Dream Life Cheat Codes Backed by Science

In a famous 1935 thought experiment called Schrödinger’s Cat, Schrödinger imagined a cat sealed in a box with a tiny vial of poison rigged to break. Until the box is opened, the cat is both alive and dead — two realities existing in parallel until a decision (the observation) makes one outcome the reality.

Your life works the same way. Right now, countless versions of “Future You” exist. One version is buried in debt, struggling to pay for the basics: food, housing, and medical care. Another version lives modestly from paycheck to paycheck and has a little extra money for entertainment or travel. Another version has complete financial freedom, living life on your terms. Each of these futures exists as a possibility, but the moment you begin to make financial choices — to save, to invest, to learn — one of these futures begins to harden into your reality.

The truth is that most people never stop to imagine the future they want. They simply go along with whatever life hands them, following the crowd, paying the bills, and hoping it all works out. But drifting along is never a good strategy. As the old saying reminds us, “Only dead fish go with the flow.” If you want a different future, you need to swim against the current to reach the destination you want.

What if the key to building wealth really isn’t your salary, but your ability to imagine your Future You?

A recent study by Goldman Sachs and the behavioral finance firm Syntoniq found that building a financially abundant retirement (life) is not so much about how much you earn, but about your mindset. The study found that those who created a sizable nest egg for retirement all displayed five traits that lead to their financial success.

The five traits for financial success

1. Future orientation: The ability to imagine and prioritize your future self and develop a long-term perspective.

2. Optimism: When you believe your efforts will pay off and have enough faith in yourself to try

3. Reward focus: A goal orientation that craves positive reinforcement through achievement

4. Financial literacy: Understand money concepts and how to apply them in your life

5. Resilience: Your ability to work through the many problems that inevitably arise

Here’s the surprising part: only about 10% of people naturally have all five of these traits. The good news is that this study showed we can all develop these traits with a little work. One way to do that is to use AI as a personal coach to help create the life you want.

How to turn your dream life into a step-by-step plan

One of AI’s powerful uses is to act as your personal life and financial coach. With just a little information from you (things like your current income, savings, debt, and your goals), it can generate a step-by-step roadmap to help you obtain the life you’ve imagined.

Instead of wondering, “Where do I even start?,” you can type a few of your details into Chat GPT and watch as it creates milestones for you: how much to save now, what investments to consider, and when you might hit your crossover point — the moment when your investments make more money than you earn working a job.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What do you earn annually right now?

2. How much have you saved or invested? (your “nest egg”)

3. What debts do you currently carry? (student loans, credit cards, mortgage)

4. At what age would you like to be financially independent?

5. How much monthly income would support your dream lifestyle?

6. What does that dream life look like? (location, activities, family, priorities, travel, freedom to work or not work)

These questions will provide you with a starting point and the raw material for Chat GPT to shape a personalized coaching plan.

Four AI prompts to create your customized future:

Once you’ve answered the questions above, try copying and pasting one of these prompts into ChatGPT. Fill in the blanks with your details and see what roadmap is created. Before you enter data into any AI, check/adjust security settings to protect your privacy.

Prompt #1 – How much“How much monthly income will I need to have my ideal lifestyle and living conditions of [insert lifestyle].” Of course, living a rockstar lifestyle will be far more expensive than living a modest one. 

Prompt #2 – The roadmap“I want to design my future life. Here’s my info:- Current job/income: [insert]- Savings/nest egg: [insert]- Debts: [insert]- Dream lifestyle: [insert answer]Please act as my personal life coach and create a step-by-step roadmap to reach this life, including saving, investing, and major milestones.”

Prompt #3 – Future you speaks“Pretend you are my future self at age [insert age]. Describe what my life looks like if I make smart financial choices. Then list the top 10 decisions I made along the way to get here.”

Prompt #4 – Crushing obstacles“Here’s my current financial challenge: [insert].I want to achieve: [insert].Suggest 3 strategies to overcome this challenge, ranked by impact and feasibility.”

Why this approach works

Most people never create a detailed plan because they think it’s too complicated. But when you put your vision into words and give it to a tool like Chat GPT, the fog lifts. Suddenly, you can see the stepping stones that lead to success. Your vague dream suddenly becomes a concrete treasure map.

The beauty of this approach is that it doesn’t just give you numbers, it changes how you think. It reframes your life into a series of decisions, each one a gift or a burden you will hand off to “Future You.”

As you begin working with these prompts, something powerful happens: the process itself shapes you. By describing your dream life and following a roadmap, you train yourself to think further ahead and build a future orientation. As you watch today’s choices compound into tomorrow’s outcomes, you strengthen your self-control. Each time you learn a new concept or financial strategy through AI, your financial literacy grows stronger. Seeing a personalized plan mapped to your vision builds self-confidence and shows that progress is possible. And when obstacles arise, using AI to explore recovery options builds your resilience to keep you moving forward.

Most of us know what it feels like to promise ourselves we’ll save ‘later’, but later never seems to happen. The act of designing and following your AI-powered plan, however, just makes it more likely that you will follow through with it.

Takeaway

Your future doesn’t have to be a mystery. It doesn’t have to be something that “just happens” to you. Your future can be something you design, step-by-step, with clarity and intention. By combining your vision with the practical planning and coaching power of AI, you can stop guessing and start creating.

Don’t just accept AI’s coaching suggestions at face value. Question AI’s conclusions, adjust your plan’s parameters, and refine your strategy. Using AI should always be a collaborative process, and it doesn’t have to happen in 30 minutes. Take your time. Don’t hesitate to ask AI for new ideas to create more income, pay off debt, save, or invest. There’s no penalty if it takes several weeks to envision your ideal life and build the coaching plan to achieve it.

So, take a few minutes this week. Write down your answers to the six questions. Copy one of the prompts above into ChatGPT. See your personalized roadmap. Open the “box” and claim your fantastic future.

Larry & Lisa Faulkner