What is Lifestyle Planning?

Lifestyle Planning is a holistic way of organising your life goals in alignment with your finances.

It focuses on outlining what kind of lifestyle is important to you, before defining your goals and action steps in relation to it.

This may sound strange. You might ask, “But aren’t my goals the same as the lifestyle I want to achieve?”

In truth, this frequently isn’t the case. Instead, the way we have been taught to think about our goals often leaves them framed in a generic way, one that makes them easy for others to quickly understand and accept. Unfortunately, what this process wins in simple communication, it loses in its failure to identify the unique motivating factors behind our goals – an essential part of what helps us to actually achieve them.

For example:

• “I want to run a successful business.”
• “I want to send my children to university.”
• “I want to buy a home.”

These are all worthwhile goals, but in reality, they will mean significantly different things to different people. Everyone’s bigger picture is unique to them and these distinct differences have an important influence on how and why we pursue our goals.

Why is Lifestyle Planning important?

Lifestyle Planning is important because it helps you to overcome the modern challenges of creating a long-term, life plan.

Overcoming Choice Overload empowers you to make impactful decisions

In today’s world, there are more tools available to assist you in building the life you want than ever before. This can be empowering, but it is also often overwhelming.

Choice Overload, a term first coined by Alfred Toffler in 1970, is a cognitive experience that makes it difficult to make decisions when you’re faced with too many options. It’s something that many of us struggle with in the modern world, and that can often make us feel like we just aren’t making the most out of our opportunities.

Lifestyle Planning relieves Choice Overload by helping you place all the different options available to you in a functional context, giving you a place to start. This context looks at how you can make use of these options to achieve the lifestyle that is most important to you, and therefore, build an ultimately meaningful life.

It does this by combining the psychology of self-actualisation, with the practicalities of life- and financial planning. In a nutshell, what you most want and value becomes the means by which you determine your path forward.

Tackling Motivational Challenges to prioritise things that are valued and motivate you.

A challenge most people face is the difficulty of trying to stick to their life and financial plans once they have outlined them.

This is primarily because these plans don’t incorporate their core values and motivations. In fact, sometimes, they can even run counter to them.

Lifestyle Planning overcomes this by prioritising those things that are valued by you and naturally motivate you. This makes it a very important step toward successfully realising your life goals.

How to write your Lifestyle Plan

Your Lifestyle Plan will include descriptions of all the above elements, as well as thoughtful, in-depth answers to all of the listed questions. We also encourage you to add in your own questions and probe further, until you are certain you have a solid vision of your ideal lifestyle and why it is important to you.

Then, on a new page, detail where you are currently at in relation to these aspects of your life. Having done both, you will now have a good idea of where you are and where you want to be. You will also be able to assess the different tools and options available to you, from within this functional context, and ascertain which are most likely to help you move from your present reality into your ideal future.

Knowing where to find, and how to understand, all of the different tools and options can be challenging. Speaking to a professional Lifestyle Planner can go a long way toward getting you on the path to success.

At Cornerstone Financial Services Group, our dedicated Lifestyle Financial Planners are up-to-date on all the latest tools and developments available on the market. We’re proudly independent, and therefore free to prioritise the products best suited to our individual clients, rather than being beholden to a service provider. We build life-long relationships with our clients and their businesses, offering a completely personalised service. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

We offer you total lifestyle and financial planning expertise under one roof: Lifestyle Financial Planning, Investment Advisory, Tax & Accounting Services, Healthcare Consulting, Fiduciary Services, Insurance Brokers, and Employee Benefits.

Click here to learn more.

How does a Lifestyle Plan link to Financial Planning?

In a nutshell, with a holistic Lifestyle Plan in place, your finances work for you.

We all know that Financial Planning can look after our financial well-being now and into the future. But, what if it did more than that?

What if each part of your Financial Plan existed to serve your unique Lifestyle Plan? Not some disconnected idea of wealth defined by generic norms, but rather an interconnected system that made sure your money was always working in your personal best interests, building a life that is ultimately meaningful to you.

Everything from your monthly budget and paying off your debt, to local and offshore investments, how you handle your tax affairs, your healthcare plan, estate planning, insurance, and business growth, could all aim at achieving your ideal lifestyle and making your daily lived experience as meaningful as possible.

That is the power of linking your Lifestyle Plan to your Financial Planning and having a dedicated expert work with you to ensure that you get everything you deserve.