My reflection on retirement as a journey
I use to obsess over my progress to retirement, spending hours trying to maximize my nest egg or shorten the runway by changing parameters here and there. Then I realized I wasn't even clear on what I would be doing in retirement ie. what does a Tuesday morning at 10am look like? I wrote down the things that make me the happiest/purposeful/fulfilled in life and this became my mission statement in life. Wealth then became simply the engine to give me the time to experience these things that aligned with my mission. In order to track my progress in meeting this mission, I figured out the "price of my mission" is ie. what I need in order to sustain myself now, up to and including retirement. I built a "wealth dashboard" that gives me a perspective on where I am today, tomorrow, and the external factors that affect my path to the mission price. It's funny because I still crunch the hard numbers but now I see wealth as a means to an end, rather than an endless pursuit of accumulation for some elusive use in the future. It comes down to behavioral science - With these indices in the back of my mind, I subconsciously reflect on my daily habits that impact them for better or worse. I make micro adjustments in my saving, investing, spending, and all other drivers without much effort. In short: 1) What gets measured gets done 2) People are creatures of habit 3) Habits can be shaped through reinforcement (progress towards a goal). Would love to hear your thoughts on your journey and how your perspective on retirement has evolved over time.
