no matter what kind of person you are (even if you’ve never thought of yourself as an entrepreneur), once you’ve identified your particular entrepreneurial archetype and the business model that fits.

Chances are, if you can’t see yourself in business for yourself it’s because you are comparing yourself to people with a different archetype than you and their business model isn’t a match for you.  And, if you are in business and do not LOVE your business, aren’t making the kind of money you really need, and feel like it’s a struggle, it’s also probably an archetype/business model mismatch.

Once you’ve identified your personal archetype and the right business model for where you are right now, you can begin to learn from the people who have already done what you want to do and you’ll discover it’s actually not that hard.

In fact, continuing to do what you are doing and being out of alignment with the truth of who you really are is FAR HARDER than any business will be when you are in alignment.

Step 3: Learn from people who have done what you want to do.

You need to get yourself into relationship and community with people who are sovereign.

It’s often been said by people far smarter than me that you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with. And, while I’ve wanted to deny it, I’ve discovered for myself, it’s true.

The more time I spend in the company of or learning from people who have what I want, the closer and closer I get to my dream life.

The more time I spend with people who don’t have what I want, the more I find myself mired in drama, fear and doubt.

Look around and see where you are being held back and commit to yourself to find a connection this week with at least one person — a mentor, a friend or a community — that supports you taking one step closer to your own personal path to sovereignty.

If you do this, one day you will look back and wonder how you could have stayed for so long doing that thing that you hate, that you know is not what you came here to do, because it was too scary, comfortable, secure to do something else.

I invite you to comment below, I’d love to hear where you are on this path yourself and what else you need to bring you closer to the sovereignty you not only desire, but that you deserve.