Conversations With Your Younger Self
Imagine what things in your life would change if you could go back in time and have a conversation with your younger self? What would you both chat about? Family, friends, relationships, finances, health, dreams for the future?
Imagine having the ability to take advantage of every massive opportunity that came your way whilst also dodging some of the unnecessary hardships. Wouldn’t your life be monumentally better? Some might argue to the contrary that life is instead shaped by our mistakes rather than our successes. We would probably all admit that we wouldn’t be the people we are without the mistakes we made. Yet, we would also admit that we wish we could have at least avoided a few of them here and there.
Looking back on our past gives us a profound insight into how we can create a brighter future for ourselves and our family. As we look back we can analyse the great opportunities that we pounced upon, as well as those that we missed. We can learn from those moments of fortune as we try to replicate more of those situations. We can also seek to avoid those unfortunate situations as we try to insulate ourselves from repeating those errors.
7 Examples of Looking Back to Look Forward
- Calculate how much you’ve paid off on your mortgage in the past five years. This paints a picture of where your money has been going. Could you manage to pay an extra $100 per week off the principal? What would your home loan look like 10 years from now just by making this decision today?
- Comb through your wardrobe and look at the graveyard of ever changing fashion. Next time you’re out clothes shopping, maybe this memory alone might help you to gain some perspective when you see the latest clothing fad.
- Look at the cars you’ve owned over the course of the past decade. How much would you estimate car expenditure has cost your family? Ever buy new? Could you drive a more modest vehicle and use the saved money to put towards income producing investments?
- Think of the missed investment opportunities. They’re the ‘If onlys’ you talk about with your mates. They’re the Apples, the Costcos, the Alibabas and the Facebook investments that you’ve missed out on. To learn from past events, keep an eye out for the future world-changing ideas that are right in front of you. Maybe Steemit is the next big thing?
- Work out how much you have saved for your retirement. Consider salary sacrificing an additional $20 a week to change the living standard you will experience in the future. Don’t forget that compound interest is a powerful friend!
- Reminisce about the memorable take out/restaurant meals that you’ve had. What was it that made these experiences so great? Compare that to the weekly ‘eat outs’ that barely even induced so much as a smile. Perhaps look towards reducing the amount of incidental eat outs and instead save them for special circumstances where you do something eat some unique and special with amazing people you care about.
- How much have you spent on electronic contraptions over the years? I’m talking televisions, CDs, DVDs, set top boxes, laptops, mobile phones, tablets etcetera. They all need continual upgrading. Could your life be as equally pleasant with the absence of one or two devices? What would this save you per year?
We each have (if we’re lucky), an average of 82 years on this earth nowadays. Time ticks by incredibly quickly and I’m beginning to understand this more and more the older that I get. We all make mistakes, but they really are only mistakes if we choose not to learn from them. Have a think about where all your big wins might come from in the next 10 years and position yourself to take full advantage of them in the years ahead.
If you found this post helpful in any way, please feel free to share the article or give me a vote. It would be greatly appreciated. This post was first shared on my personal blog site www.budgetbrilliance.com
I would tell my younger self to never say this.
Definitely the worst of the 7 Star Wars movies. (It was still pretty awesome though!!) Looking forward to Rogue One.
If you could give your younger self one piece of advise, what age would you give it to him/her and what type of advise would you give? i.e. stock advise (buy google), relationship advise (don't marry Jane), etc etc
Good question gikitiki. I think it would depend on the age. At 4 years old I would have told myself to use a tissue. At 8 years old I would have told myself not to annoy Darren Jones too much or he'll stab you in the hand with a pencil. At 22 years old I would told myself to save up for a home and stay away from the $30k in credit cards that were offered to me by the banks.
It's the current big thing, the rest of the world just hasn't realised it yet :)
Great post.
I'm super intrigued by Steemit. Lots of great content, no ads, I choose what I want to read. Don't know how the Steem dollars work though. I've been researching the whole cryptocurrency thing ad nauseam over the past couple of days. Think after hours of research I can finally explain to my wife what BitCoin mining is and how it is possibly even worth something.
Here is how I describe in Haiku Steem vs Steem Power Vs Steem dollars. In a week, you'l be able to have a conversation with your current self and say it all makes sense.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@gikitiki/a-steemit-haiku
My Coles notes version:
Thanks again gikitiki. Wondering why they tied it to the USD? Also wondering how one becomes a whale. Are whales the largest financial contributors or did they just get there first?
Have you read the white paper? That will help. It's a little technical but a helpful read.
I've read some of the white paper. I was a little confused admittedly. I found it more helpful to listen to those smarter than I contribute their 2 cents. What I struggle to understand is exactly how Steemit can afford to reward posters financially. I can definitely see a future buy out for this endeavour but cannot understand how it can remain profitable. I think from what I understand 90% of people are locked into SteemPower.