“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
Carl Jung

Life planning

Most of us tend to think about the things we’d like to do in our lives in terms of the money required to make them happen. This holiday costs that much. That house or holiday home costs this much. So, we’re often setting aside the day to day life we want to lead to accumulate the money necessary to get the things we want later. Life Planning turns this around.

What does it mean to live a good life? Watch our video.

No one has ever wanted their life to be all about owning a diversified portfolio. Rather, a diversified portfolio makes possible the things we want to do with our lives. But what are those things? Life Planning is about discovering your aspirations, purpose and what it means to you to live a full life. Once you are in touch with these values, it can be easier to act and stick to the plan.

What’s important to you? Whilst the specifics vary from person to person, most people would like to feel happy, safe and secure and ensure their family does too. What that means to you might be quite different than your neighbour, whose circumstances could be quite different. So, whilst you might have similar underlying values, your financial plans could and probably should, be quite different.

What you would really like to achieve in your life and what inspires you enough to act now and structure your finances to support these aspirations, be that a reducing your debts, changing your career, retraining or more time spent on hobbies or with family?

Take Tom and Margaret for example. Usually, the conversation is driven by Tom and focuses on money, but out of the blue, Margaret asks, “Why can’t Tom stop working? I’d like to spend more time with him. If he carries on like this, he’ll work until he drops and then it will never happen!”

Tom replies, “I don’t want to work as much, but I’m afraid to stop in case we don’t have enough money.”

Tom and Margaret then focus on what their future might look like and what they could do with time to share. Only then do we consider what obstacles need to be overcome and what changes are needed to their finances to support their vision.

Life Planners help challenge self-imposed limitations by asking some big questions to help you consider what truly matters.

George Kinder is widely regarded as the ‘father of life planning.’ He originally articulated his views in his book, The Seven Stages of Money Maturity.

At the heart of Kinder’s EVOKE™ life planning process are three questions.

Imagine that you are financially secure and that you have all the money you need for the rest of your life. How would you live your life? Would you change anything? What would you do?

Let yourself go. Don’t hold back on your dreams. Will you change your life and how will you do it?

This question encourages a more complete, genuine, and interesting response to our traditional question, “What are your goals in life?” It allows you space to think about all your dreams and aspirations, without judgement.

This time you visit your doctor who tells you that you have only five to ten years left to live. The good news is that you won’t ever feel sick. The bad news is that you will have no notice of the moment of your death. What will you do in the years you have remaining? Will you change your life and how will you do it?

It’s easy to answer this question practically – ‘I’d put my affairs in order and make sure my family is okay’. But think deeper – about family, relationships and life dreams that may have been postponed or neglected.

This time, your doctor shocks you with the news that you have only one day left to live. Notice what feelings arise as you confront your very real mortality. Reflecting on your life, on all your accomplishments as well as on all the things that will remain undone, ask yourself:
What did I miss?
Who did I not get to be?
What did I not get to do?

By really engaging with this third question, you’ll get beyond superficial answers and start to learn about what really drives you and what should be reflected in your financial planning for your future to be truly fulfilled.

These values, aspirations, desires and goals are what will allow you to live a fulfilled life. A life on PURPOSE.

By the time we hear the answer to the third question, we’ve come to know what is most meaningful and significant in your life. We can assess how well your current lifestyle addresses your values and how close or how far away you are from living your dreams.

Inevitably, once you are clear about what you wish to achieve, obstacles will come to mind. We’ll help you work through these and consider creative strategies that will help you move forward, dealing with negative feelings, encouraging new thinking and working to timescales that boost your chances of success.

Learn how to live the best life possible with the money you have.

Take our free 5-minute Return On Life online assessment and see what your ROL is.

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