I like to visualize myself achieving things. People might call it day dreaming and some motivational guru will have probably trademarked a name for it; but I like to say I ‘visualize the win’.
The journey to financial freedom is a long, sometimes arduous journey, full of failure. Often it can feel like actions that take huge effort now barely move you any closer to achieving your goal. Why spend 30 mins after a long day of work packing your lunch to save $10? If you’re shooting for a $1 million portfolio this will only get you 0.001% closer. Not worth it.
For me, this is where visualizing the win, helps me overcome the initial hesitation of putting effort in for seemingly no reward. Here’s how I do it.
Visualizing my ideal life
I’ve spent a significant amount of time reflecting on what makes me happy and how I’d like my ideal life to look. I want to travel each year; work a few days a week on things that I am passionate about; exercise most days each week; and prioritize spending time with friends and family. I want to feel secure about our financial situation and realize that financial freedom is a key enabler for this ideal life. Focusing on the financial aspect, I’m clear on the fact that our household passive income will need to exceed our expenses. As I outlined in my goal setting article this means we need to save a certain amount of money each year to do this. As a result, I have a clear picture of what needs to be done and what ‘the win’ looks like.
Connecting effort with reward
Ideally, rewards for action should be instantaneous, but in the case of a long-term goal like financial freedom there is no instantaneous reward, which is why I believe that it must be broken down into smaller goals. As an example, say you need to save $60,000 per year for 20 years to get to financial freedom. This yearly goal can be broken down into 12 smaller goals of saving $5,000 per month with a suitably size reward given each month. For me, the reward for a savings goal is telling myself that I was strong enough to overcome hardship and that I’m now one step closer to living my ideal life. The act of ‘visualizing the win’ makes the reward somewhat tangible in the present.
Tasks become challenges and opportunity
The interesting thing about connecting a distant future reward with a present effort through visualization is that I now see certain hardships as opportunity. Using the packing lunch example again, I look at the task as a challenge to create delicious, healthy food; which is an opportunity to eat a meal living my ideal life (which is full of healthy delicious meals). The task of mowing the lawn becomes an opportunity to exercise and make my garden look great; and the task of investing more than 50% of our take home income each month becomes a tiny price to pay for a huge reward.
One last thought…
Years ago, I used to set goals based on achieving a certain net worth by the end of year. However, my wife convinced me that this was ill advised since net worth is highly dependent on market fluctuations. She convinced me that financial goals need to be set based on what you have a reasonable level of control over. Hence, I now set goals based on saving rather than net worth or portfolio value. So, when setting your financial goals, I’d advise that you follow a similar line of thinking.
Good luck with your financial goals for 2021 and beyond. Hopefully, the technique of ‘visualizing the win’ keeps you motivated and on track!
Engineer your freedom