Is the picture in your mind of how you’d like to be living different from how you’re actually going through life? If so, stop what you’re doing and change things. A lot is at stake.
Nobody wants to say years from now that their life didn’t turn out as they’d wanted or expected. I absolutely cringe when I hear people say things like, “retirement isn’t what I’d thought it would be”, or “I did all of that for this?”. Regret is the worst feeling in the world because there’s nothing you can do about it.
But what you can do is take specific actions to avoid and thwart having future regrets. Action taken today is the preventative medication against a future outbreak of regret. Skeptical? Try this:
1. Pick something that you want to see yourself doing (travelling, writing a song, skydiving)
2. Do it
3. Pick something else (learning a foreign language, building a table, sitting on a beach)
4. Do it
5. Repeat steps 1-4
I’m not being cheeky, it’s serious and it’s actually very hard. We have a tendency in this country to believe that our life is supposed to follow a path of thinking that today is supposed to suck so that tomorrow will be better, especially when it comes to our careers and financial planning. I don’t buy it.
I have the benefit of being able to observe many people in different stages of career success, financial health, and happiness. Those who seem to be at the highest levels in all of those areas are those that deny the “traditional” path of slogging through work and then praying for a good retirement and instead seek a balance between responsibility and life experience. I see it so I believe it, and I wonder why it’s not a more popular way to live.
