For the longest time, creating this blog and sharing the things I’ve learned with others regarding investing and financial independence was a dream. It percolated in my head for quite some time and went…nowhere.
Why?
This, my friends, is the cautionary tale of dreams and goals.
I know that sounds a bit melodramatic but I find it’s something that needs to be highlighted. For most of us, there are many things we’d like to achieve and yet we just haven’t for a variety of reasons. Complacency. Fear. Peer pressure. Failure. Other conflicting priorities. I had been accomplished in my career reaching a senior management position in a large international corporation. Same could be said about getting to financial independence and retiring early. And yet, that same level of success was not translating into my writing/blogging. How many times have we heard someone else, including ourselves, say the following:
- It would be so nice to do “this”.
- I’d love to accomplish “that”.
- I wish I’d followed through on “this”.
- It’s too bad I didn’t focus on “that”. Things would be so different now as a result.
We all do it. Those are dreams. Things that we think on but haven’t done anything about. They can be inspiring. In many cases, they can also become regrets. They’re things that eat up and rent space in our heads for free. When that happens, they can actually keep us from accomplishing what we think we want to achieve. Whether that be for myself to write this blog or maybe for you to achieve a level of financial independence that you desire. That’s where goals come in.
Goals are dreams where there’s a level of willingness on our part and an actual plan is formulated with action taken. Sounds simple, right? Create a step-by-step plan and act on each step until the plan is complete. With a dash of life in general to mess up the gears to a certain degree.
The main message I’m trying to convey here is that whether you can move beyond daydreaming to taking concrete action is up to you. To each of us. Either you want something strongly enough that you are willing to make it happen or…not. We all need to look in the mirror sometimes and make that call. It’s not going to be me that convinces you to do that or someone else. Ultimately, it will be yourself and no one else.
When the time is right, you will simply do it. And when you do, give yourself a pat on the back.
Just something to think about.
How do you feel about that?