YOUR F.I.R.E. VISION

This is the fifth lesson in a series on F.I.R.E., Financial Independence, Retire Early.

Create a clear picture of what life will be like when you achieve Financial Independence.  Where will you be?  Who will you be with?  What will you be doing?  What will life be like?

Write your vision down.  Simply brainstorm and write down a list of all the things you want to be able to do when you are financially free.  Then, convert your list into a Vision Board or a Vision Notebook. 

Do it today.

Here is the 8-minute YouTube lesson on Your F.I.R.E. Vision.

The transcript follows as well

TRANSCRIPT 

Harland

Hi, I’m Harland Merriam

Mike

And I am Mike Jacobson

Harland

And we are Attune Investments.

Mike

Last week we talked about creating milestones to mark as we embark on our journey to F.I.R.E., Financial Independence, Retire Early.

Harland

And this week, we’re going to pick up one of the milestones. We are suggesting that you write a vision of where you want to be when you achieve financial independence.  We are going to cover three things today. (1) What is a vision? (2) Write it down. (3) And do it today.

WHAT IS A VISION?

So Mike, let’s look at that first one. What is a vision?

Mike

A written vision is like a compass. It helps you see what life is going to be like after achieving financial independence. And in relation to F.I.R.E., it’s a dream of what you want your life to be like.  It helps steer you there. You have a constant focus of the direction where you want to go.

Harland

When I was a Captain in the Army, back in my 20s, I wanted to be a Colonel in the Army. So, I had this vision of what my life would be like if I made it to Colonel.  That vision drew me into the future.

My career in the military at that point was kind of like standing on one bank. Here I’m a Captain on one side of the river.  There’s a Colonel on the other side of a river. I can see to the bank on the other side. And I want to be over there.  It will be neat to be there and do that.

That’s kind of what visioning is.  It is looking to the other bank on the other side.

Mike

That’s right. And it could be a mountain you want to climb.  It might be very challenging. And there’s something at the top, but you’re able to see it. And so we’re going to create a vision of where you want to go. It will evolve over time. It may change a little bit, but it’ll help give you clarity and confidence.

What do you want in your life to look like after achieving F.I.R.E.?

Harland

Where do you want to travel? What hobbies do you want to take on?

Mike

My bucket list trips. We’ve got Australia, we’ve got some Europe trips, cruises.  You may have some other things on your bucket list. It may be a big bucket.  You may want to start a foundation to help others, play golf, or move to another part of the world to live for a while.

Harland

Yeah, one of the keys here is to get a vision of what you want your life to be like.

And if you have a spouse or some other important people in your life, draw them into this vision.   Your vision draws all of you to that future for yourselves.

WRITE YOUR VISION DOWN

Mike

The next point is to write it down and then we’ll also make a vision board.

When it is written, the dream becomes part of your written plan.  List the things that we want to be able to do.  So we want you to do it individually first. Then combine your list with your significant other or someone else who’s important with you.

But don’t wait on someone else before writing your own vision.

Harland

So you’re going to do it together, but you need to do it. Each of you write it.  Then you can combine it.

And don’t compromise with yourself on your vision. Be bold about what you want your life to be like in the future. Get really concrete about it.

Write it down. Hand writing it is what I suggest, Mike suggests writing it on a computer. That’s a good way to do it, too.

Brainstorm all the ideas you have of what life will be like, where you’ll be, who you’ll be with, what you’ll be eating, where you’ll be, what you’ll be wearing, what you’ll be doing…  Then edit it a little bit.

Writing it down is important. A Forbes article I read recently said those who write their goals down are much more likely to achieve them.

Mike

We’re not talking about just money.

What are some other areas you want to include? We’re talking lifestyle. What does your faith look like? What about health and fitness? How active do we want to be?

We’ve been told, when flying on an airplane, if you lose oxygen, put your own oxygen mask on first. So you can take care of others. We need to take care of ourselves. We have found that after achieving financial freedom, people tend to find more time to take care of themselves. So, the sooner you achieve F.I.R.E. the sooner you are able to have that time.

Harland

You and I have that extra time right now, Mike. You’re into pickleball and an exercise bike.  I do some other things now that we weren’t able to do before, that we couldn’t do quite as much.

Mike

That’s right. Other things filled our time and it was hard to find the time to do these things and you know you want to be able to play with the kids or grandkids. That’s very important to us now.

Harland

Speaking of kids and grandkids, include in your vision the time you want to spend with family, with kids and grandkids, with brothers and sisters with, with your parents, and build that into your vision. Consider what you can do when you have financial independence.

Mike

What we’re really talking about is giving you the freedom of time, because when you have financial independence that gives you the freedom of time and having more choices. You having the control over your time is one of the primary reasons to achieve F.I.R.E.

Harland

Get a clear idea of what vision is, get your vision and then write it down.  We suggest you do that first. Write it down, make a list. Pretty simple. Do it. Do it quickly.

Another option we recommend is a VISION BOARD. Put your vision into pictures and put the pictures somewhere. It really makes a difference. The visuals can have a much stronger impact than just words on a sheet of paper.

How do we do that, Mike?

Mike

That’s right. Just take a board. It might be two feet by three feet or one and a half by two. Just something that you can put some pictures on.  You can get the pictures from the Internet or print them out from somewhere, or grab them from a magazine.

You will pin them up. Make a collage. You might even get brochures from cruise lines. Maybe there are itineraries that you want to take, like maybe cruises in the Mediterranean or Scandinavia, or maybe even transatlantic or transpacific. There are so many options.

Harland

In addition to a vision board, you might create a NOTEBOOK of these things you’re planning to do in the future and begin to collect ideas and include them here.

Mike, it’s important to put it where you can see. Isn’t it?

Mike

That’s right. So that’s why I like it to be somewhere, maybe up in a office or study where you see it frequently or every day, or even if it is in a laundry room or mud room on the way to the garage, so you see it on the way out to the car.

Harland

Keep it in front of you from here on. So, you know what a vision is, that dream you have about what life’s going to be like when you achieve financial independence. And you’ve learned that writing it down and maybe putting it on a vision board is really important. Those are the first two points.

DO IT TODAY

The third point is — do it today. Don’t wait.  This is a real early milestone on your journey to financial independence.

Mike

Take 5 minutes right now, start, take the first step. Start making your first list of some of the dreams you have and the things you want to do, and then it becomes a concrete symbol. And you’ve started on your way.  You know where you’re going.

Harland

There we have the three points we wanted to make today about vision. Capture that concrete image of what your life’s going to be like. Write it down.  And do it today.

Mike

Next week we’ll be talking about the three phases of life that we go through on our journey to F.I.R.E. Remember, that’s Financial Independence, Retire Early.

Harland

See you, Mike. See you next week.

Mike

You, too, Harland.