Might not matter?
I’m definitely a planner. I love making plans and tracking progress. You wouldn’t believe the spreadsheets in my ‘planning’ file 😉
I tend to have several plans on the go at one time -plan A, plan B, plan C, etc.
A couple of key events took this natural tendency of mine and supercharged it: losing my job suddenly in 2008 and the big earthquake in 2011.
The thing is, my plans never seem to work out exactly as I envisioned them. Reality interferes, and the plans adjust to match it, and the end result goes off in a slightly or completely different direction.
The best example is probably my career. I started off wanting to be a vet, but found I have no talent in science and maths. Then I was going to be a spy, and got as far as having interviews with SIS (formerly known as MI6). Then I came to Japan ‘for a couple of years’ and started teaching.
My mum was a teacher, and I would never have imagined I would end up doing the same thing.
Personal finance came out of the blue too. I got interested in travel hacking, and one day realized it might be easier just to make money to buy flights with rather than jump through hoops to get them for ‘free’ with miles.
I never had any kind of financial role model and no one in my family is interested in investing or personal finance.
Even five years ago, I could not have imagined my current life.
So I guess my point is that it’s good to have a plan. Plans help us move forward and grow. Plans show us changes we need to make and encourage us to see the progress we’ve made.
But the plan will change. Events in the real world will force change upon it, often for the better.
The value of the plan is not in achieving exactly what you planned, but rather in getting you moving in a positive direction.
My financial plan is always in flux, but it helps me move forward every month. Eventually, I’ll be in an even better position than I am now.
So how about you? Are you a planner? Do you have a financial plan? What do your goals look like?
I’m a planner, to some extent. And I *hate* when things don’t go according to plan. Sometimes I wonder if I have some mild Asperger which could explain how angry the unexpected can make me.
Luckily so far most things in my life have gone according to plan… I guess to compensate for my lack of flexibility, I try to never set the bar too high, if that makes sense?
Makes perfect sense! It’s better to do something, even if it isn’t quite perfect, than to get hung up on perfect and not do anything at all.
I should remember this and just make the damn RetireJapan books already…