“We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.”
Simon Sinek
Financial peace is not a number and wealth is about more than money. Let’s agree on a core truth, sufficient resources (time, health, money) are all needed for financial peace, but are not the true goal, and having sufficient health and time do not equal a happy life.
There are three major benefits of knowing “your why”. The first knowing “your why” provides clarity of purpose. The second knowing “your why” provides motivation for pursuing your goals. The third knowing “your why” provides toughness to stick to the plan when life goes sideways.
Back to our questions about WHAT we want:
- To work less hours?
- To be debt free?
- To retire early?
- To have $X in your retirement account?
- To lose weight, get in shape, etc.?
WHY do you want these?
- Does less time at work = more time with your spouse / children?
- Does debt free = working less so you can be home with family?
- Does early retirement = allow you to spend time pursuing your real passion?
- Does a large retirement account = freedom to travel with your spouse?
- Does better health = being around to see your grand kids grow up?
So what is your WHY? How do you figure out what it is?
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself as you spend some time reflecting on your life now and consider your future:
- What is your consuming passion?
- Are you pursuing it? Why not?
- Talk with your spouse.
- Are we living the life together we both want?
- What would that look like?
- Think about the end of your life on its current path.
- What regrets will you have?
- Why will you have those regrets?
- What would financial peace look like (be specific) in your life?
- What would change in your life? Why?
After reflecting, jot down the reasons you want to reach the tangible goals you want to reach.
So, you now know WHAT you need to accomplish (financial goals) to pursue financial peace, then you decided on WHY this is important to you. The next question is HOW do you best go about pursuing these goals?
We will discuss this in more detail next week.
Dave Conley, CFP
I was blessed to live right across the street from my retired Grandfather while growing up. He raised a family of 10 girls during the depression. I remember him as being a man of honor. My Mother told me during the depression the post office had a list of names posted of the families on government relief. She said my Grandfather was so worried he’d have to go on relief and his name would appear on that list of names that he took any job to keep his name off the list. Being from the snow belt in N.Y., one of those jobs was to shovel snow drift’s out of the road’s so the farmers could get their milk to the milk train. According to her, he would leave at midnight and work through the night. I’m sure many of those nights were subzero temperature’s.
I remember two thing’s he said to me that have made all the difference in my life. The first being,”I’ve lived this long without a particular item, I guess I can live without it until I can pay cash it”, and the other was “I’ve found that sometimes I’ve had more fun dreaming about what I’d like then to actually have it”. For the most part, people with these principles are long gone. In my observation, they may not have been educated in the sense we think of today, but they were humble, honest, hard working, God fearing and were people with common sense.
In 1980 Grandpa died at 83. My Grandmother died 10 years later at 93. Shortly after Grandpa’s passing, my Aunts were sorting through his belongings and found $25,00.00 in a cedar chest with a false bottom. Grandpa never trusted banks after the depression, so I suppose he did what he thought best to protect the money for himself and Grandma. Strangely, he did invest in savings bonds, and that with the $25000.00 carried Grandma through quite comfortably until her passing.
Thanks for all the valuable lessons you taught me Grandpa, they’ve served me well.
Marcus,
What a great legacy your grandfather left.
It reminds me of the passage in Ecclesiastes 1:10 “Sometimes people say here is something new (living below your income)! But actually, it is an old truth; nothing is truly ever new.”
Oh that we could have others remember us like you do your grandfather after we have gone home to be with the Lord.
Dave