Want to see what’s in store for your future?

You don’t need a crystal ball. Just extrapolate.

By looking at past and current trends, you can estimate what’s in store for your future.

There is a tool in Microsoft Excel to extrapolate data on a chart. Put in a few data points and it will tell you what the next number will likely be.

For instance, if you weighed 150 pounds when you were 20, 160 at 30 and 170 pounds at 40, you could estimate, based on the trend, that you will weigh 180 pounds at 50.

Maybe you’ve built a nice nest egg of $100K in your 401K after 10 years of working. With the right investments, your money may be growing exponentially, and you could easily have $400K after another 10 years!

Planners (like me) apply extrapolation to all kinds of things as it gives us some idea of what the future may hold. This gives us some comfort knowing where things are headed.

No one Knows the Future: The Limitations of Extrapolation

It’s true. So many things can happen to disrupt trends. Life can get in the way of your plans.

Take the pandemic as an example. So many plans and trends have been disrupted as a result of the virus. Some have lost their jobs and their careers. Others have been ‘forced’ into retirement. Still others have chosen to quit their jobs so they can homeschool their kids.

Extrapolation can be a valuable tool, but it is by no means 100% accurate. There are just too many variables and system shocks to depend too much on it.

I Saw That Coming: The Benefits of Extrapolation

Extrapolation is a means of technically determining what’s next.

Extrapolation answers the question of what might happen but does not necessarily answer why. There are nearly always fundamental reasons why extrapolation works.

For instance, Conscientiousness is a Personality Trait that is an accurate predictor of someone’s potential success. People high in Conscientiousness have higher rates of being successful.

It’s no wonder that young people who are high in Conscientiousness and who are successful in school as a result are also successful later on in life. It’s relatively easy to extrapolate a successful future for them based on their past, but knowing the underlying cause also helps predict the future.

If you really want accuracy in determining what’s next, an understanding of fundamentals and technical data is required – just like the stock market.

Extrapolation in Everyday Life

Some of us plan for our futures financially. Like the example above, we put money into an IRA or a 401K and watch it grow. We extrapolate how much we save and how much return we get on our investment to determine when we can retire.

Professionally, most of us track how much we make over time. A ‘dead-end’ job is a reference made to work that is going nowhere as far as career advancement or pay. Some people take lower paying jobs in industries where there is upward mobility, looking forward to responsibility and pay increases as we go.

Physically, some of us watch the bathroom scale as a measure of which direction our health is going. We make sure our weight data goes in the right direction as to not get out of control.

For instance, if we are gaining 2 pounds per week during the holidays. we can extrapolate and estimate that we’ll be up over 10 pounds by the New Year.

Not Everyone is a Planner

We are the only species that thinks about the future and some think about it more than others.

If Extrapolation teaches us ONE thing, it’s that small, incremental improvements add up over time.

Applying Extrapolation to Your Life

Look back 5 years and see where you were in your life: Professionally. Physically. Mentally. Socially. Financially.

Has there been significant change? Has it been for the better?

Now look forward. At your current pace; what can you expect for the next 5 years?

Improvement? Status Quo? Decline?

There are some areas you can’t control. Perhaps you lost your job due to COVID or you are getting older and things aren’t working the same physically.

But are there other ways you can still improve? Are you?

Benjamin Franklin had a Virtues Chart. He attributed “success and happiness to the pursuit of these virtues”. Who of us couldn’t become a little better each day by focusing on moral virtues?

5 years is a long time. Multiply that time by small, incremental changes and it will add up quickly.

Regarding your Health:

Are you getting a little healthier each day?

• Are you eating right every day? Are you getting your 5 servings of vegetables? Protein every meal? Have you cut out added sugar?
• Are you exercising regularly? Are you getting measurably stronger, faster, or have better endurance?
• Are you at or working toward a healthy weight?
• Is the doctor is prescribing less pills every time you go to visit? Where’s that blood pressure? Cholesterol?

In his book, Younger Next Year, Chris Crowley makes the case for living a fit life style to ward off the decline of aging. The premise is if you start doing the right things even in your 40’s you can actually get biologically younger.

Instead of allowing the steady decline of aging, you can effectively improve your curve with the right choices:

Extrapolation shows us that it’s less about the Goal and more about the Journey. Small changes every day or week or month can make huge differences over time.

If things aren’t going your way, you may not need to overhaul your life. Start small and commit to getting a little better every day.

And if you’re looking for some good ideas on where to start, you know where to find us.

Ron