Tuesday, March 20, 2007

the end

Saturday morning Peleg and I met with a financial advisor. We had sent the guy all our information several weeks earlier and this was our first meeting, mostly to confrim that he had the right picture of our situation and to give us some initial advice.

The most fruitful part of the process was for Peleg and I to try to be as explicit as possible in describing our goals. Where do we want to be financially, and when? What exactly do words like "comfortable" and "independent" mean? What does "travel" mean, for instance, how much travel and where? The process encouraged us to say aloud to each other what we had thought about, and for both of us that conversation required even the prior step of being clear for ourselves what we wanted.

If you don't know where you're going any path will get you there. That's a spiritual truth if ever I heard one. It's the opposite point that's crucial though, if you do know where you want to go a lot of paths won't work. Another piece of spiritual advice, one of Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" is "Begin with the End in Mind." We do that easily when the task is simple enough that the end is already clearly in sight as we get started but the further out the end lies the more likely we are to just do whatever's conenient at the time. But what's convenient now may not actually move us closer to our far off goals.

We can't choose a path, until we've named the goal. Even when the end is very far off (retirement, 26.2 miles, enlightenment) it's good to know that today's step was a step in the right direction.

1 comment:

Eve said...

Another book we'ver both read! I've done the exercise you described, Covey making you picture what/who is said at your own funeral. It makes you think about the choices, paths, etc. you take. Interesting stuff! Eve again...