How is Your Financial Health?
Your financial health is akin to your physical health—there are two ways you can go about managing it. Most people wait until something isn’t quite right or something needs attention. Then they try some medicine, go the doctor, or make changes to their lifestyle. The second path is one much less traveled: the preventative route. This might include a healthy lifestyle just for the sake of one or preventative care, checkups, and supplements to assist in certain areas before a problem develops.
Common sense tells us that we should be acting in a more preventative manner with our health, yet ____________. (I will let you fill in the blank.)
Our experience in our industry tells us that people usually don’t give something their undivided attention until it becomes a priority. Perhaps you are retiring next year and know you can’t procrastinate on getting a retirement plan in place any longer. Perhaps you have an offer on a large piece of real estate or your business and don’t want to pay the taxes that come along with the price. Perhaps you have a family member facing a long-term healthcare issue and you are worried about how to take care of them financially or otherwise. Perhaps you are at risk of being sued due to a recent accident and want to make sure your assets are protected. Perhaps you just lost a loved one and don’t even know where to begin with the estate.
As Zig Ziglar often said, Money is not everything, but it ranks right up there with oxygen. When your oxygen is at risk, you probably are not thinking 100% logically. At this point, stress begets stress. Last-minute plans may not result in the best laid plans. Rushed actions could create unintended reactions. And well, we call this living life by default—most definitely not on purpose!
The surgery may not have been necessary if preventative care started just a few years earlier. The side effects from the medications may have never been in the picture. Your lifestyle and energy level that was forever changed for the worse would not have been the story if you had just ___________. (Again, you can fill in the blank.)
Ask yourself these important questions:
- What does it mean for you live Life on purpose?
- What is most important about money to you?
- What are your long-term financial goals?
- What do you your short-term financial goals need to be to put you on the right path?
- Where are you in relation to these questions today? (Progress starts by telling the truth to yourself!)
- Are you making progress?
- What are the biggest risks to our financial future? Do you know them? How well are these hedged?
- What are the risks to your family if ______________?
- How is your relationship with money? Is it helping you or hurting you?
- What do you need to do differently today that will make the largest impact on your financial health?
Where has the time gone? It seems we ask this question far to often, but its frequency of use reveals a deeper warning. Too often we go through the motions of life without a clear path, or even a purpose for that matter. Then suddenly we wake up to these questions and say, Where has the time gone?
Compound interest, according to Albert Einstein, was the eighth wonder of the world. He said, He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it. Every motion you make, whether with purpose or not, is compounding toward or away from a Life lived on purpose. This is a powerful thought to consider and should open your eyes to recognize that your financial health should be a priority today.