In a recent Facebook Live on my business page, More Money Cents, I talked about how life is all about value decisions. If you didn’t see it, check it out here:  March 27 Facebook Live

What is a value decision? It’s choosing something you value over something you either don’t value or don’t value as much. For example, when I choose to spend my money on vacation, I forego spending that money on something else. When that choice is intentional, I am making that choice because I value the vacation over anything else that I could be spending that money on.

It’s the same for time. When I spend my money working, I value the product of my work, whether it’s the value I’m providing in that work or the value that I receive by providing my services, over anything else I could be doing with my time.

If you value retiring early, then you must prioritize that over other things that you could be doing with your time and money.

In order to retire early, there are a few things you need to do:

1.     You have to decide ahead of time that’s what you want.

2.     You have to believe that you can achieve what you want.

3.     You have to value retiring early over the other things you could be doing with your money and your time.

4.     You have to take massive action to make your plan happen.

5.     You have to manage your mind around the obstacles that will for sure come up.

6.     You have to keep choosing that for your life over and over and over again.

So often, we don’t actually notify our brain of what we want in life. So, our brain just keeps doing what it’s designed to do with little or no direction. Be bold and be direct and let your brain know exactly what you want in life. Give it the most vivid and intense picture of what it is you really want and visit that picture every day.

The other thing we do is become very nonchalant about our daily choices.

When it comes to money, we might spend small amounts with little or no thought. Have you ever thought this? “It’s only $2.99. That’s not gonna break me.” If you do that only once a week over the course of 30 years (from age 30 to age 60), you’re foregoing over $28,000 that could be added to your retirement (assumes 10% average annual rate of return).

Unlike time, we can make more money. So you might think that $28,000 is no big deal and that might be true for you, but there might be more effective ways to use that $28,000 – just watch your brain for those ways we give our brain permission to act unintentionally.

Unlike money, we cannot make more time – it is finite. We can become just as unintentional with our time as we are with our money. It’s even easier to spend our time unintentionally. Have you ever said this to yourself, “I’ll just jump on Facebook real quick and see what’s going on”? Time flies when you’re on Facebook, and before you know it, 30 minutes is gone. If you do that, or the equivalent, only every other day for the next ten years, you will use around 912 hours, or 38 days. How many of us have the discipline to spend only 30 minutes every other day on Facebook? There’s nothing wrong with that, but then we complain that “we don’t have enough time.”

Whatever you value, whether it’s retiring early or giving $1 million to your favorite charity or traveling the world, if you really value it, you will be intentional about achieving it.

What is it that you value? What are you doing today to move towards achieving it?