Personal Development

This post originally appeared on RyanWaggoner.com, but I thought it might be interesting to Bounteo readers, so I'm reposting it here. I'll be posting a few more items from RyanWaggoner.com over the next few days. I'd love your comments and feedback...thanks!

For the last week or so, I've been working on reviewing, streamlining, and unifying my goals across different areas of my life. I'm building a comprehensive goal plan for the next ten years, and I'm calling this effort Project Goalpost (cheesy, I know). One of my guiding principles that I'm employing while working through all these goals is to ensure that each goal is SMART, which is a useful mnemonic that says goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

I have found this device to be a useful one when devising my goal plans, as it helps avoid nebulous and ill-defined goals like "get into better shape" or "prepare for the future". How would you have any idea when those things have been accomplished? Currently, I'm dividing my goals into these different life areas:

• Personal
• Physical
• Financial
• Entrepreneurial
• Real Estate
• Spiritual

I'm doing pretty well with most of these, but it's the Spiritual category that's giving me the most trouble. I'm just not sure how to write specific, measurable goals for matters of the heart, especially for several years out. For one thing, faith is about the journey, not really the destination, and much of that journey occurs in ways that don't lend themselves to metrics. For example, it doesn't really make sense to say that you want to be 35% closer to God, or have your prayer life be twice as good. The destination doesn't really exist, either, as I don't believe that Christians can ever really say that they've accomplished their mission as a Christian, at least not in this life. Second, I'm not entirely sure that our faith is something that should get a category of its own. Shouldn't our faith undergird all that we do, rather than being put into its own bullet-point list of todo items?

And why does this bother me at all? I guess because my goals should reflect a lot about who I am, but when you look at my list, it seems so shallow and materialistic, because a lot of my goals revolve around financial gain, real estate, and other items in that vein. Those things just lend themselves to measurement. But they aren't what matter most in life, and I know that. What matters most in life are things like relationships, contentment, and faith, but can you really create SMART goals for those things? I have a few ideas I'll explore in a future post, but I would love to know what you think.

Image by Zach Klein

One of the most annoying types of financial articles and blog posts that I see on a regular basis is the "If you had invested in these stocks 20 years ago, you would have made $14 million by now." I just saw another one by Intuit: Pennies to Millions. These articles are nothing more than shallow linkbait that play on the human tendency to reevaluate our decisions now that we have the benefit of hindsight and manufacture artificial regret.

"If only" scenarios are a waste of time. The fact that you could have made $xx dollars by investing in whatever twenty years ago is meaningless today. If only you had started Microsoft instead of Bill Gates, you could be the richest man in the world today. Thinking this way is just a distraction that will keep you from moving forward.

This whole subject does raise a good point though: this site focuses on what young people can do to prepare themselves for future success, but what if you haven't done everything you could have? Or what if you're no longer that young and you're stressing out about all the chances you missed, and all the opportunities that are no longer available?

My advice is simple: get over it, and fast. Every second you spend thinking about what might have been is even more valuable time wasted. The fact is that you can't go back and change the past, so stop kicking yourself, and just move on. If you're having trouble, here's a few things you might want to consider:

Transform mistakes into a strength

Think of it this way...every mistake you make and every missed opportunity is a chance to learn and grow. You may not have seized a great chance ten years ago, but by recognizing it, and learning from it, you'll be better prepared the next time around.

Remember that you're not alone

There are few successful people who didn't go through periods where they failed, where they missed great chances, where they felt like giving up. Some of the most successful people in the world spent years toiling away with no reward or recognition until they finally broke through. It may be helpful to read some biographies of successful people that you admire; you might be surprised to find out some of the trials they've gone through and mistakes they've made.

Pass on your experience

This one relates back to viewing this as a learning experience. Because you've learned something, don't be afraid to talk to other people that you see making the same mistakes you did, or missing the same opportunities. Perhaps you've got a younger sibling who is graduating from college and getting their first job; talk to them about investing and preparing for their future. Or maybe you know someone who really wants to write a book, but is afraid of failure; encourage them. Whatever the circumstance, if you can see that someone might make one of the same mistakes you've made and learned from, say something. You'll feel better.

Finally, the most important thing you can do is stop stressing and start doing something. As the saying goes:

"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today."

So get out there and do it. Today. Right now. Go.

Now that Bounteo.com is up and running (though we still are working on a design for the site), I want to start things off well, so I'm looking for post ideas and guest bloggers. Please contact me with any ideas you might have for posts and if you're interested in posting a guest post here, please send in any ideas you have. I would love to get some perspectives from other bloggers and authors about how young people can make good choices and make progress towards a life of success.

This blog is about the pursuit and attainment of success for young people, so we should probably determine what that means. Too often in our society, we think of success only in terms of money, power, fame, sex appeal, stuff, etc. The truth is that none of those things are success for everyone. We each have a different definition of success. But what can we say about success in general? After some reflection, I propose that success can be described as follows:

Success is the process of defining goals, developing plans and strategies, and working hard towards the fulfillment of those goals. It is a journey of self-discovery and transformation towards the ultimate goal of a more meaningful and fulfilled life.

Note that I have defined success as a process; in other words, the journey counts as much as the destination. For example, if your goal is to retire at 45 and you develop a plan to get there and spend 20 years diligently working towards that goal but end up retiring at 47, would you define that as a failure? You may not have achieved your original goal, but the process you underwent of setting and working towards that goal is a success in itself.

Since this blog will focus heavily (for now) on the topics of personal finance and development, a fair question to ask is that of the relationship between money and success. Are they the same thing? Do you have to be wealthy to be successful? Do you have to be successful to be wealthy? I think the answer to all three questions is a resounding no. Experts tell us that happiness tends to increase with more money, but only until people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. When you're starving and homeless and sick, money absolutely can buy happiness. However, once you have a certain amount, adding more usually does not increase your happiness.

