“If you find a solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem.” -Robert Anthony
As a culture, why are we so susceptible to shortcuts, quick fixes, and the lure of “short-term solution” products? Is that how it should be? Is that how we should think and behave?
In many fields and areas of our lives, having answers and solutions are critical. When a contractor builds a skyscraper building, we insist on right answers for safety and to avoid a future catastrophe. If a doctor diagnosed us with a serious disease or condition and we needed significant treatment, it’s safe to say we’d insist on a specific solution (i.e. surgery, medication, etc.) to help us recover or adjust as quickly as possible. Similarly, as we board an airplane, we require the designers and manufacturers to account for every detail of that plane, according to correct scientific principles. As we can see, right answers and short term solutions certainly have their place. However, even in these cases, planning processes would still need to be in place to adapt to contingencies on the fly.
Generally speaking, the longer the term of the endeavor, the more we cannot base our planning on products and short term solutions. Does this make planning less valuable? Absolutely not. We must base it on a continual process to achieve structure, flexibility, and improvement.
Think about these life challenges you likely have:
- Determining your career path, life’s work, and where to serve others
- Setting life goals, financial goals….especially, longer-term ones
- Family decisions, children (How many to have? Your education plan for them?)
- Where you’ll live and what kind of home to reside in?
- What about a plan for personal development, which could capture reading, writing, speaking, teaching, and more?
- Dealing with “busyness” and staying balanced with your time and responsibilities.
In these areas, planning is critical. If we doubt that, simply study the lives of those who’ve lived a life of great impact and influence. Did they “wing it?” No way.
We need a mindset that planning in these areas is about process, not products. A process of continual improvement and adjustment. Your plan can set up the foundation and establish a base roadmap. We must “consult” our plans when making decisions, considering pros and cons, on the infinite amount of choices we make in our lives.
If more of us understood deeply this reality, especially in the area of financial life planning, we’d all have plans in place. When asked, “Do you have a financial plan?”, not only would we answer yes, but we would literally be able to point to it, physically. Unfortunately, most of us can’t do that. Even after all the research and data on the success of people with plans and the lack of success for people who don’t have a planning process in place, most people still are waiting, procrastinating, waiting, procrastinating. Why is this the case when the ultimate impact on our happiness and fulfillment are critical? The long term stakes couldn’t be greater.
Sadly, our society, our advertising, and many of our service professionals (“financial advisors” are certainly guilty) have us believing that the key to our challenges lies in buying a product, in finding a quick solution or answer. They want us to believe that it’s quick, easy, and just one click away.
Cliffs Notes instead of the book.
Diet fads instead of nutrition and exercise.
Get rich quick instead of proven planning principles.
Plagiarizing instead of writing.
We can’t fall for this temptation. Achievement, success, goal-accomplishment, and purpose are all attainable. The harsh truth is that they require ongoing effort, discipline, and a planning process. This is a journey, not a destination.
This is why the Certified Financial Planning® Board has a six-step PROCESS, not a six-step product:
- Establish the Relationship
- Gather Data
- Analyze and Evaluate Financial Status
- Develop Recommendations
- Implement Recommendations
- Monitor on an Ongoing Basis
Where a product may achieve temporary contentment, process is focused on lasting results.
Where a product has salesmanship at its core, process centers on service.
Where a product believes in seeking satisfaction externally, process builds us up from the inside.
We need to move away from a product mindset to a process centered way of thinking and acting. This is what financial planning is and what it’s designed to do. In fact, this may be the highest value of financial planning to us and our society.
The question becomes, do you believe in it to your core? If not, you’ll probably be sold that product.
Become the person that can point to your plan, and stop procrastinating. No one regrets having a plan and who they become in the process.
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.” -Carl Rogers
