Begin with the End in Mind

As you may recall, in honor of May being the month of Mother’s Day, and because I’m currently on my Everest expedition away from my kids, I’m sharing advice, wisdom, and thoughts I want to pass along to my kids for my weekly blogs. For this week’s installment, I’m zeroing in on a concept: Begin with the end in mind.

Kids…Your Dad and I work/worked in the financial service field. We were lucky in the fact that we got to help people plan their financial lives. As cliché as it sounds, we saw over and over again how people never planned to fail, they just failed to plan. Read that again. It’s a phrase you’ll see more when you get older: People never plan to fail, they just fail to plan.

LIFE IS SHORT. Like the blink of an eye. And, life seems to speed up as you get older! Why do I remind you of this? We believe, especially when we are young, that we will always have the time to do what we dream of doing. To some degree it’s true, and when you’re young you feel like all the work you need to do in school and to get ahead slows that down a little bit. As you become a young adult, though, you can’t start early enough to MAKE time for what you want to do.

We are all granted the same hours in a day. It’s up to each of us to use those days wisely and align them with what we want out of life. We actually do MAKE time for what we want to do an accomplish. We decide how to create each day with the time given and it’s our most precious resource.

Here’s an exercise to start you thinking about this in your own life…

Take the time to sit with yourself quietly and think about what you want your story to be.

Who are you?

What makes you happy?

If you have 100 years to live, what do you want to experience?

What will people say about you that know you?

There are some activities that you can do easier when you are younger, so keep that in mind. If, for example, you want to climb Mt. Everest before you die, it might be better to attempt that mid-life, and not in your 90s. 

Start to plot out what the ages of your life include. What do you have to prepare for now if you want those things to happen? Could you research something? Could you ask someone questions who might know more about something you’re interested in? This kind of thinking really puts things in motion and gets you in the “doing” of your dreams.

Down the road, or even now, if you don’t like the way your life is looking, know that you can always change it. Your choices, your habits, your daily decisions determine what your life looks like and can look like. Be conscientious of that. There is power in knowing this. There is only one YOU that gets to live your life. What does that mean to you? What excites you?  

Life is filled with opportunities and trades-offs. There is an “opportunity cost” to it all, so consider the cost (time, money, travel) of the opportunity you want to chase and then find the balance that works for you in making it happen.

Beginning with the end in mind allows you to guess when you will leave this planet. It reminds you that you are not in physical form forever. So, check in, connect with yourself, re-connect with yourself if you feel a little lost, and be intentional with how you are spending your time. 

Remember: There is no timeline to follow — you have your own clock. You determine what success means, how it looks, and what it feels like. Happiness is a skill. Here physically or not, I am always with you. You are loved, cared for, and thought about. Do you the best you can and enjoy the journey!