Focus on using available financial tools to create the life you want, rather than trying to find the most technically optimized solution.
All year long, your Spring Plans team has been using the concept of Design Thinking to contemplate many different aspects of your personal finances.
Why Design Thinking? The answer has remained the same all year long: because we want you to have permission to design your life.
The world is full of boundaries and fences made up of piles and piles of the word “should”. When it comes to the surprisingly complex universe of cash flow and financial planning, we know you run into those “shoulds” on a daily basis. In fact, you may even be “should-ing” on yourself from time to time.
You may have received a “should” that shames you about your cash flow (we didn’t say “budget”), and another that stops you from asking for help with your investments – because it “should” be easy. In each of the multiple arenas of your personal finances, there could be “shoulds” that are blocking your progress. Those “shoulds” have the potential to stop you from achieving what we’ve always wanted for you: A life that you love – whatever that looks like for you.
The life you love may look like a life you’ve seen in your neighbourhood, or down the street. It may involve marriage, children, a home of your own, and perhaps even some kind of boat.
The life that you love may also look very, very different. It could involve decades of commitment to education, art, or business. It could involve volunteer work in foreign lands or right here in Canada. It could be a nomadic surfing lifestyle, research at the South Pole…or something else that we at Spring have never considered (but would love to know!).
What is important for you to understand is that the life that you love is the correct one for you, and you have not only the right but also the responsibility to find the best way to live it. We know that financial decisions are a big part of this, and that tearing down those boundaries and fences of “shoulds” – removing shame, fear, and insecurity through a rational, thoughtful process of empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing will lead you to the confidence you need to stride forward.
We’ve given you an enormous amount of content to chew on this year, and if you’ve forgotten more than half of it, we cannot blame you in the least. Just like in the cash flow and financial plans we deliver to you, we want to leave you with a Design Thinking Action Plan, so you can stride forward successfully into the life you love. Click here for more on building your Design Thinking Action Plan.
About Spring Plans
Spring Plans is an advice-only, fee-for-service financial planning firm. Our team of experts collaborate to provide comprehensive cash flow, financial, and estate planning services to individuals, families, and businesses. We do not sell products, accept commissions, pay or receive referral fees, or earn affiliate income. Our goal is to remain as free of conflict as possible, providing objective advice that supports great decision making so that you can live your life, well spent.
Submitted by Julia Chung, CEO, Senior Financial Planner, Spring Plans.
