Have a vision - part II

In Have a vision - part I I discussed creating a vision from a story. This is a pretty fun way of coming up with your ideal life and is an entertaining read when you want to review your vision and goals.

Another way of writing out a vision statement is to just list detailed major goals by human dimension. The six major human dimensions I have identified are physical, mental, social, emotional, spiritual and financial.

Physical

Your physical dimension deals with your physical health. It involves goals such as weight loss, exercise, running a marathon and having six pack abs to name a few.

Mental

Your mental dimension deals with goals of the mind such as learning to play the guitar, memorizing scripture and learning to program computers.

Social

Your social dimension centers around relationships. It can involve goals such as having one on one talks with your children each week, being more romantic with your spouse or working on smiling more.

Emotional

As the social dimension deals with your interaction with other people, the emotional dimension centers on your personal emotions and attitudes. Some goals in the emotional dimension might be to stop using "victim language" or working on being more responsible.

Spiritual

Your spiritual dimension deals with your belief system. Some spiritual goals might be to live your life based on your list of values, reading the Holy Bible regularly, meditating/praying regularly and helping others with your time and money.

Financial

This dimension focuses on money and possessions. It is the easiest dimension to make goals for in my opinion. Objectives like being debt-free, saving a million dollars or owning your dream house are just a few financial goals.

Balance

In order to have balance and the best chance for complete happiness possible, you should work on all six dimensions. Goals for these dimensions should be SMART. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

The following is a vision statement in the format I've described. All dimensions have been addressed and all goals are written in good detail. The SMART goal process will be detailed even more during the plan process ( a future post). These are just a couple of goals, a complete vision statement would contain much more.

Physical:
I will weigh 189 pounds by December 25th, 2008.
After achieving this goal, I will never let myself become more than 9 pounds overweight.
After reaching 189 pounds, I will complete the P90X 90 day challenge and will get some six-pack abs.

Mental:
I will become a Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP) by December 31st, 2008.
I will become a Sun Certified Java Developer (SCJD) by June 30, 2009

Social:
I will internalize the 30 principles found in Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people" by December 31st, 2008.
I will meet with my family every Sunday and discuss the family goals.
I will meet one-on-one with my daughter every Saturday to help her with her goals.

Emotional:
I will form the habit of thinking before I speak to avoid negative habits such as criticizing, complaining and sarcasm.
I will spend 15 minutes each night going over a list of things that I am thankful for to consciously acknowledge that my life is really good.

Spiritual:
I will spend a minimum of 30 minutes each night studying the King James Bible and will complete the entire bible by March 31st, 2009.
I will work daily on my personal development in all six dimensions of my life.

Financial:
I will be debt free (except for my mortgage) by June 30th, 2010.
I will have a six-month emergency fund by June 30th, 2011.
I will save 15% of my gross income into my retirement accounts starting July 1st, 2011.
I will help my daughter pay for college starting August 1st, 2011.
I will pay off my mortgage completely by March 31st, 2015.
I will have my dream house built on May 1st, 2020.

This type of vision statement also gets into the specific planning of the goals. It describes the goals specifically and gives dates in which the goal will be accomplished. It is not, however, a complete plan. I will post about having a plan soon.

The best approach, in my opinion, is to have both a story-type vision as well as a goal oriented vision. This will make for some inspiring reading on the weekly evaluation process.

Life's Order of Precedence

Today I begin Baby Step 2 of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. The seven steps of the makeover are as follows (paraphrased):

Baby Step 1: Save a $1000 emergency fund.
Baby Step 2: Perform the debt snowball on all debt except the home mortgage.
Baby Step 3: Complete the emergency fund - 3-6 months of net household income.
Baby Step 4: Invest 15% of gross household income into retirement accounts.
Baby Step 5: Save for your children's college education.
Baby Step 6: Pay off the home mortgage.
Baby Step 7: Have fun, invest and give.

This is an eye opening order of precedence for finances. An order of precedence, in the way I'm discussing it today, means the order in which you should do something. It's amazing how we are taught the incorrect order in which we should spend our money and everyone accepts it as ok.

For example, most folks buy a house, cars and other items on credit before having an adequate emergency fund. This causes us to live a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle which can be financially fatal when an emergency crops up.

Most of us make plenty of money but because we "tie it up" with payments for cars, houses, credit cards and so on we can't enjoy our income to the fullest potential.

I'm teaching my teenage daughter Life's Order of Precedence she should follow when executing her life plan. The following is a list of what we've discussed so far. The items with a period separator indicate things that can be happening simultaneously.

1.1. Save money for a car and your education

1.2. Get a great high school education

1.3 Discover what you want to do for a living

2.0 Get scholarships and grants for college

3.0 Go to college for your career choice

4.0 Get a job in your career.

5.0 Get adequate health, dental and life insurance coverage. Health and dental are far more important than life at the moment. Life insurance is really for when you are married or have debts that your family will need to pay when you're gone, but you won't have debt!

6.0 Don't get married until you've completed steps 1-5. If you want to get married, waiting until step 5 is complete should make life easier.

6.1 If you're having children, it's ok to have them now. I recommend not having a child unless you can put $2000 per year into an ESA (Education Savings Account) for them. This is just a suggestion and not the sole determiner for having children! They will appreciate it if you have over $100,000 waiting on them for college, believe me!

7.0 Save 6 months of income as an emergency fund

7.1 Save 15% of your gross income into retirement accounts.

7.2 Save money to pay cash for your house, if you're buying one, otherwise rent inexpensively until you do. Don't get a loan for your house! If you simply can not wait until you have saved enough cash for your house, then make sure you follow these 3 guidelines:

1. Pay no less than 20% down
2. Get a loan for no longer than 15 years.
3. Get a fixed rate mortgage, never an adjustable rate mortgage!

8.0 Enjoy your life!

Notice none of these steps involve debt. I'm teaching my daughter that debt is dumb, cash is king and the paid off mortgage has replaced the BMW as the status symbol of choice just like Dave Ramsey says at the beginning of his radio talk show.

If she were to follow these guidelines, I'm confident her life would be a very happy one, at least as far as finances go. I myself wish I had these steps explained to me when I was her age. I am now working on trying to undo what I have done financially these past 20 years.