What’s Your Ultimate Goal?

Lifestyle

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Do you have an ultimate goal? If you can do anything at all, what would it be? Is it excelling in your career and becoming the top dog at work? Or is it more intangible? Most of us are so busy with our day-to-day lives. We just don’t have time to think about what we really want in the future. When you don’t have a long-term goal, you’ll focus on getting through the day/week/month. Years will fly by and you will still be doing the same thing with no direction. That’s just surviving. To be truly happy, you need to figure out your ultimate goal and shape your future.

*Warning: Time really flies. I wrote this post 10 years ago and I’m only a tiny bit closer to my ultimate goal. I’m getting older (almost 50) and I need to get going on this! Read on to see if I can get it done in the next 10 years.

Are you currently doing what you want to do? If you are an engineer, are planning for a career transition? Engineers need to plan for early retirement because the work becomes increasingly difficult as you gain more experience. Even if you love being an engineer, you can’t do it forever because the job expectation will change.

I was an engineer for over 16 years and it started out really well. I liked the work, but I neglected to plan for the long term. The pay was good and the job was challenging, so I lived from project to project without mapping a course to success. Eventually, this caught up with me. My job expectation changed and I started to lose interest. Now that I think back, my naive answer to “what would you like to do in 10 years” was to become a manager so I can make more money and climb the corporate ladder. That was totally wrong.

Now that I’m a bit older and know myself more, I know a corporate career is not for me. When I first realized that becoming a manager was not the right move, I didn’t really update my long-range plan. That was not wise, but it’s never too late to make a plan. I’ll keep my rants about the corporate culture to myself today and explore what my ultimate goal would be. You can read more about why I gave up my engineering career here.

You’re probably wondering – if Joe is retired, does he need an ultimate goal? Well, I have to do something for the rest of my life, right? I’ve got 60+ 50+ years left so I’d better make a plan. Yes, I plan to live happily to be a centenarian. 🙂

The RB40 Villa

For a while now, I have been dreaming about owning a B&B in a tropical paradise. As long as I’m dreaming, might as well make it a perfect dream. The ten-acre RB40 Villa will be situated on a white sandy beach with year-round perfect weather. I’ll build 10 environmentally friendly beach huts with solar panels. Each dwelling will be unique, secluded (no view of other cabins), and off-grid. There will be a mixture of tiny houses, container homes, and stilt houses, all with unique yet simple architecture. Our B&B will emphasize tranquility and rejuvenation. There will be no TV in the huts so the guests can wander the extensive garden, spend more time at the beach and enjoy nature.

Guest can learn to ride horses on the beach, bike to town, take surfing lessons, order picnic lunches, play beach volleyball, join a Tai-chi or Yoga class, or just soak in the sun. We’ll have an open-air gathering area with a community BBQ, a big wood-fired brick oven (for pizza night), and dining tables where guests could gather and hang out. There will be a projector here so we can have movie nights and soccer nights. (I’m not a big soccer fan, but there is always a huge festive crowd around a soccer game in foreign countries and it is a lot of fun in that atmosphere.) I’ll do minimal work and hire people to do all the cleaning, booking, and other jobs for me. Maybe I’ll pick up and drop off guests from the airport. Oh yeah, the most important thing is the RB40 Villa will be cash-flow positive enough for me to live a comfortable lifestyle in the owner’s cabin.

*2022 Update – Fortunately, our passive income is large enough to cover our cost of living now. We won’t have to worry about money if we keep our lifestyle stable.

This is the first time I’ve written down this long-range goal and I’m nowhere near it. I’ll have to figure out how to get there eventually. Here are some steps that I can work on over the next few years.

Save up money and invest so if the right opportunity comes along, I will be able to take advantage of it. Enough money can remove almost any obstacle.
Search for the right location. I’ll take a trip to the Big Island next year and see how things are. We’ve been to Belize and I think that could be a good option. I would like to buy some empty land and then build up later. We have got many years until baby RB40 goes to college. (Jeez, we only have 7 years left until then. Not much time left.)
Slowly convince Mrs. RB40 that this is a good idea. If I keep at it, I might be able to make some headway in 10 years or so. She is stubborn like an elephant. (Mrs. RB40 gave the green light for this project!)

I’d better wrap this up so we can get back to your ultimate goal. It’s important to make a long-term goal and keep working towards it. Sometimes, the long-term goal may not turn out to be what you thought, but that’s ok, you can make course corrections and reset the goal. I’m not going to say you will achieve your dream if you just work as hard as you can, but I’m sure you will be closer than you are today.

*2022 Update! – I didn’t make much progress over the last 10 years on the RB40 Villa. However, the wheel is in motion now. Our finance is much more solid than 10 years ago and that enables us to pursue this goal more seriously. We are building a beach cabin! This isn’t my original dream, but it’s a lot more manageable. Here is a quick recap.

We have a small plot of land near the beach in Thailand. It’s much smaller than 10 acres and it isn’t right on the beach, but I’ll take what I can get.
My dad is working to build a one-bedroom cabin on the plot.
The plot next to it is my aunt’s. I want to buy it and eventually put a few tiny huts on that plot.
We’ll live in Thailand for 3-6 months per year after RB40Jr goes off to college.

I would love to hear about your ultimate goal. Is it to teach and become a principal someday, own your own business, or win a Nobel Prize? Please share some of your dreams with us.

Check out CrowdStreet if you want to generate passive income from commercial real estate. It’s way easier than being a landlord.

Joe started Retire by 40 in 2010 to figure out how to retire early. After 16 years of investing and saving, he achieved financial independence and retired at 38.

Passive income is the key to early retirement. This year, Joe is investing in commercial real estate with CrowdStreet. They have many projects across the USA so check them out!

Joe also highly recommends Personal Capital for DIY investors. They have many useful tools that will help you reach financial independence.