Money is a resource. Abundant resources allow you to enjoy what is important to you. NOT worrying about your finances is essential to living a life that excites you, supports those you love and satisfies your greatest desires.
Imagine your life if you had a strategy based on what was truly important to you, where your behavior and investments worked in harmony, to achieve your life aspirations. Most people have a couple of financial products they purchased from an insurance agent, some stocks from an old stockbroker, an E*TRADE account with tips from their friends or the internet, and a 401k. They have purchased products to meet the needs they were convinced they had by a salesman. Do you think the Great Pyramid of Giza was a “hope and pray” stack stone and see what happens? Great feats are carried out as a result of people knowing what they want and why! Defining your greatest life by embracing your values will tremendously reduce or eliminate financial stress.
Values-Based Financial Planning isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, nor is it the panacea of a volatile stock market. It is a process that will help you make smarter choices about your money. By simply reallocating your resources to the areas you truly value most, and then using this process to efficiently allocate future earned and saved dollars, you can implement your own customized Values-Based Financial Plan.
Most financial plans start with an assessment of goals. These are very important, but they don’t provide you with the “why” behind the plan, your values. The values are the intangibles that make chasing your tangible goals genuinely meaningful to you.
Try this exercise.
Ask your partner – “What’s important about money to you?”
Answering truthfully, they say, “Security”.
Ask – “What’s important about security to you?”
Keep this up until you build a massive staircase of meaning. After several answers, there should be a sense of real purpose of your life and you can reflect on how smarter choices about money impact all your values!
Once you have your values clearly defined, you can then move on to setting specific tangible goals. Do you want to …
- Make work optional?
- Buy a beach home or a cabin?
- Finance college for children and grandchildren?
- Travel first class for all your vacations?
- Fund a scholarship at your alma mater?
- Leave a generational legacy?
For the next 5-15 steps, depending on the complexity of your plan, stay tuned, or find a Trusted, Fiduciary Advisor to take you to the finish line!
