Completing the Lifetime Goals Template
All your hard work to this point culminates today! Completing YOUR lifetime goals template!
Preamble
Today we are going to be bringing all our past work together into one document, YOUR lifetime goals template!
You will gather your financial, professional, and personal goals and integrate them into a single document that will become your guide to fulfilling your dreams and living your best life. So you can be happy and successful! Your completed template will likely be more than one page. I mean, hey, you have a lot you want to do! No grass growing under your feet!
Oh, and there is a very important item I want to point out that is beyond the scope of the course, the blog, and the book. That item is your projected spending in retirement. Frankly, in many cases, your retirement spending will equal what you have as income and any withdrawals from your investments. Remember, we discussed a three- or four-legged stool, with each source of income represented by a leg? Retirement is when all the hard work comes to fruition.
What you have accomplished to this point is really quite amazing. Think how few people really do something like this! To that point, you are a leg up on most folks. Remember what we said in the beginning? Less than 3% of people even write down their goals. You are already in the top 3% of the population that achieves what they want. To be happy and successful. To achieve your dreams and live your best life!
Ok, so I don’t want to ruin the moment, but I do want to interject a dose of reality here. Now is the time to do it as you complete your lifetime goals template. You WILL be retired one day. As I mentioned, your spending will likely mirror your income, at least that is how it is for most people.
Even better is that you chose to act conservatively NOW so that when you do get to that point, you are full of joy and enjoy the best years of your life. But to do that, you must work hard now.
I personally know folks who are very limited in what they can do in retirement because they did not plan during their working years. We’ve all heard the stories of unfortunate people who must choose between buying needed medication and food. You may even have heard stories of people who were forced to sell their homes because they could not afford them. Or get a reverse mortgage so they can stay in them, all the while depleting their wealth. You don’t want to do that.
What you want to do is live your best life and leave a legacy to your children and grandchildren. So please think carefully about this issue as you complete your lifetime goals template and don’t forget to take into account your later years in life.
Introduction
We’ve reached the point where you have all your goals determined and generally outlined in each of the four categories. These categories are:
Financial goals
Professional Goals
Personal Goals
Lifetime Goals
Lifetime goals are the sum of your financial, professional, and personal goals, all rolled into a single plan. Remember that we got to this point by combining all the goals from the financial, professional, and personal goal categories into the lifetime goal priority matrix, then placing them on the lifetime goal continuum to see how everything lined up. Why did we do this? So, you can be happy and successful. So, you can achieve your dreams and live your best life.
By now, you likely have found that your four categories of goals are, in fact, complementary. But sometimes they conflict. By complimentary I mean that as you accomplish goals in one category, you help accomplish goals in another category.
If you have conflict, which you likely do, don’t worry about it at the moment; we still have more to talk about and will cover that shortly. You may feel that you are unable to complete all the goals you have listed in each category because you cannot do one without doing the other. This is an example of conflict. So, sit tight, we’ll get to that conflict soon.
Completing the Lifetime Goals Template
A copy of my personal template is included in the course and the book. Here, I will help you construct your own lifetime goals template, just like we did with the other three. So, grab a sheet of graph paper or other paper, or, if you prefer, open Excel on your computer to develop it there. Let’s get started.
Set your paper or Excel to landscape mode so the long side is at the bottom. Draw vertical lines from the top to the bottom of your paper to form 9 columns. You may have to revise it later to get the look you like, and that’s OK. Label the top of the template “Lifetime Goals Template” and place a date in the top right corner. The date is important because you will revise this template over time, and being able to look at old copies will help you assess how you are doing and how your priorities change. You may want the title to have your name on it, such as “John’s Lifetime Goals Template” or “John and Becky’s Lifetime Goal Template,” if you have a spouse. It would be fantastic if you and your spouse were on the same page about this.
Label the first column Time Period. Under that, place today’s date, then, just like we did with the other goal categories, place the future dates that correspond to the time periods from today: 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, etc., until you reach your projected retirement date, and write that date. After retirement, label each cell with +1 Year, etc., until you reach about +30 years. You can use any dates or time periods you want, but I’ve found that 6 months, 1, 5, 10, 20, 20, 40, Retirement, +1, +5, +10, +20, and +30 will suffice. Remember that you will be having periodic reviews, and that is the time to make changes. Saving your original template, the one we are developing today, will serve as an excellent reference as things change over time.
