Where are We Going?

I had a really good conversation with my wife a couple days ago, and it illuminated a problem I think is quite common in many people’s financial lives. We’re looking for a house, and the housing market where we live is just crazy. Every house in our price range is selling in days. Many houses are selling off Realtor’s Facebook ads before they are ever even listed. Crazy. It has led to some frustration for my wife and me. We start entertaining the idea of stretching our budget a bit to get some of the slightly more expensive houses. Part of that is frustration and the impatience that comes with it. But part of it, I think, is something else we found about ourselves during the conversation: We don’t really have a solid picture of what our future looks like.

It’s an odd situation. For the past 2.5 years since we started our debt-free journey, this hasn’t really been a problem. We knew why we wanted to get out of debt: It was insanely stressful and made us feel very unstable in our life. That helped drive us through our debt-free journey, and thanks to Dave Ramsey and his team, we had a clear roadmap of how to get there. Now that we are there, we looked up and realized that our roadmap didn’t really go any farther. We know the Baby Steps; we know the mechanics of it, but we don’t really know exactly where we’re going. It’s like getting in your car and driving east. You don’t even know which city you’re trying to get to; you’re just driving east. To carry the driving analogy further, it makes your decisions very difficult. Every exit that comes up on the interstate, you’re thinking, “Do we get off here?” But you have no way of really knowing whether that’s a good decision or not, because you don’t know where you want to end up.

Which brings me to the point: When you undertake this financial journey (or really any journey to drastically change your behaviors), you need a clearly-defined goal. We had that (to an extent) through the debt-free part of our journey. We wanted the peace that would come with not owing other people money. (And, for the record, it is totally worth it to get there. If you don’t have that peace, I strongly encourage you to get on this journey, too). But, once we made it past that, we were aimless. As Zig Ziglar said, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” That aimlessness was complicating our decision-making process. Something altogether amazing happens when you have a great goal to work toward: It becomes the measuring stick for all your decisions.

Take the example of a professional sports team. They want to win their championship game. That’s a big goal, one certainly worth fighting for. Throughout the year, hundreds, thousands of decisions are going to face those players. “Do I give it my all at practice today, or do I slack off a bit?” “Should I spend that extra session in the weight room?” “Should I go out partying the night before the big game?” All of these decisions are going to affect the success of the team in reaching their goal. If all the players are bought into that shared goal, decision-making becomes much simpler. “Does this bring me/my team closer to our goal?” If yes, then do it. If no, then don’t.

Without that clear goal, though, you have no measuring stick. You can’t say, “Does this bring me closer to my goal?” because you haven’t clearly defined that goal. Financially (to finally end the analogies), this can cause a huge waste of money. The ambiguity allows you to start spending money on all sorts of things. And they may all seem like great ideas. But are they furthering your financial goals? That’s the million-dollar question which can’t be answered until your goals are clearly defined. Chris Hogan says, “Dream in HD.” See your dreams as clearly as you see the picture on your HD TV. Once you have that ultra-clear picture, you can make a roadmap to get there. And you have a standard against which you can measure your decisions. So, sit down and have that dream meeting. Discuss with your spouse (if you’re married) or with someone you’re very close to (if you’re single) what you want your life to look like in 10 years, in 20 years, in your retirement. Bring that picture into HD focus, and let that dream drive you forward financially.

If you want help getting there, reach out. It would bring me great joy to sit down with you and discuss your dreams and your roadmap to get there.

Photo by Tabea Damm on Unsplash