The Cost of Waiting for Someday
I keep telling myself I can’t afford the life I want. That’s not actually true.
There’s a trip I keep putting off. Not because I don’t have the time. Because I don’t think I have enough saved.
There’s a hike I want to do too, a harder one, more technical terrain, better views. I keep telling myself I need better gear first.
I want to get back in the kind of shape I was in a few years ago. I’ve told myself I need a trainer for that, and I can’t justify the cost right now.
Notice a pattern? Every one of these gets filed under the same excuse. Not enough money yet.
Here’s the thing I’m starting to realize. That’s not actually true. Or at least, it’s not the whole truth.
Money is part of it. But creativity, a plan, and a shift in how I think about what’s possible right now could close most of that gap without me waiting on my bank account to catch up.
I’ve been living in the someday trap. I’d guess you have too.
Here’s why that matters more than it sounds like it does.
A friend of mine works at a bank. She told me about a woman who came in not long ago to review her accounts. She’d done well. Sizeable savings, decades of careful decisions, exactly the kind of nest egg you’re taught to build.
She told her she wished she’d loved more. Made more memories. Instead of spending so much of her life worrying about the number.
She’d hit her number. And she still lost the thing she was saving it for.
That’s the real cost of waiting for someday. It’s not just a missed trip or a hike you keep postponing. Here are three costs of waiting that never show up on a balance sheet.
You can lose the memories you were saving up to make.
The whole point of the number was never the number. It was the life it was supposed to buy you eventually. The trips, the time with your kids while they still want you around, the mornings that aren’t rushed.
When you keep deferring those things for someday, you’re not preserving them. You’re spending the years you’d use to make them, on waiting instead.
The woman at the bank didn’t lose her savings. She lost the years she could have used them for.
Your body isn’t waiting for your bank account to catch up.
Here’s something worth sitting with. Research on aerobic capacity shows it starts declining measurably in your thirties and forties, roughly 10 percent per decade, whether you’re active or not.
That harder hike you’re planning for when you have better gear gets harder to do every year you wait for it. Not because the trail changes. Because you do.
The capacity for that adventure, that trip, that active life you’re picturing, has a shelf life of its own. It doesn’t wait for your budget to be ready.
Waiting doesn’t preserve the lifestyle you want. It costs you the ability to live it.
This one is the one that actually broke the trap for me.
I used to think the constraint was money. More budget would eventually unlock the trip, the hike, the shape I wanted to be in.
But every year I wait, I’m also not practicing the thing I actually want. I’m not practicing presence. I’m not practicing spending on experiences instead of hoarding for a future that keeps moving. I’m not practicing the mindset that says I can build a life I love right now, with what I have, if I get creative about it.
Waiting doesn’t just delay the lifestyle. It keeps you from learning how to actually live it, so that even once the money shows up, the muscle for using it well never got built.
Here’s what I’m starting to believe. The constraint was never really the number.
It’s the story I’ve been telling myself about what I need before I’m allowed to live the life I say I want.
Creativity, a plan, and a shift in mindset can close a lot more of that gap than a bigger bank account ever will.
You don’t have to wait for a certain age or a certain amount saved to start living like the person you’re working so hard to become.
What’s your version of the someday trap? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
And if the real thing holding you back is time, not money, the $20 Task Trap Checklist can help you find the hours you’re already losing to tasks that aren’t yours to carry.
Get above the grind and grow.
— Jared Braun
Business Coach | Mountainview Consulting Inc.
What Is the Retirement Lifestyle Now?
The freedom to do work you love, at a pace you can sustain, while actually living the life you’re working for.
Jared Braun is the founder of Mountainview Consulting. He helps small business owners get above the grind and grow — building businesses that serve their lives, not consume them.
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