Label the next column to the right Investment Value. On the date that corresponds to your retirement date, enter the amount you projected on your financial template. Enter your current investment value to correspond to today’s date. The difference between today and your retirement date is the gap, or the amount you will need to generate over time, such that when you retire, you will have the amount of money you projected when you completed your financial template. As the years go by, you will update this column with your actual investment value. If the amount meets or exceeds the amount at the corresponding date on your financial template, then you are on track and no action is needed. If you are underfunded, you will need to take the actions you specify in your financial template. Note that if you are underfunded, this may cause you to reassess your professional (work) status to take action to generate more income if needed. This underfunding may also cause you to scale back your personal goals. This is why we have periodic reviews so we can develop any needed action plans.
The third column will be labeled Goal Type and will be either financial, professional, or personal.
The fourth column is labeled Goal. It’s here you will list all your goals in the order you will accomplish them over time. What should happen here is that what you list on this template aligns with what you listed in the priority matrix and the lifetime goals continuum. It’s quite possible that at this point you do not have perfect, or even very good alignment, and we will fix that later. For now, just highlight any discrepancies. There will be a lot of goals, and that’s why I said you may need multiple pieces of paper. If you are using Excel, then the spreadsheet will just be longer, and it’s quite easy. I understand it may be getting quite difficult to get these four columns to align or work together. Frankly, this difficulty prevents many people from doing completing this template. Keep on chugging along, we will get there. You are so close!
Column five is labeled Start Date. The start day is the day you begin working on each of your goals. For example, if you have a goal to buy a new car in five years and pay cash for it, the action item is to start saving $X at some point, determined in advance of that date. If you decided that you want to start on your Master’s degree when all your kids start school, you will list that projected start date in this column.
Column six is labeled Estimated Completion Date. Every one of your lifetime goals should have an estimated completion date. Yes, I know, this is difficult and a lot of work. It’s possible you bit off more than you can chew and may, just may, need to pare the things you want to do back a bit. Or extend the estimated completion date. Or take other action to get there. You will have to decide. Over time, ideally, you will achieve all of your goals on time. What is even more likely, because you are so focused on your plan, you will achieve your goals early. Remember that I mentioned this happened to me with most of my major goals? Yes, just writing down your goals tends to accelerate their accomplishment! This is the lesson I wish I could teach to more people! But as you know, it’s not easy.
Column seven is labeled Actual Completion Date. This column will be filled in as you complete each of your goals. It’s a very simple way to tell, at a glance, whether you are completing the things you want to do when you want to do them. Over time, it tells a story and may drive you to further action, if necessary.
Column eight is labeled Action steps required to complete or get back on track. Ideally, but not likely, every action you have determined to complete a goal will work out. But that’s not likely, and you will have to adjust when things don’t work out. You will determine those steps and then list them here.
Column nine is labeled Remarks or Comments. This column is discretionary, and you can choose to use it or not.
Summary
Wow! What an accomplishment!
It’s possible, however, that you were not able to complete the template at this time because you require further research, time, or for some other reason. Perhaps you need to ponder it, pray about it, or use your quiet time for it all to settle in. That’s fine if that is the case. BUT…Just be sure that in the coming weeks you are working on it and are complete at the end. I’d hate to see you put in all this work and not complete it!
That’s all for this week!
Completing the Lifetime Goals Template
Afterburner Success Partners
http://absuccesspartners.com/
What’s in it for me?
If you want to get ahead in life, if you want to achieve your dreams and live your best life, you must take meaningful, deliberate action that follows a proven path. Getting ahead is about learning what to do and then doing it over time.
Call to Action
Just. Do. Something. Make a decision on what you want or need to do, define the path, and get after it. Do it today.
Recommended Resources
See notes below for either of my books.
Up Next
When we have conflict.
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
Achieve Your Dreams: A Complete Guide to Live Your Best Life, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/3IxEFgy
Everyday Cooking for Everyday People Like Us, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/437OhVQ