Friday, 8 January 2016

Life Planning – A step ahead of Financial Planning

The HDFC Life ad always reminds us life beyond just survival. It talks about living our dreams to the fullest, leading a self reliant life. But the stark reality remains we always measure our achievement with our bank balance. We compare it with our fleet of cars and number of social clubs membership we have gained. Do we always want to stay stuck with the thought that I am financially ready for anything in life or after it” or we want to beyond it.

A Financial Planner always starts to probe client's needs and wants in the ascending format of pyramid.If the client has made a provision for all of his goals, he believes that he doesn't need any further help except for review. Most of planners leave their role at this juncture considering that the client has met or planned for all his life.But that is a misconception. We need to probe a little ahead and actually make them realize about their bottled aspirations and dreams. Move on Financial Planning – lets look at Life Planning.

Life Planning is to achieve towards those unfilled wishes which are left incomplete due to either our own phobias, time commitments or family responsibilities. So, have we all identified such desires which are deep down in our heart and unfulfilled? Most of time when I raise this question to any client , they rather listens to us with all rapt attention but are unsure about their reply. The first thing that they mentions is “I donate annually some amount to XYZ charitable trust” or “I pay for my servant's son's education fees”. WE MIX LIFE PLANNING WITH CHARITY. It is not the right way to interpret Life Planning.

Life Planning can be understood in following points:
a) Life Planning is not limited to economic achievements it is about emotional satisfaction. It is not always wealth accumulation sometimes its even giving away. Share your work knowledge to the novice in the industry. Help them build contacts. A charitable trust to sponsor local talent in sports, education or even helping with expensive medical equipment.
b) It can be measured with the joy of attempting something without fear of loosing something. Something like setting up a school for local street kids and teach them.
c) It is about living your entire life as if there is just a single day. Hosting a party for all your friends, families and loved ones to thank them for all their efforts and support.
d) Life Planning is attempting to do what you couldn't do till now. It could be as simple as creating a song album for yourself or watching a live jazz performance in Manhattan.

The concept of Life Planning tells us that we should retire from our active work life and not from simple joys of your life. Till now, we have lived every moment as a responsibility or as our duty for our family. Its now time to do what our heart intends to do. As it is rightfully said, we relive our childhood in our sixties. ”Pachpan mein Bachpan”. So,don't limit your planning let it evolve.. never let a dream just fade away.
 

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