In this post, I share why visioning your life in the future is helpful to setting goals for yourself now.
Y2K
I can remember spending New Year’s Eve 1999 at the American Legion in Fremont, Indiana. The build up to the year 2000 was riddled with fear and anticipation when many people truly considered the world as we know it may end.
One side of the building was the smoky bar where regular local patrons hung out and the other side of the building separated only by a thin, swinging door was the space that a large group of my parent’s friends had rented out to ring in the new decade together. We all had our party hats and we were dancing on the wooden floor to the DJ music that was coming out of a large speaker on the floor.
With the TV tuned into Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve program in New York City, we began the countdown.
Ten… nine… eight…
Everyone excited yet nervously wondering what could happen next. Would something really happen when the clock struck midnight?
Three… two… one… Happy New Year!
Just as we began to give hugs to each other, the loud music abruptly stopped playing and the power went out. The soft battery-powered emergency lights kicked on and we all sort of looked at each other with half smiles thinking this could be some sort of prank or maybe something really did happen. All we could hear was people asking “what is going on?” and other questions being asked out loud trying to figure out the situation.
Then, through the small serving window of the room leading into the bar side of the building, a jolly man leans his head in and yells “Happy New Year” as the lights powered back on. A funny prank by an intoxicated bar patron that made us wonder for a split second if something was really wrong with the world as the first digit of the year changed over to another number (a first and a last in our lifetime).
Planning life vs. life happening
It’s hard to believe ringing in 2000 was 20 years ago. It was a new year, a new decade, a new century. And now we are ringing in another brand new decade. So much life has happened over the past twenty years.
When we look back, it is very common to wonder how we got here to this point in life. We look back at the big life events that have occurred: relationships, weddings, deaths, graduations, new jobs, new houses, retirements, health concerns, new additions to the family, and the list goes on and on. Many of these life events are unplanned and just happen, however many of our life events come with choices and decisions that lead up to events that take place. Things like jobs, houses, retiring, health, graduation, etc.
Somewhere along the way we set a goal to achieve something. And it is around this time of year when most of us take pause to reflect on the previous year and think ahead into the new year. We think about what we hope to do, change, achieve in the upcoming year. Here are the most popular new year’s resolutions that people set out to accomplish:
- Lose weight
- Improve financial situation
- Exercise more
- Get a new job
- Eat healthier
- Stop smoking
- Improve relationship
- Stop procrastinating
Do any of these sound familiar? Many of these are shorter term in nature (less than a year to achieve). However what about planning for much larger goals that span a number of years like building a sustainable income level to be financially independent while doing something you love to do, buying a new home and being able to afford the things you love, or getting the education you need to pursue your dream job?
When you have a much longer plan that spans multiple years, sometimes it is difficult to set a one year resolution to achieve all of this plan. So how about breaking out the goal into smaller pieces and accomplishing one piece at a time?
Begin with the end in mind
How many of us truly follow Stephen Covey’s principle “begin with the end in mind” in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? Where you envision yourself at 80 or 90 years old and you think back to what you have accomplished over your lifetime. You not only envision what you did during your life, but you also think back through the people that you impacted and how you felt (or feel at that time).
It’s kind of like now in 2020: we look back over the past 20 years and think about everything that has happened. So what things in your life did you plan vs. what things just occurred in your life?
And if you didn’t really plan much over the past 20 years but you have had big hopes and dreams, at what point do you plan to achieve these hopes and dreams? Or are you just going to get to 2040 and look back and think the same thing you are thinking now in 2020: “everything just happened to me, I didn’t really plan ahead.”
When you begin with the end in mind (when you are 80 or 90 or whatever age you pick that is getting close to the end of your life) then you have an idea of what you want to achieve throughout your lifetime. And then you can begin to create a plan to backtrack and think through each year, each decade of what you will need to do to achieve this lifetime goal or feeling. It will help you understand how this year 2020 and even the years afterwards fits into your overall plan.
For example, I set a goal when I turned 40 last year to inspire one million people over the next ten years by the time I turn 50. One million people is a LOT of people. However, when I break it out into bite-sized chunks, it doesn’t seem that far out of reach. One million people is only 100,000 people per year or about 8,300 people per month. Now, these first couple years are all about building my foundation and my businesses to eventually ramp up to achieve those numbers. I know it will take some time before I can begin reaching many people at the same time. But my point is that there is a plan to do it. Reaching one million people isn’t just going to happen randomly. Just like your goals aren’t going to be achieved randomly.
Did you really write down what you hope to achieve when you are 90?
Yes, I have written down what I hope to achieve at 90 years old.
SIDENOTE: I actually want to live to 100 so that is my number, but choose whatever number you want.
I wrote this list when I left my 16-year corporate career over two years ago and I read it each week – every Monday morning. I read it to remind myself what my higher purpose is on this planet and remind myself how lucky I am to be alive. But this repetitive reading each week allows me to understand there is a higher goal to my weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly goals. It reminds me that each step along the way is getting me closer to achieving my ultimate life vision!
I share this list with you to help inspire and to share ideas that you can think about how to incorporate into your life. This is what my journal says word for word…
WHEN I AM 100 AND HEALTHY, I WILL LOOK BACK AT MY LIFE AND HAVE ACHIEVED…
- Created a company that inspired the lives of over 1,000,000 people (through a series of books, speaking engagements, online courses and pivot travel experiences)
- Earned income over seven figures per year by 50 years old
- Traveled to every country in the world
- Met the love of my life and was with him to the end
- Was the happiest I have ever been
- My body is my temple and I made great decisions to keep my body as healthy as possible
- Have no regrets with my life – to know that I lived my life to the fullest – and I won’t fear death.
- Had the most fun I could have
What will you achieve?
So do me a favor, sit down now for the next thirty minutes, or put a thirty minute calendar event into your schedule for some point this week that you will not cancel, and write out a list of what you will have achieved later in life. And then I want you to share the most important item with me in the comments section below.
Hold yourself accountable. Do this exercise and then begin planning the rest of your life to achieve what you wrote down. So when you look back at your life one day, you will not only ask yourself “how did I get here?” but you will also have the answer!
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