What If You Only Had Eight Years? A Simple System for Getting Where You Want to Be In Life

By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, President, Investment U
Tuesday, August 5, 2003: Issue #262

He just found out…

Doctors give a family friend of ours 15 years to live, with about eight of them as good ones.

Life sure is precious and short. It can’t be taken for granted.

This sudden shock got me thinking about my life. I started to think, What if I only had 15 years, with eight of them as good ones? What would I do?

The first thought in my head was the security of my family. “I need to check on the life insurance policy. And add to the kids’ education funds,” I thought. But then what?

Well, exactly. But then what? We’ll work on answering that today

Today we’re not going to be crunching any numbers or getting inside the latest trading strategies. The goal today is to get you on the path to where you want to be eight years from now. And we’ll look at four simple steps to help you make it happen.

What Would You Do?

In the case of our family friend with eight “good” years left, he’s in his late 50s. He’s a cyclist, so he is retiring from his job as a financial planner now to ride his bicycle across the country. I don’t know why And maybe he even doesn’t know why. But that’s what he’s going to do. What would you do?

I thought of a line from a recent e-mail I received: “Imagine your friends and colleagues describing you at your funeral – not out in front of everyone where they might wish to be polite, but huddled in quiet corners talking among themselves. How would they describe you?” For some reason, that line really hit me What do you want to be remembered for?

The author of that e-mail is a “success coach.” In the same e-mail, the author, whose pen name is MMF, said if you think about success but haven’t progressed toward your goals, “chances are, you’ll follow this aimless path for the rest of your life. Unless you do something about it immediately.”

What do you want to accomplish? How do you want to be remembered? What if you knew you only had only eight years to get there? How could you get there?

This success coach has come up with many excellent solutions to get out of the ruts and into achieving your goals. MMF’s approach comes down to setting goals. Some approaches he recommends are worth mentioning here

Healthier, Wealthier, Wiser, Happier

First are his New Year’s Resolutions, which can be started anytime. The success coach suggests identifying four goals one each for an important aspect of your life. Take a few minutes right now and identify one specific goal for each of the four areas:

1. Something to make you healthier
2. Something to make you wealthier
3. Something to make you wiser
4. Something to make you happier

MMF gave an example:

My top health goal for 2003 is to get my average body weight down from 193 to 185. Does that seem incredibly shallow? Well, it is. But it does have a few deeper benefits. Having less weight on my bones and less fat on my belly will make me less prone to adult-onset diabetes, heart disease, cancer, arthritis and a host of other physical maladies.

Achieving this goal will require discipline, and that discipline will be a benefit that can be applied to other goals – my desire to finish a novel, for instance. To lose that weight, I will have to set and accomplish other goals – like cutting out desserts almost entirely, exercising at least twice a day, taking a full regimen of natural supplements, and getting plenty of sleep.

If I do all those things and lose the weight, I expect to be not only healthier but also stronger, leaner, more athletic, and ultimately happier with myself

So what are your top four goals? In what way do you plan to be healthier? Wealthier? Wiser and happier? Write them down and then make a list of what you need to do to achieve them.

To me, when you narrow it down to just these four things, it feels manageable. But the coach is right in saying this: You can’t just say “I want to make more money this year.” You have to break it down into smaller and smaller goals. For example, you can’t just say, “I want to learn Spanish someday.” You’ve got to put in a few minutes a day toward that goal

“To change your life, you’ve got to stick with my basic program:

1. Begin with your life goals.
2. Create a yearly goal sheet that is directly the result of those life goals.
3. Next, create a monthly task list (directly from your yearly objectives) and a weekly list (directly from your monthly).
4. Every morning, you create your daily to-do list. You start with your weekly list.”

“There is a giant difference between using a generalized to-do list and following my program for getting things done. Do the former, and your chances for changing your life are probably less than 20%. Take a little extra time and effort to do the latter, and your chances are 90% or better.”

Time sure is limited to achieve what you want to achieve. I believe the approaches that this success coach recommends will help you get where you want to get faster, whether it’s in wealth or in life – or both.

I’m going to give it a try, starting today. You ought to consider it as well. All that’s lost is a few minutes of writing down your life’s goals. Yet so much is gained including direction in your life.

It’s really a limited-downside, unlimited-upside proposition just what I like in my investments.

Take a few minutes. Define those four goals. And then create your lists out of those goals. You’ll be glad you did.

Good Investing,

Steve

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