Managing My Life Programs banner

Managing My Life: Newsletter - Issue 1-4 October 2005

This bi-monthly newsletter was prepared by Members of our Network of Managing My Life Professionals and was prepared for you by Brenda Jean Lycett who is a member in good standing of the Network.

Focus In This Issue: Financial Matters

Inside This Newsletter:

Life Planning - A Refreshing Approach to Thinking about Your Money Matters

Copyright: Steven Shagrin, JD, CFP®, CRPC®, CRC®, CELP, All rights reserved.

In recent years many financial advisors have added a "Life Planning" approach to their practice, or have taken to calling what they do "Life Planning" or "Financial Life Planning".

This is really nothing more than what Roy Diliberto, CFP®, past president of the Financial Planning Association, calls "financial planning done well." However, it's a process which incorporates much more than the "right things to do" under the typical financial planning model to include the "right reasons for doing them" as well.

But first of all, what is "financial planning"? According to a definition from the website of the College for Financial Planning, it is the process of establishing personal and financial goals and creating a way to reach them. The ongoing process involves taking stock of all your existing resources, developing a plan to utilize them, and systematically implementing the plan in order to achieve your short-and long-term goals. The plan must be monitored and reviewed periodically so that adjustments can be made, if necessary, to assure that it continues to move you toward your "financial goals."

This presents the establishing of personal and financial goals as the first step. I believe that "life planning" is the process of bringing a deeper structure and framework to this very important step. It does so with an approach that clients with whom the planning process is done tend to appreciate, understand, and, most importantly, revisit over time, more so than a standard financial plan.

This is because they come to realize that, as fellow financial planner Michael Stein, CFP®, has so aptly put it, "life is not a dress rehearsal." Viewing the process as very personal and tied firmly to one's values in life, the client certainly wants to know that the money may be there, but also wants to know that there are ways to consider how life's transitions may work into the picture.

Carol Anderson, founder of Money Quotient, Inc., a company which provides training and resources for financial advisors who use this holistic approach in their planning process notes that "life planning doesn't focus planning in just one area of life such as finances, but seeks to develop balance and meaning by attending to all areas, including health and fitness, emotional well-being, productive activity, leisure activity, healthy relationships, spiritual growth, and satisfying housing and location in addition to building financial security."

This whole concept of financial life planning works hand in hand with the concept of life and transition coaching as it has evolved in the past ten years. In fact financial planners are beginning to work in partnership with professional life and transition coaches to help their clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives.

Financial Life Planners have found that by first helping the client in developing a vision of the future, they bring meaning to the financial aspects of planning, with the result that the client will develop a model of their future that will balance their hopes, dreams, goals and aspirations with their financial reality.

The goal of this process is to move as much of a client's focus away from their inner focus (of obligations, work, financial outlook, and negative habits) and outwards to the key areas of life that determine one's life enjoyment. These include one's core values and motivations, control over personal time, supportive family and social relationships, positive outlook on personal health, a healthy attitude towards the current life stage, enjoyable activities and hobbies, a healthy attitude toward the workplace, and future life satisfaction.

Life planning is about choice, clarity of purpose, and balance. It's based on the premise that each person creates their life experience through the choices they make every day and are therefore responsible for the satisfaction - or lack of it - that they're getting out of life. One's life plan becomes a guide for examining current use of time — with family and friends, at work, in community activities, and at leisure - and helps to identify the points of imbalance between values and ways of actually spending time.

I define Life Planning as the process of (1) helping people focus on the true values and motivations in their lives, (2) determine the goals and objectives they have as they see their lives develop, and (3) using these values, motivations, goals and objectives to guide the planning process and provide a framework for making choices and decisions in life that have financial and non-financial implications or consequences.

Further, I find that Life Planning is the most holistic and comprehensive approach to knowing my client, allowing me to make the most well-considered suggestions for them to ponder when making the final decision as to the application of their financial resources.

Remember that a life-focused financial plan is not cast in stone, as one of the certainties in life is change. The life planning approach considers the transitions in life that may come your way and helps you address both the personal effect it may have on you and the financial and economic impact as well.

Steven Shagrin, is the Author of Managing My Life: Managing My Money which is available exclusively through Members of the Managing My Life Network.

Index

Question and Answer: Money-Related Issue

QUESTION:

My wife and I seem to always be arguing about money. I think it's important to save as much as we can because I don't want to work forever, the children are getting closer and closer to college age, and there are so many demands on our income that it's tough to stay on top of things, let alone think about which way to go first. She feels that if there is money in the bank account, it's OK to spend it on things that I feel are "expensive extras" for the children. She just doesn't get it - there's insurance, taxes, interest rates, market volatility - I just don't know which way to turn first. What do you suggest?

ANSWER:

As a couple you appear to be conflicted over the meaning and value of money in your life, and your financial personalities, habits and attitudes can cloud your perspective as well as keep you both from moving forward in a positive and financially-healthy direction. You seem to focus on targeted goals and security, while your wife seems to focus on selflessness and free-spiritedness. While these attributes may have been an attraction because of their complementary nature, when money is involved it can become a challenge and cause discord, mistrust, and a great deal of misunderstanding.

