Your Future Self

What do you think your life will be like in a year? Five years? Twenty years?

I love this drawing by Carl Richards because it shows just how distant our future seems. It can be hard to set goals (especially financial ones) because we can be bad at imagining our future selves. Remember what you imagined you’d be as an adult when you were a kid? How did that work out?

When we talk about financial goals, we’re often talking about long timeframes. Your retirement could be 20 years away… or more. It’s hard to even imagine yourself at that age, let alone plan for it.

When we start thinking about our distant-future selves, it can be easy—perhaps too easy—to rationalize the decision to not do anything now. In fact, our future selves can often feel like some other person, constantly annoying us and stealing heaps of fun from our current selves. However, we think it’s in your best interest to appease your future self because he or she will be here soon enough.

What’s the solution?

To start with, let’s get really clear on our goals. For example, if you have kids, you don’t have to know exactly what college your first-grader is going to go to and exactly what the tuition is going to be. Just don’t pretend that 18 is a long way off. It’s not. Start saving now. Check out our saving for college calculator!

If you just celebrated (or mourned) turning 40, it’s time for a reality check. Remember all the stupid stuff you did as a teenager? Don’t be the 60-year-old who wants to hit your 30-something self over the head for doing stupid adult stuff, like not getting clear on your financial goals. If you haven’t started yet, give us a call and we can help.