Time Is The Goal, Not Money!

Many people work every single day. Everyone has different reasons for their grind. However, the most common goal I have come across is money. Money seems to be the biggest motivator out of all other reasons. However, there are many other reasons why money should NOT be your biggest motivator.

 

One thing that I can think of that is more important than money is time. The end goal for anyone who wants to gain copious amounts of money is to essentially be free. To be free from restrictions and to be able to have enough time to do anything they’ve ever wanted. We will be going through the various reason why you should make your end goal time, not money. 

Contents

Trading Your Time For Money	Time Is Limited, Everything Else Is Not
Money: Young Vs Old	As You Get Old, Time Is More Valuable

 

Trading Your Time For Money

This is what a majority of people do. The purpose of this section is not to talk down to those who work 9-5 because there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The point is to put into perspective how much time really goes into working a typical job. For those who are in the workforce, you are trading your time for money. This amount is set to a certain price that depends on a multitude of factors. These factors can be age, race, experience, education and many more!

 

Another very important factor is the type of work. Jobs that are high labor and require a great deal of education often pay very well. If you were to spend 5/7 days a week working, you are essentially giving up over 70% of your week!

 

This means the only real time you have to yourself is the other 30% (the weekend). However, we can break it down even further than that! From Monday to Friday, 40 hours is dedicated to working. This does not account for sleep either!

 

If you’re getting 8 hours of sleep every day then you can add another 40 hours to that! Now, this may not seem too bad because your week is evenly split between work, sleep & leisure. However, this does not account for many other factors such as commuting and school! Most people are doing just enough to get by and continuously trade their time for money. 

 

Example

When I worked at a call center, my initial shift for 10 months was 4 pm – 12 am. The biggest chunk of my day was gone! Do I think it was worth it? Definitely not! This is because even though I was in this job, I did not develop any new skills. The job was a dead end job that was now taking away the largest chunk of my day! I could not spend the time to socialize and expand my network. However, I could run errands before work but would have to leave whatever I was doing so that I could make it for work.

 

The worst part was having to be there on Christmas Eve/Christmas and New Years Eve/New Years. I originally took that job for the money. However, I realized taking a job where I have to directly trade my time for money would not lead me towards time freedom!

 

Time Is Limited, Everything Else Is Not

Everyone has a limited amount of time. Some have more time than others. However, a lot of us still coast through life like we have all the time in the world. While working at various jobs, I saw people who have been working with companies for 20+ years within the same position. I cannot speak for anyone else but that is something I could never see myself doing.

 

Working the same job, making the same amount of money (maybe get a slight raise every year) for almost half my life was not something I could imagine myself doing. A lot of people waste time when they’re younger, myself included. We work these random jobs and spend all this time partying that we eventually forget that time is inevitably ticking away. 

 

I believe every step than an individual should take needs to be towards the goal of having enough time to do whatever they desire. Work that 9-5 if it means that you will eventually have enough time to pursue your passion. If that job is your passion then that’s amazing! The goal here is to help those who feel stagnant begin to move!

 

Work hard, invest, create multiple sources of income and build that financial freedom so that you can travel the world for the rest of your life. However, you can also choose to work that job that you hate, go on a vacation, but then return to do it all over again until your time runs out! The choice is yours!

 

Money: Young Vs Old

It is a known fact that investing your money when you’re younger will have a huge impact on your life. Even a 5-10 year head start can put you miles ahead. This is attributed to a couple of reasons. When you’re younger, you typically have fewer responsibilities. your goal is to constantly compound your earnings. Therefore, if you were to invest until your 70, the difference between investing at 20 and 30 years old is huge!

 

That 10-year difference can effectively double the value of every dollar invested! Time is your best friend in these instances and because your investments had more time to grow, your result was more rewarding. This is why you should learn and invest as early as possible. Failure to do so can cost you hundreds if not, thousands of dollars!

 

As You Get Older, Time Is More Valuable

The reason for this is because we have less of it. When you’re younger, time seems to be moving slower because you are experiencing all these new things. There are so much excitement and firsts that we feel like time is moving slowly. However, as the days go by, years feel like months, months feel like weeks and weeks feel like days.

 

It feels like January 1st, 2018 was just yesterday but it’s already October. This year, just like many years before this feel like they’re flying by. We get so caught up in our basic routines that we lose track of time. We constantly experience the same things which put us into a loop!

 

An example of time feeling like it’s moving faster is when you travel. Often times, when you’re traveling somewhere far away, the first drive seems like forever. However, driving back home or driving there a second or third time may not seem too bad.

 

Another example is with movies. I remember when I saw the first Harry Potter, younger me was complaining about how long it was. However, I can sit through that movie now and not even notice how long it is because it would be the 5th time I’ve seen it. Plus, average run-time for many movies recently is around 2 hours.

 

The sad truth is that as we get older, we eventually do have less time. Therefore, the goal is to work hard, become more valuable as an employee or maybe open up a business so that you can acquire enough capital to reach the end goal. Which is to have enough time to do whatever your heart desires after retirement.