What’s the One Thing That Could Improve Your Financial Future?

What’s the ‘one thing’ that could improve your financial future? Do you think that you’re doing this ‘one thing’ or are you doing everything else?

Thousands of decisions are made each day to buy a car, or a dress, or a new breakfast room table. Yet, for the main, these choices don’t have to be made today.

Conversely, the decision to do,(or not do), the ‘one thing’ needs to be made today.

What’s the ‘one thing’? Deliberately engaging in reality based financial planning for your future. You can never get today back so this choice has to be made today.

I’m not talking about typical “financial planning” consisting of a patchwork of investment and insurance products but actual advice that helps you make smart choices about how to use your finite financial resources.

Money and Relationships

Financial planning is the best place to deal with the role of money in your relationships. No matter how hard you try, you can’t remove money from your life. It’s there, even if you don’t talk about it.

The adverb ‘deliberately’ is used above to describe the intentional and purposeful act of engaging in the financial planning process.

Financial planning is focused on how to handle uncertainty in the future. Status quo and inertia try to keep you oriented only on today. Fear of making a wrong decision holds you back.

Promises and Priorities

Reality based financial planning doesn’t concern itself with make-believe. Only truth and facts are included. The planning process fully embraces reality.

Financial planning has nothing to do with what’s transpiring in the stock market today. Too many investors overly concern themselves with daily volatility, forgetting that investing always combines volatility and risk.

It helps to remember that the broad market is positive about 54% of the trading days but 75% of the calendar years.

Ultimately, the reason for being invested in the stock market in the first place is to offset inflation. Unless you have a magic wand to erase the prospect of living cost increases, you likely will need to be invested in the market permanently.

Reality based financial planning is much broader than investing. It’s concerned with getting really clear about what you want. Financial planning is about both promises and priorities.

Ultimately the planning process is aimed at providing something that everyone wants: more time to enjoy their own particular life.

Engaging in the ‘one thing’ won’t guarantee you financial success but it surely puts you in a much better position to make informed decisions that will help improve your life. Start there.

Related: Are Distractions Undermining Your Financial Life?