“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not speak then unto me”
William Shakespeare
2020 has been a gruesome year. We wonder how our experiences will shape the future during the year 2021. We may have experienced a lot of social transformation during the past 10 months, but how will that hastened innovation change the way we live? What can we learn from 2020 about the future?
Following are some of the lessons we could learn from 2020 so that we can adapt and evolve ourselves for a better future:
Lesson 1: Manage your financial health
You should take care of your hard-earned money and wisely manage it. Try to keep yourself away from any doubtful schemes or unworthy offers and avoid making any financial decisions that may harm your financial health.
Lesson 2: Maintain sufficient reserve as a contingency plan
In addition to investing and saving money carefully and having satisfactory insuranc, reservingg some cash for emergencies is also necessary. To successfully counter any hardship, you should have at least 15 – 20 months of expense and EMI (equivalent monthly installment) on loans. This emergency fund would enable you to deal with crises like pandemics like Covid-19 or loss of health, job, etc.
Lesson 3: Set your goals
The year 2020 has hit our lifestyle, health, and wealth hard and made it clear that securing your families’ future is very important. In fact, most of your financial aims revolve around your family, such as the education of children, their daily needs, their wedding, that luxurious car, the dream house, etc. You should set adjustable, specific, realistic, measurable, and time-bounded financial goals to make it possible. Moreover, prepare a worksheet for your goals and try to successfully achieve the intended goals.
Lesson 4: Construct your asset allocation model
Build a model for asset allocation to help you achieve your financial aims. Asset allocation is not jargon but the fundamental of investing and may also help reduce the risk during wealth creation. If you try to stick with only one asset class, you may miss the benefits offered by diversification. Expand your asset classes and investment directions, thus gaining high returns for your investment.
Other lessons that 2020 taught us:
You don’t need to wait for the right time and waste your life. The right time to buy the house, change jobs, start a new activity, or plan a trip with your companions will never come with thoughts alone. Rather than waiting for the right time, leap and do what you want. One of the main lessons taught to us by 2021 is that life is short. So, we should not delay any of our plans and avail of the opportunity at the first chance.
For there to be light, you need darkness, so having everything canceled, shut, and taken away from us in 2020 has provoked the joy of small and happy moments. We didn’t think too much of things in 2019- like the way the sunshine through autumn greenery, a moment of peace found drinking hot coffee in a sunny window, biting into a fresh doughnut- but in 2020, they became our true happiness moments.
In fact, we could learn from this year that how much time we can have. Staying at the house for weeks or months required creativity and relighting some old hobbies/habits to stay entertained. Moreover, we could create a space for ourselves and find calmness rarely available in modern life.
Another lesson we learned from 2021 is that we never stop learning. Learning new languages, new skills, new crafts, new recipes, new cultures, and new sports is one of life’s great joys. Our traveling obsession made us find ways to keep exploring when the world around us stopped.
To conclude:
As 2020 has taught us some hard financial lessons, it also taught us how to make ourselves happy in any case, create our own joy, and learn new things.
Whether the year 2020 was your goal accelerator or an opportunity to reconsider what you really want, investing in your growth and improvement will help you win in 2021 and beyond.
Success will be navigated by your potential to continue researching and learning, no matter what you have already accomplished or achieved.