How to Approach Your Life Goals Like a Business Strategy

A few years ago, I spent thousands of pounds on financial advice and, if I’m being completely honest, I came away from it feeling pretty frustrated. 

It wasn’t bad advice. Most of it was perfectly sensible. But the conversation always seemed to follow roughly the same path: here’s what you earn, here’s what you spend, here’s what you can afford to save and invest each month… keep doing that consistently and, in 20 or 25 years, you’ll have enough to retire.

And I remember thinking, but what if I don’t want to wait 25 years?!

Not because I want to quit my job tomorrow. I actually like my career and I’m still incredibly ambitious. But I also don’t want my only option to be working full-time until I’m nearly 70 because that’s when the numbers finally stack up.

And this is where my business brain kicked in.

Imagine you’re sitting in a strategy meeting and a business has set itself an ambitious target. You run the numbers and discover that, on its current trajectory, it’s going to take 25 years to achieve it.

Would everyone around the table just shrug and say, “Oh well, 25 years it is then”?

Of course not.

You’d start asking questions. Could we increase revenue from what we already do? Could we create another revenue stream? Could we invest somewhere differently? Build or buy another capability? What resources would we need? What are the risks? Is there another route we haven’t considered?

You’d look at all the levers available to you and ask: how else could we get from where we are today to where we want to be?

And THAT was the lightbulb moment for me.

I realised I’d been asking, “How much can I save from the income I’ve got?” when there was a much bigger question I could be asking:

“If I start with the life I actually want, what do I need to create to make it possible?”

That question completely changed the way I thought about my future.

And although financial independence was what originally got me thinking this way, I don’t think this is really a money lesson. It’s a life strategy lesson.

Maybe your goal is to work four days a week. Maybe you want to change careers, buy your first home, travel for three months, start something of your own, or simply create more time for the people and things you love.

Whatever it is, I wonder how often we look at our current circumstances, calculate what they allow us to do, and unconsciously accept that as the plan.

But your current trajectory is only one possible route.

So, I have something I'd love you to try.

Pick one thing you really want and give yourself a 15-minute personal strategy meeting. Grab a notebook, make yourself a coffee (obviously!), and work through these five questions.

1. What do I actually want?

Don't start with what feels sensible or achievable. For a moment, forget how you're going to make it happen. If you could design the outcome, what would it look like?

2. Where does my current trajectory take me?

If you change absolutely nothing, where will you end up? How long will it take you to get there? And, importantly, are you actually happy with that?

3. What's the gap?

What is really standing between where you are today and where you want to be? Try to get underneath the obvious answer here.

4. What levers could I pull?

This is the bit I really want you to play with.

Rather than immediately thinking about what you need to cut back on, sacrifice or go without, think like you would if this were a business problem.

What could you earn, create, change, invest, learn, negotiate or do differently? Could you create another source of income? Build a new skill? Change the way you work? Ask for something you've never asked for? Take a completely different route?

Don't judge the ideas yet. Just get them onto paper.

5. What could I do in the next 30 days?

You don't need to solve the whole thing today. You just need to identify one move that would start to change your trajectory.

Because that's the idea I keep coming back to:

Your current trajectory isn't your destiny. It's simply where you'll end up if you keep following the same strategy.

And if the answer says 25 years and you don't want to wait 25 years, perhaps the question isn't just “How can I be more patient?”

Perhaps it's “What else could I do?”

Choose one goal where you might have been accepting your current trajectory rather than questioning it, and give yourself 15 minutes to explore what another route could look like.

Always with love,
Elsa x