Vision

In 2020, we all heard the phrase ‘Vision 2030’, but what did it mean? In simple terms, it meant looking ahead to ten years in the future and where we might be as a civilisation. Now let’s extrapolate a little. Instead of thinking globally or even nationally, how about we think individually? Where might I be in ten years? Now, this suddenly becomes a very interesting exercise.

In my mind, looking ten years into the future is what is described as ‘long-term’. Which begs the question, what is short-term? For that matter, what is the medium term too? Well, let us start with the concept of short term. Most people work a 9-5 job or shift-based work. This means they receive a paycheck once at the end of every month, when credit card obligations are owed, when rents or mortgages are due, when bills are paid or when money is set aside for those bills. This is where the concept of thinking paycheck to paycheck comes from. For most people, this is as far as they think. This is their long-term. They can't concern themselves with thinking about next year or where they will be in ten years. The short-term becomes a daily timeframe. What will I do tomorrow? To this person, there is no such thing as medium-term. Simply, tomorrow and the end of the month matter.

What if I decided to envisage a higher-resolution image of my future? What would this image look like? We would start by shifting our definition of ‘short-term’ from a daily timeframe to a yearly timeframe. Our ‘long-term’ ambition becomes a ten-year vision. A medium-term is suddenly created; a five-year timeframe. When we structure our lives according to this framework, we allow ourselves to have higher ambitions and dream bigger. When thinking daily, there is no time to dream. But when we think five to ten years ahead, we give ourselves room to take a breath, relax and dream of where we might be. Dreaming allows us to develop ambition. Ambition forces us to plan. A plan involves breaking down the path we must take into small enough chunks. Not so small that they seem insignificant, but not so large that they become unattainable or unimaginable. This is where our short-term timeframe of yearly increments comes into the picture.

If you are in a 9-5 job and earn £30,000 annually - before tax - try to imagine yourself earning 20% more next year. 20% is a significant enough step-up and not unobtainable. If you achieved this short-term goal, where would you be? You would be earning not £30,000 per annum but £36,000. Not a life-changing difference, but a large enough difference that it would be noticeable month by month. Once you have an ambition in mind, the next step is to create a plan. Break down all the necessary steps that you would need to take before you can attain this ambition and materialise your dream or at least part of it.

How do I earn £36,000? What do I have to do differently? What extra information/knowledge do I need? What skills do I need to possess? Break down your goal into easy-to-understand, bitesize chunks. Take a leadership course. Learn the skills needed in management. Learn to communicate more efficiently and effectively. Improve your time management skills. Set yourself monthly steps that, once taken, lead you to that promotion which earns a salary of £36,000 per annum.

Now for some mathematics. If you were to replicate this structure every year for five years, what would my salary expectations look like? If S1=S0x1.20 and this occurs x1/annum, the series would be as follows.

S0=30,000, S1=36,000, S2=43,000, S3=52,000, S4=62,000, S5=75,000

With a 20% salary increase once per year, after five years, your salary has multiplied 2.5x.

My medium-term goal appeared all of sudden. In five years, I want my annual salary to be £75,000. And if I break it down to a 20% increase per year, then map this out into small steps of progression to attain this 20% increase. Then suddenly, what once seemed unattainable, now not only seems possible but probable.

Now that this is mapped out, you may find yourself asking what your ten-year vision needs to be to put this short and medium-term goal into perspective. How about financial independence?

Mine is to have enough positive cash flow generation that the ‘cost-of-living’ becomes a redundant term for my family.

That’s my vision.

What’s yours?

Daniel Quinn - October 1, 2022