I love to be spontaneous and just go with the flow. It is the spice of life for me because most of the time I’m following a schedule to finish a project be it for work, hobbies, vacation, athletic, family, friends, my community or whatever. So, sometimes it is fun just to be and have time to make up the day as you go along. However, at this point in my life I realize not having a plan is a recipe for mediocrity or disaster depending on what the plan is.
If you are like me, you have accomplished a few things in life by following a plan or strategy. Most successful people realize they cannot do it all and have hired someone to keep them on track. When I trained for my first marathon, I realized the goal was going to need some kind of plan. You cannot just show up, start running, and hope to finish the race. I suppose someone out there has done this, but most people need a plan to follow and advise doing their training before the marathon. The same goes for our finances and as much as approaching your finances with a plan sounds like common sense, most people think they have a plan and wind up reacting to outside events.
When I trained for my first marathon, I did not know what “hitting the wall” all was about. During my long runs, I was having a hard time keeping my self-going and had many doubts about being able to finish the marathon. It was not until I consulted with my coach and talked with other runners that I found out that this was normal. Everyone runner has this experiences this and we call it “hitting the wall.” This is the point in a long run or in any goal, we set for ourselves when you just want to stop and give it up. I just needed to come up with some strategies for myself to break through this so-called wall so I could finish the marathon.
With the help of my coach, we came up with a plan for when I hit the wall. However, my coach could not really help me until he knew what made me motivated to keep running. Just like a coach, a top financial advisor would not give you some generic plan before they knew what is important to you. Otherwise, you will get bored and never achieve anything.
One of the ways I get to know my clients is to help them define what is important them. You know those intangible things that make life meaningful to you. You can do this yourself as well; all you need is a piece of paper and a pen. Then ask yourself one simple question: “What’s important about money to me?” Do not think about it too much and answer the first thing that comes to mind.
Then ask yourself again the same question except replace the word “money” with your answer. Let us say you wrote down “piece of mind” as the answer to what is important about money. You would next ask yourself, “What’s important about “peace of mind” to me? Write this answer below the last answer and ask again, “What’s important about [your last answer] to me?
You can continue this process for as long as you need to capture what is important to you. Please remember there is no right or wrong answer. This is just a simple way to get your values down on paper. When you are done read them aloud to yourself. It might sound something like this, money is important to me for peace of mind. My peace of mind is important to me so I can live my life on purpose. Living life on purpose is important to me so I feel happy. Being happy is important to me because I want to make a difference in the world.
