What do you *really* want?

Are your goals specific and concrete?

Last week I finished reading a fantasy trilogy. The books were fine but nothing special. I enjoyed reading them, there was some interesting world building, but overall I would give them a B grade.

But then I read the author’s afterword, and it made a huge impact on me.

They mentioned that they wrote one of the books while staying in Venice, and it was like a firework went off in my brain.

I want to do that.

Well, not write a fantasy book in Venice, but casually spend time in other places.

Write a book in Thailand.

Do coaching calls from Spain.

Moderate our forum from Mexico.

Publish blog posts from Iceland.

I started thinking about it and realized that currently I am in a financial position to do whatever I want (more or less) as long as I stay here in Sendai.

But I want to do whatever I want, wherever I want to. I’m not quite there yet.

The next step would be to be able to do whatever I want anywhere in Japan. Spend time in Okinawa, or Hokkaido. Or Fukuoka, or Tokyo.

And ultimately to be able to go anywhere in the world on a whim.

I used to have a very specific inspiring goal, to reach financial independence. This would allow us to live our current lifestyle without needing to work for money. I calculated we would need 5m yen a year, and a rough calculation gave me 125m yen as a goal.

We reached that in 2021.

So I set a new goal. To reach 1b yen in net worth.

But this new goal was big and fuzzy. It would take a really long time to reach, and wasn’t necessary.

It didn’t inspire me.

But this new goal does. I know why I have the goal. I can see what reaching it would allow me to do.

It’s exciting.

I feel motivated again.

This new goal will require 10m yen a year in income.

I’ve never made that much money in my life, not even when I was working full time. It’s going to be challenging.

But maybe that’s the point. Not achieving the goal, but working towards it.

I’ve always enjoyed the planning at least as much as the experience, if not more.

To make it a SMART goal, I will try to get there by the time I am 50. This gives me 3.5 years.

I’ll keep you posted.

How about you? What is your current financial goal? Is it something specific? Do you know why you are trying to achieve it and what it will allow you to do?

9 Responses

  1. Heh, I have been zombie-ing through life for various reasons until fairly recently, and stumbled across your online content (very helpful, thanks!) and read/saw your original post and/or video about your initial goal, which provided some very useful perspective on what is achievable from my current state, which despite everything is a lot better than I assumed, just poorly utilized. So my immediate goal for this year is to kick my finances into shape and work towards a situation which would provide basic financial independence so I can work towards executing an egress from the day job and do something more fulfilling before further years pass in a zombie-like haze.

    1. Fantastic! That is why RetireJapan exists.

      The sub-tagline for the site is ‘life is more fun when you’re in control’ 🙂

  2. This always struck me as kind of zen-like:

    “In order to possess what you do not possess
    You must go by the way of dispossession.
    In order to arrive at what you are not
    You must go through the way in which you are not.
    And what you do not know is the only thing you know
    And what you own is what you do not own
    And where you are is where you are not.”

    (rainy day here, so I have time on my hands)

  3. That is an awesome goal. I can’t wait to see you work towards it. This is a huge motivation for me because I feel the same! I want to enjoy my retirement life not only where I am now, but from many different places I have yet to visit.

  4. It seems silly to me to have all that money sitting in the bank or wherever, not being utilised for things that give you or others enjoyment, while the big clock is ticking down. What happens if you decide to save it until your mid-late 60s, for example, start spending, but realize due to bad health (or whatever) that you can no longer do what you want?

    My father retired at 65 or so, and then within a year, he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He died last year at 70.

    I’d start doing what you want to do (in moderation) right now. One of my main goals was a four-day week (at the expense of a minor loss of income). It’s one of the best things I’ve done.

    1. Oh, I’ve been doing what I want to do for ages now. Other than helping my wife I’ve been work optional and in almost complete control of my time. I did quite a bit of traveling last year.

      There is no sense of deprivation and if I died tomorrow I would have no regrets.

      This is more about tweaking things and finding a new goal to work towards 🙂

  5. What strategies or steps are you planning to implement in order to increase your income to 10 million yen per year and achieve your goal of financial freedom to work from anywhere in the world?

    1. I have a number of (small) income streams from books, courses, coaching, and helping my wife with her business. I can see ways to increase all of these. I will also try to create new sources of income.

      With a specific goal I find it easier to focus on the details. Wish me luck!