Dreamlining
Replace vague goals with costed timelines for your ideal life
Dreamlining is Ferriss's alternative to traditional goal-setting. Instead of asking 'What do I want?' or 'What are my goals?' it asks 'What would excite me?' This subtle reframe shifts the focus from obligation and should to genuine desire and excitement, producing goals that actually motivate sustained action.
The process involves listing everything you want to have, be, and do within a specific timeframe (typically six months), then calculating the actual monthly cost of each item. Most people discover that their dream lifestyle costs far less than they assumed. A month in a foreign country, a language course, a personal assistant: these things have real price tags, and when you add them up, the total is often surprisingly achievable.
The final output is a Target Monthly Income (TMI): a single number that represents the monthly earnings needed to fund your ideal life. This concrete figure replaces vague aspirations with a specific, actionable target. Dreamlining turns abstract dissatisfaction into a clear financial goal with a timeline, making the entire DEAL formula actionable.
- Ask 'What would excite me?' instead of 'What do I want?' to bypass obligation-based goal-setting.
- Unrealistic goals often have less competition than realistic ones because fewer people dare to pursue them.
- Every dream has a price tag, and that price tag is almost always lower than you think.
- Inaction driven by fear of the unknown is the greatest risk of all.
- The perfect moment to start will never come; imperfect action today beats perfect planning tomorrow.
- List Your Have, Be, and Do GoalsCreate three columns: things you want to HAVE (possessions, resources), things you want to BE (skills, qualities, experiences), and things you want to DO (activities, adventures). Write at least five items in each column for the next six months. Do not self-censor.Pro tipIf you are stuck, imagine explaining your ideal day to a friend in vivid detail, from waking up to going to sleep. The specifics will reveal your real desires.
- Select Your Top Four DreamsFrom your full list, circle the four items that excite you the most. These should be the ones that make you feel a mix of excitement and slight fear. These become your focus for the next six months.Pro tipIf everything feels equally exciting, pick the four you would choose if you could only accomplish four things in the next six months and then had to start over.
- Calculate the Monthly Cost of Each DreamFor each of your top four dreams, research the actual monthly cost. A house on the beach might be $2,000 per month to rent in Southeast Asia. Learning fencing might cost $200 per month in lessons. Add these up and include your current living expenses.Pro tipMost people overestimate costs by 3-10x. Actually research prices instead of guessing. The internet makes this trivially easy.WarningDo not inflate costs as a way of giving yourself permission to not pursue the dream. Use real numbers.
- Calculate Your Target Monthly IncomeAdd up the monthly costs of your top four dreams plus your baseline living expenses. Add a 30% buffer. This total is your Target Monthly Income (TMI). Write it down prominently where you will see it daily.Pro tipCompare your TMI to your current income. Many people discover their dream life costs less than or equal to what they already earn, with different allocation.
- Define Your First Action Step Within 48 HoursFor each of your four dreams, identify one concrete action you can take within the next 48 hours to move toward it. This could be an email, a phone call, a web search, or a signup. The point is to create immediate momentum and break the pattern of indefinite postponement.Pro tipThe action should be small enough to feel easy but concrete enough to feel like real progress. 'Research' is too vague. 'Email three language schools in Barcelona for pricing' is specific.
Ferriss challenged twenty Princeton students to contact a famous person and get them to answer three questions. The prize was a free trip around the world. Every student expressed interest, and every student failed, not because the task was impossible, but because none of them tried. The 'unrealistic' goal had zero competition.
A professional earning $80,000 per year assumed his dream lifestyle of traveling for six months, learning a language, and renting a beachside apartment would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. After Dreamlining, he calculated that living in Thailand, taking daily language lessons, and renting a beachfront apartment would cost roughly $3,000 per month.
Ferriss created Dreamlining after observing that most people either set no goals at all or set goals they do not actually care about. The conventional advice to be 'realistic' produced safe, uninspiring targets. Meanwhile, genuinely exciting goals went unset because people assumed they were impossible.
Through his own experience and teaching at Princeton, Ferriss discovered that the biggest obstacle was not capability but clarity. When he challenged students to contact famous people, twenty capable students failed not because the task was impossible but because they never tried. The same dynamic applied to life goals: people fail not because their dreams are unrealistic but because they never specify what they actually want and discover how achievable it really is.