Bounteo.com is site that explores the pursuit of a life more abundant, particularly as it applies to young adults in their twenties.  However, readers of every age are certainly encouraged to interact and share their opinions and perspectives.  In subsequent posts, I'll explore a bit more about my own definition of success, the topics that I think are relevant to its pursuit, and why I've chosen to focus on young adults.  But first, a short introduction is in order.

My name is Ryan Waggoner, and for some time I've blogged at my personal website about personal finance, including a 12-part series for young adults on how to start investing for the future.  That content will form the genesis of Bounteo, but as we progress, I hope to add content in areas other than personal finance and investing, such as career development, entrepreneurship, time management, personal development and motivation, and other topics related to the pursuit of success in our lives.

Finally, I would like to say that I myself am a young adult (25 years old) and possess little in the way of credentials and professional experience that would qualify me as an authority of many of the topics we'll discuss.  I'm just a guy with a burning curiosity, a passion for learning, and a willingness to see others succeed.  I will do my best to ensure that I provide sources and solid logic and reasoning for the content on this site, but I hope that my readers will do their part to scrutinize my words and conclusions and challenge me where my own reasoning or research has fallen short.  In this way, perhaps we can actually accomplish something in our pursuit of the truth and a life more abundant.

I'm finishing up Winning by Jack Welch, and I wanted to highlight an excerpt from the very last page.  When asked at a conference about his legacy, Jack responds:

First off, I hate the word legacy.  It just sounds so arrogant.  Presidents and prime ministers have legacies.  I ran a company and wrote a book or two.

But here we are at the end of this book, and the question did get asked, so I'll attempt an answer.

If there is anything I'd like to be remembered for it is that I helped people understand that leadership is helping other people grow and succeed.  To repeat myself, leadership is not just about you.  It's about them.

I would also like to be remembered as a huge advocate of candor and meritocracy, and believing that everyone deserves a chance.  And I'd like to be remembered for trying to make the case that you can never let yourself be a victim.

He goes on to talk about his family and how much he loves and admires them.  I very highly recommend this book.  If I had a company, it would be required reading for everyone from the janitor to the top executives.

I think that's probably the best definition of leadership that I've ever heard: Leadership is about helping people grow and succeed. 

If there are three kinds of people in the world, people who tear down, people who build up, and people who just scrape by, the choice is clear.  Become the type of person who builds others up.  Learn to manage your own life, and then pour yourself into finding ways to help others find their passion, overcome challenges, and reach their dreams.  You won't regret it.

Yesterday was not quite what it could've been
As were most of all the days before
But I swear today with every breath I'm breathing in
I'll be trying to make it so much more

Cause it seems I get so hung up on
The history of what's gone wrong
That the hope of a new day is sometimes hard to see...

"Up and Up" by Relient K

I went for a long run tonight and I was listening to this song and thinking about the baggage of failure and how it weighs us down. There are things I've struggled with over and over, and sometimes it's very difficult to try again without having the idea in the back of my head that I'm going to fail. I thought I would write up a few strategies and tips that have helped me move past some of my previous failures.

Reevaluate your goals
First of all, you need do some soul-searching and ask yourself: is this goal still something you want to achieve? Don't waste your time trying to meet goals that you have little interest or passion for. Not only does it waste your time and energy, your likelihood of success is very low in this situation. Spend some time determining where you are, where you want to go, and what some of the steps in between are. Put it on paper and review it periodically to help keep that source of motivation fresh in your mind.

Be Accountable

Everyone always says that money can't buy happiness. I've always liked to say that money can't buy happiness, but it can buy relief from certain types of misery. Perhaps an example will be helpful.

Every time I fly commercially, about the time I'm shuffling through security with my shoes in one hand and my recently-torn-apart bag in my other, I think about the indescribable joy that private air travel would be. My feeling escalates as I'm herded onto a plane that is probably older than I am, and sit down between two enormous women who both have toddlers that are vying for the title of the World's Most Annoying Child. By the time the beverage cart creaks by at the express speed of .00756 mph and the Flight Attendant informs me that the last of the orange juice was just given to the grubby little urchin screaming his head off next to me, I'm ready to kidnap the little bugger and sell him on the black market to finance the purchase of my jet.

Relax, I'm not in the business of peddling children. Yet.

Anyway, the point is that flying commercially is miserable. Absolutely terrible. Could money buy relief from that? Certainly.

However, even I'm willing to admit that this is a rather unproductive example. Most people will never set foot on a private jet, so it's not really a viable alternative to commercial travel.

A more representative type of misery that most people go through is financial slavery. In fact, to say that most people go through this is misleading, because the majority of us will spend most of our lives mired in financial slavery, "working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need." (Fight Club)

Let me give you a few examples of more common types of misery that characterize financial slavery:

• Not being able to spend time with your family because you have to work two jobs
• Not being able to provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, medical care, etc for your family

I've noticed that I'm addicted to multitasking. I have a very hard time sitting down and watching something without doing anything else. I can't have just one window open or one tab open in firefox. I feel this compulsive need to carry on 18 things at once, even though it stresses me out sometimes and I probably do each thing less well than I would if I just focused on one thing.

Why is this?

Maybe it's because of the incredible rate that information is flooding our world. There are billions of blogs to read, videos to watch, discussions to join, friends to talk to, etc, etc. When I'm not doing those things, I feel like I'm missing out. I was missing out before the Internet, but it was such a pain to NOT miss out. Now, it's only a click away, and if I'm signed on to AIM, these things often come to me!

I need to work harder to be more focused and more respectful of my own need for mental peace and occasional unproductivity.