And you're absolutely correct - living life is complicated... and costly. That's why you may need professional advice by working with a financial planner. A financial planner can help you both better understand your present situation and can help you clarify what financial well-being means to each of you and to your family. This understanding can only help improve your relationship with your wife which may have been strained over money issues.

Furthermore, a financial planner will help you better coordinate the myriad pieces of the puzzle that our financial life creates, including cash flow, saving and investing, tax planning, insurance planning, estate planning, and retirement planning. Rather than being paralyzed by the attention that the many aspects of your financial life demands, you and your wife will be able to approach decision making over money matters in a more coordinated and planned manner.

Your financial planner also works closely with your professional life coach, or your transition coach who has been helping you determine and achieve specific personal or career goals.

Your ultimate goal should be to make financial decisions in a way which is in concert with your most important and deeply-held values and motivations in life.

It's very important for your husband to have a clear plan as to what he wants to do before making the decision to retire. The clearer the plan, the more committed he is to it, the easier his transition will be.

And if he keeps himself busy doing things which he considers being useful, you will also have "time for yourself" to do the things that you want to do, without having to worry about his well-being.

Index

Feedback from Clients

Managing My Life: Managing My Money has the knack for reducing complex financial concepts into easy to understand ideas. This program has helped me discover my best financial choices through simple exercises and has offered me real world practical suggestions to get me where I want to be. William Joyce, Adverstising and Marketing Executive

I learned quite a bit from this program, which I found both practical and insightful. The exercises helped me get focused on the various aspects of my life where money is involved. And I learned that "why I do what I do" with my money is as important as "what I do" with it. I am now very well prepared for working with my advisors and arranging my affairs based on my deepest values and motivations and in harmony with my life's goals and objectives. It made me aware of the Zen quality of money management. Debra Flack, Educator

Index

Quotes and Sayings

It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has. Henry Ward Beecher, American Preacher, Orator, Writer
Instead of rising rapidly in the beginning and flattening out later, the earnings curves of most those who eventually become millionaires was the reverse; their income increased slowly, if at all, for many years. And then after two to three decades, it suddenly went through the roof. Srully Blotnick, American Psychologist, Author
I'm not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don't have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That's the bottom line. Ray Charles, American Musician, Singer, Songwriter

Index

About Managing My Life Programs

Managing My Life programs consist of a library of eight self-directed wellness and productivity-oriented programs which have already been used by more than 100,000 individuals in North America on a self-study basis, with one-on-one coaching or in group workshops.

The eight Managing My Life programs are:

Three wellness and productivity-oriented programs which have a direct impact on the development of your employees' self-management skills and their productivity at work.

Three Programs to help employees deal with specific aspects of their life they may be concerned about. These programs deal with the topics of retirement planning, career planning for employee's teenagers, and money management. These sources of worry for employees should not impact their performance on the job they do. When people worry about their retirement, their kids, and their finances, they bring their worries to work, whether they want to or not. The programs are entitled:

The two transition-oriented programs are Managing My Life: Direct Approach to Employment and Managing My Life: Making the Retirement Decision. They can be used with employees who are being laid-off or terminated or employees who have been offered an early retirement option. These transition programs help create the feeling among your remaining staff members that you are a good employer, an employer they should perhaps continue to work for, even if things are not always perfect.

We license organizations to post these programs on their Intranet making them an important part of their Intranet collection of Wellness and productivity resources available for downloading and for use by all staff members.

INDIVIDUALS CAN ALSO LICENSE ONE OR MORE MANAGING MY LIFE PROGRAMS

The program materials are also available for individual licenses. Under these circumstances we would e-mail the licensed individuals the program materials and mail them the accompanying Deep Relaxation Exercises CD for their personal and sole use. They can complete the program materials on their own or preferably working with me as their Coach.

WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE PROGRAMS

Managing My Life Programs include:

  1. Comprehensive self-study workbooks in Acrobat Reader format.
  2. "Deep Relaxation" and "Deep Relaxation and Sleep" audio-tracks with background music. These relaxation audio-tracks will help users become calmer so that they can manage work and personal challenges, as well as their daily tasks, with more concentration and focus. By sleeping better, they will also feel more energetic throughout the day.
  3. A Guide on how to introduce the programs so that it can be launched successfully within your organization.
  4. The option of customizing the program materials to meet specific needs you may have.
  5. The availability of one-on-one coaching, teleclasses, web-cast services and on-site workshops by a Network of more than 75 Professional Coaches and Trainers who are licensed to use the programs in their practice.

Index

Contact Us

Lycett 4CHANGE & Associates offers human resources outsourcing services including training, employee relations, resume writing and coaching. Brenda Jean Lycett, President, CHRP, RGR, is an experienced human resources professional and part time professor who has published articles on topics such as hiring and accommodation. Lycett also facilitates workshops such as preventing harassment, career planning, managing diversity and stress.

For more information please contact Brenda

Index