Your goals will change

(and that is okay)

Something surprising happened on this trip.

I realised two things had changed.

First, I don’t enjoy traveling as much as I used to. Seems like 10 days to a couple of weeks is my sweet spot now.

My day to day routine is fun and enjoyable, so I miss it after a couple of weeks. This is pretty incredible to me, as my original goal was to be able to travel for 3-6 months a year. That no longer seems attractive.

Second, I found myself really wanting a nice house. This has never been the case before. The last thing I wanted was to buy a house in Japan (depreciates! earthquakes! crazy neighbours! chounaikai!). Now I keep flip-flopping between thinking about buying/building my dream house (which would be expensive) and being horrified at how much that would cost and what else we could do with the money.

Both of these are huge changes.

How it started (my original goals) and how it’s going

When I started thinking about personal finance seriously in 2008, the goal was to have financial security. After a while I realised that financial freedom was also possible.

Now that we have both of those we can start thinking about stretch goals.

And one of those is our home.

Right now we live in a manshon. It is next to a train station and 20 minutes drive from the airport. The location is amazing, and it is really convenient to live in (you haven’t experienced luxury until you are able to put the rubbish out whenever you want to).

We’re slowly doing it up, putting in new windows and an inner front door, then a new kitchen. This summer we’ll get a new bath and wash area.

But it is a bit small and on a main road. It is not my dream home.

A few years ago we helped my wife’s parents renovate their house. Basically stripped it to the bones, put in new walls and interior, underfloor heating, excellent insulation, mechanical heat exchange ventilation, etc. It’s very nice. My wife will inherit it at some point, but who knows when that will be.

So we are not lacking in housing options.

But still, the mind wanders.

Your goals will likely change too (and that’s okay)

It’s probably worth keeping in mind. Your goals are not set in stone. You will grow and change as a person, and your goals will too.

Being too committed to your original goals is a mistake some people make. Then they manage to achieve them and realise they no longer want those things.

The key to effective personal finance is to correct along the way. Make a plan, monitor the plan, see how things are going and how you feel, make any necessary changes, carry on.

Do that for long enough and you’ll get to where you want to go.

The key for me is that the goal is not the point, but working towards the goal was the point. If you can enjoy the process you are far more likely to succeed.

How about you? Have your goals changed since you started? If not, do you think they might? Add family members to the mix and the chances of you needing to make some adjustments increases exponentially.