One thing that I’ve learned in the past while working with a software company, we had always set goals and had achievement milestones that we set for ourselves. Achievements for the company, individual development teams, as well as sales and support teams. 

As we have outlined some of the goals. I recall a question that was once asked, “When are we done?” Was inquired by one of the developers. 

That’s a really loaded question. I like the response that our leadership would respond with “We are never done.” Would be the response. 

This is one of the things that I like about moving forward. Always making progress. Are we every, really, done?  There may be a milestone or goal that we are striving for but we are never, really, done.  If we meet or exceed the goal we then shift or move the goal to continue to better ourselves.

I’m a strong believer that we should continue to work on self-improvement. We should always want to do or be better. If it’s for work, our health, or maybe simply being a better friend. Listening to our friends and understanding our friends by being more present at the moment with them. There are so many ways to make progress. Sometimes even staying the same may be progress for a short time. Maintaining, and not falling behind can moving the right direction, so it is important to not be too hard on ourselves.

Obviously, we need a reward. We need to rest. We can reflect on our accomplishments, and be rewarded for meeting a goal or milestone. But overall, I’m not sure we are ever, really, Done.

“…we should be retiring TO SOMETHING, not to be retiring FROM SOMETHING”

Being in the personal finance space, many of us look at our journey to retirement. Does reaching retirement identify with being “done”?  I heard a quote and strategy recently that was talking about retirement. Forgive me as I have forgotten where I had heard it.  But it was that when we retire, we should be retiring TO SOMETHING, not to be retiring FROM SOMETHING. And that made a lot of sense to me.  It really opened up my eyes and made be think of not being done with my existing career, just looking at what is next.