How to immediately align your wealth with your life goals

- By Akshay Sardana, VP of Strategy & International Development, Continental Group

Ever feel like you're chasing a finish line that keeps moving? You save, invest, and plan for the future, but when do you actually get to live? It's easy to get trapped in the mindset that accumulating wealth is the ultimate goal. We often view retirement as the time when life truly begins. But it's easy to get lost in accumulating wealth for "someday." What if you could start enjoying your life's fruits now?

Breaking Free from Traditional Financial Planning

Let’s break free from the shackles of traditional financial planning and dive into Tim Ferriss' playbook. If you're new to Ferriss, he's the mastermind who transformed "lifestyle design" into an art form, challenging the norm that you must wait until retirement to really enjoy life. Ferriss doesn't just talk about making money; he talks about making money work for you - immediately. It's about living intentionally, aligning your spending with your values, and creating a life that's as rich in experience as it is in financial security.

Don’t Postpone Your Happiness

Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room: we're obsessed with saving for the future. Saving is crucial, but when does it become a trap? Many feel a sizable nest egg offers security, promising that one day, you'll be able to do all the things you've postponed. But why wait?

This isn't just a rhetorical question. Consider the people who've spent their lives climbing the corporate ladder, only to find at retirement that they're too exhausted to enjoy the fruits of their labour. It's like preparing a grand feast only to lose your appetite by the time it's ready. Ferriss and other lifestyle designers advocate flipping the script—to use your resources today to craft a life that's not only financially secure but also fulfilling.

Mini-Retirements: Living Life Now, Not Later

Ferriss champions this in The 4-Hour Workweek through "mini-retirements." This concept involves taking breaks at various stages of life to savour the fruits of your labour rather than postponing enjoyment until old age. Ferriss describes "The New Rich" as individuals who "abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility."

This isn't just for the affluent or adventurous. Whether you're a student, a busy executive, or a business owner, you can weave these principles into your daily life. Start by determining what truly matters to you - be it family time, travel, or hobbies. This understanding guides your financial decisions, helping you allocate resources not just for the future but for a vibrant present.

Understanding Your Priorities

Start by identifying what matters most to you—family time? Travel? The freedom to pursue your passions? Once you identify these values, you can start making financial decisions that align with them rather than just stashing money away for a future that might never come.

Consider an executive juggling meetings, deadlines, and a seemingly endless to-do list. The traditional path might dictate working hard now to reap the rewards later. But here's where Ferriss' approach shines: instead of deferring happiness, you could allocate your resources—time and money—toward experiences that bring immediate satisfaction. It might mean outsourcing tasks that drain you (hiring that personal assistant or housekeeper is a worthy investment) so you can focus on what you love, whether it's spending time with family, pursuing creative projects, or simply taking a moment to breathe. Millennials have long begun prioritising such a life.

To balance living for today while planning for tomorrow, start by identifying your fixed expenses—rent, bills, groceries, and the like. Then, consider the cost of experiences that bring you joy. Maybe it's a weekend getaway every few months, or perhaps it's funding a creative project or hobby. The key is to set aside money specifically for these things, treating them as essential, not frivolous.

Creating Your Own Path

Ultimately, wealth is a tool—it's how you use it that defines your life. Each financial decision is a brushstroke on the canvas of your life. Are you painting a picture that reflects your true desires, or are you merely filling in the colours someone else has chosen? Lifestyle design is deeply personal, inviting you to craft a life uniquely suited to your passions and dreams.

The beauty of lifestyle design is that it's deeply personal. There's no one-size-fits-all approach. It's about discovering what makes you tick and then arranging your life—financially and otherwise—to support that. Ask yourself what you can do today to make your life richer and more fulfilling. At the end of the day, life isn't just about how much you've saved—it's about how well you've lived.

1. https://tim.blog/
2. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/05/millennials-are-prioritizing-experiences-over-stuff.html