I'm betting you have a fairly detailed understanding, if not a specific plan, of how you plan to pay for your future life, regardless of your current age. You've thought about, planned for and created a hopefully detailed strategy to ensure your plan is possible.

Most Americans, however, haven't applied nearly the same rigor to visualizing how they'd like to grow older. A 2017 study by the Institute for the Future found that the majority of Americans (53%) rarely or never think about what life will be like in 30 years.

That's a huge missed opportunity, because creating what I call an "aging vision" that describes your future self and the life you're leading 10, 20, 30 years from now has a demonstrably profound impact on helping you get what you actually want from your future. But only if you make a point of understanding what you want.

Creating an aging vision isn't difficult. (See below for some starter thoughts.) But even taking small, incremental steps to build one can have big impacts on your future self. People who keep images, photos or vision boards of their goals are almost twice as likely to be confident they'll meet their goals compared to people who don't (59% vs. 31%).

Before I get to the specific elements of what a robust aging vision might include, let's first be clear about why an aging vision should matter to anyone in the second half of life.

It's all about intentionality.

Aging with intentionality

Intentionality means being deliberate and specific about aging according to a thoughtful vision of who you want to become. Doing that requires having well-considered, deeply interrogated ideas about the pillars of your future self and life: what you want to be doing, look like and have achieved by the time you're xx(x?) years old.

It's actually a fun, rather creative thought experiment that turns out to have a powerful effect on your ability to eventually bring your unique aging vision to life. You can share your detailed aging vision with people closest to you, and ask them for theirs. The more people you share your vision with, the more likely you are to turn it into reality.

The science behind building an aging vision

Studies have repeatedly shown that when people visualize specific, detailed images of their future selves — what they look like, where they live, what and who their daily lives include — they make significantly better decisions in the present that positively impact their future lives. This isn't just general planning; it's the specific visualization of concrete details that creates the psychological connection needed to turn those future visions into reality. Simply winging it year by year without a crisp idea of what you want your future life to be like is far less effective.

Neurological studies have found that brain activity when thinking about the future self closely resembles the thought patterns our brains conjure when thinking about other people. Research by UCLA professor Hal Hershfield has shown that writing a letter to your future self, even just a few months away, can improve your connectedness and improve behavior.

The "Dear Me" letter

This letter doesn't need to be long, fancy or dated far into the future. As an experiment, write a note to your one-year-older self. (I'm 58, so I'll write my note to 59-year-old Paul) expressing what you hope you've accomplished, look like, feel like and are doing in daily life — one year from now.

That was so easy.

Creating your personal aging vision

Next, build a more detailed aging vision of your life several or a few decades into the future. The more detailed you make it, the more you're going to think about those details, even subconsciously, to make them happen for you.

Here are some ideas about what to include in your aging vision.

— What do you look like? What kind of clothes are you wearing and what expression is on your face?

— Where do you live? How is that home, place or region different from where you live now?

— How do you spend your days? With whom? What is your happy routine?

— What do a good morning, good afternoon and good evening have in them, respectively?

— What do you choose to spend money on: possessions, experiences, travel, investments, other people?

— What does your body look like, and how are you maintaining it with exercise and nutrition?

To find out more about Paul Von Zielbauer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Emma Simpson at Unsplash