Meet Your Future Self For A Better Retirement

Have you ever thought about what your future self is like 20-30 years from now? Would you be blissfully retired and be your best self? Are you living in Portugal or Spain with your significant other or enjoying the pleasures of travelling and exploring new places? Have you chosen a non-traditional retirement by continuing to work? Are you fulfilling your dream of being an entrepreneur?

Or are you happy to just let your current trajectory land you, wherever that may be? And if so, can you foresee where this unmanaged landing would be? Is it a place you are  happy and satisfied with?  

Future Self & Retirement Planning

Visualising your future self is a powerful and effective exercise before you start retirement planning. For without a vision of where you want to be, how can you plan for it? A compass is useless without a destination. And a destination, even if not explicitly clear, helps to decide which paths to take or equally important, which to avoid.

By doing this exercise of a sneak peek into a future where you thrive and are happy gives a perspective of where you are now. And when the gaps are identified, you can go about creating your blueprint for retirement. If there are no gaps or just small ones, then congratulations, you are leading your desired life and already your ideal self. 

But for most of us, we dream of becoming a better version of our current self and leading a happier life. That’s why having a vision of our future self is so important. 

Meet Your Future Self

As the year draws to a close, there is no better time than to set aside some quiet moment to meet your future self, so you can take stock and plan. Project your imagination 20-30 years ahead and come face-to-face with your happy and welcoming self. Notice how you look and what you like about it. Ask your future self these questions:

• What are you most happy with now? 
• What are the most important things you did ini the past that helped you get here?
• What are you most proud of? 
• Who are the most important people in your life now?
• What are the critical milestones to reach this stage?
• What have been your most precious memories and experiences?

Feel free to include other personal questions as these will provide a clearer definition as to where and who you want to be. For eg, if you plan to travel extensively in retirement, then you may want to ask what steps you took to enable such prolonged travel, which will require beefing up financial resources, keeping fit and digitising your life to enjoy such mobility. This process will help to crystallise your crucial goals and gives a clear representation of yourself. 

Advice From Your Future Self  

Listening to the answers is effectively taking advice from your future self, drawing on your gut feel, which is pure and instinctive. Accepting advice from yourself is much easier as you are fully motivated, within a feel-good situation and it provides positive reinforcement to your own vision.

Working out a plan in response to your future self is actually reverse engineering by starting from the end point and working backwards. At every step of the way, the question to keep in mind: What needs to be done in order to realise this goal or milestone? This way, you take steps towards an outcome you want. 

Your future self can only have your interest at heart and knows you inside-out, more than anyone else on earth. It seeds the idea that ‘you’ are a continuous ‘work in progress’, with  with a consciousness of the future.

Your BFF

Sounds simple, right? Why isn’t it being practiced more? Because thinking about our future self can be confronting as it requires digging into our dreams, how we envision ourself, who we want to be. Not an easy exercise as modern living has programmed us to respond and deal with the now: delivering on work projects, picking up the kids from school, making sure the parents have the right medication, scheduling activities for coming  weekend or planning trips for next holiday. Our life is packed with little or no pockets left to reflect and imagine in earnest. 

Visit your future self whenever faced with hard decisions or making future plans. This ritual helps to remind where you want to head to, and reinforces your big goals making it easier to stick to tough actions. It is like applying the ‘rocks pebbles and sand in a jar’ concept to stay true to your navigation plan. 

Make Your Future Self A Reality

This exercise is not only useful as a pre-cursor to retirement planning, it can also be applied to any period into the future. It can be as short as a year from now, to help you plan for the coming year or your career. Having a mental vision introduces an eventuality into our subconsciousness. The seeds of these thoughts will then germinate leading to action plans. 

Knowing your future self provides hope and motivation. It is something exciting to aim for, giving a sense of purpose and control over your own destiny. It strengthens your identity and helps you grow into your desired self. And the best thing is: you have the chance and ability to create this eventuality now.

Forgive your younger self,

Believe in your current self,

Create your future self. ~Unknown

 

To future self,

Savvy Maverick

(Main image: Mohamed Nohassi, Unsplash)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are drawn from my own experiences and do not constitute financial advice in any way whatsoever. Nothing published here constitutes an investment recommendation, nor should any data or content be relied upon for any investment activities. It is strongly recommended that independent and thorough research be undertaken before making any financial decisions, including consulting a qualified professional.