How Many Trips Do You Have Planned?

Have you listed the various trips that you want to take in your lifetime?  You know:
Paris, St. Thomas, Honduras, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Alaska, Quebec, whereever!

For purposes of example, I am going to use 75 years of age as the age to which we can travel with pleasure, no complications and we will be able to really enjoy the trip.  For some people, that is very generous, while for others it is cutting them short.  You can plug in your numbers.

If you are 35 years old and you can travel for one week, one time a year, then you have about 40 trip opportunities left in your life.  Have you ever thought of it that way?  Let's say that you have 10 trips that you definitely want to make in your life already and you have 40 trips left.  If everything goes perfectly, you are already 25% booked!

As you get older the percentages go up.  If you are 50 and you have 10 trips on your list, you only have 25 open slots, so you are almost 50% booked.  That's a sad way to look at it, but if you have a job, you are limited to the vacation time you have and what you can afford.

The alternative is to start working hard in your own business, building a residual income that in 3 to 5 years will allow you the time to take 2 to 5 trips a year.  If in 5 years you have built that residual income and you will turn 50 at that time, now the percentages turn in your favor.  You have 10 trips planned, but now you have 75 slots available (taking an average of 3 trips per year).  Now you have more options than you did when you were working at age 35.

By the way, I have NOT considered any life-changing events occurring in you life.  You know, a car accident, a bad health diagnosis, stroke, etc.  You may not have until you are 75.  None of us have any guarantee that we will be here tomorrow.

I heard on the radio today that Brett Michaels, lead singer of Poison, the current Celebrity Apprentice, tells the story that when he was in the hospital after suffering a stroke recently, there was one song constantly on his mind.  That song was Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying."  Michaels says that he is living life with that in mind.

To get the most out of life, we MUST KNOW WHAT WE WANT OUT OF LIFE.  Next, we must DEVELOP A PLAN to achieve what we want.  Last, we must WORK THE PLAN and make it happen to the best of our abilities.