Living with no regrets starts with a mental shift that completely revolutionizes your outlook on life, happiness, and relationships. Most of us wade through the same routine, day in and day out, with little experience to show for it. We get up in the morning and participate in whatever work we have chosen for ourselves before returning home to prepare to begin again the next day.
Letting loose is a mindset more profound than simply taking the time to enjoy all the good that surrounds you on your adventure through the world. Truly enjoying the world around you requires you to reprioritize the things in your life and understand where each piece must fit in order to make your time the best it can possibly be.
Understand where work should fit in.
Obviously, it would be silly to suggest that everyone should quit their job. Everyone needs to earn a wage to support their family and lifestyle. But relaxation can be found even while you continue to work to support yourself. The real change you must make here is in understanding the role that your job should play in the grand scheme of things. Work is important, but not nearly as important as your family, your health, and your happiness. A 2013 Gallup poll showed that only 13 percent of people felt engaged in their place of work. In other words, the vast majority of workers worldwide are lacking love for their work in the truest sense.
Feeling disconnected from your company mission is a primary driver of lowered motivation in the office, and this attitude can quickly seep out into other aspects of your life. While you may not have to take work home with you on a regular basis, you still take the feelings and problems of work home. This is the first shift that must happen in order to unlock the next level of relaxation. Whether you are a senior in good health and preparing to retire or a younger worker struggling to justify two or three decades of work in this same office that stands before you, refocusing the role of your employment is crucial to good health both mentally and physically.
There are really two options here. You can change jobs or relegate your work-time to a compartmentalized section of your active thought process. The average worker holds an astonishing twelve jobs over the course of their lifetime, so a career change is certainly something you could entertain. Career changes unlock the novelty of a fresh start, and semi-frequent moves from one office to another might be all it takes to help you reprioritize the things in your life. Alternatively, you could work on a strategy of ‘leaving it at the door.’ By leaving behind the troubles of work you can be unburdened while spending time at home and focus on the things you love most whether that’s friends, family, pets, or hobbies.
Choose amazing holiday destinations.
Vacationing regularly is another essential component of loosening up. Americans are chronically bad at taking time off, collectively leaving 768 million days of paid leave unused in 2018 (with a 9 percent increase over the previous year). But taking advantage of your job’s perks means taking full advantage of the time you are allotted to unwind. A large portion of under-vacationing workers suggest that they have too much work to do, or can’t get away ‘this time’ because of an important project or meeting.
These draws will continue to occur at random throughout the work year, so adamantly using your vacation days requires a mental shift that places your happiness and recharging time above the perceived needs of the company. It’s ironic really, that so many of us feel disconnected from our corporate mission, yet are unwilling to step away to make use of our full vacation time for the benefit of the company.
Vacation is essential to your mental acuity. Taking time away from the grind that sees you performing the same tasks over and over again is the perfect way to re-energize and relax. This time away gives you perspective, allowing you to remember that you work to support a happy lifestyle, not the other way around. Seeking out a peaceful vacation destination therefore is crucial to yearly pampering that everyone needs, and frankly deserves.
Pampering yourself is unique to each individual, so choosing your destination carefully is important. Some families may be dreaming of an island resort getaway, complete with stand up paddle boarding lessons, scuba diving off a reef structure, or skydiving over the incredible landscape below. Adventure junkies feed off of these activities, and it may be the perfect way to keep active while engaging in those things that make you feel alive.
Others might prefer a serene cityscape in the heart of the European landmass – bundled up and walking aimlessly through hundreds of unique backstreets. No matter your preference, taking the time to travel and relax is crucial to building important memories with your loved ones and unwinding from the countless stressors that you experience in the office.
Start saving early.
While it’s important to take advantage of your vacation time, you must also begin maneuvers to start saving as early as possible in order to create long term financial freedom to protect those memory-making opportunities of the future. Saving can be done at any scale, and once you have created a saved pot of cash it will begin to earn interest, providing you with even greater financial security.
The investment strategy of the young worker skews toward aggression. Entering the stock market in order to capitalize on fast movers and long holdings is the best way to create lasting wealth that will follow you through life and create a more enriching experience down the line.
Rebalance your portfolio as you near retirement.
Once you begin to near retirement age it’s important to reconsider many of the stock market positions that have become a staple of your earnings strategy. Likewise, at this point, you should consider reviewing your capital stake in all of your assets. Your home has likely created a large pool of equity that you can draw from in the event of an emergency, and your life insurance policy may serve you better as cash today than a payout to your beneficiaries tomorrow.
American Life Fund viatical settlements are a great way to tap into that unrealized equity in the present so that you can conduct home upgrades or even fund the next vacation you are planning with your family. A viatical settlement is a great option for seniors. This is a trade into the third party of your life insurance policy for a reduced lump sum payout. This payment is above the policy’s cash surrender value though, giving you a great option for your long-term financial plan. Instead of continuing to pay premiums for the foreseeable future in order to receive a death benefit once the claim is filed, you can withdraw a chunk of the cash now in order to fund lifestyle upgrades or simply float your bills so that you can forget about them.
In retirement, you are no longer concerned with creating major returns on your investments since this cash essentially acts as a replacement for your salary. A viatical settlement is a great way to introduce a large sum of capital into the principal of your investment portfolio so that you can continue to live off the dividend payouts.
Relaxation takes an active effort to reroute your feelings and thoughts about work, money, and life itself. But it can be done, and it’s worth it.
