Set Your Goals

The crystal ball is a bit cloudy at the moment (for some that may be a bit of an understatement), so it is a great excuse to put off setting (re-setting) our goals. We had a good look at and discussion about procrastination in my ongoing Friday sessions last week, courtesy of my friend and coach Greg Wood. One of the key takeaways was the idea that: "if you are standing still, you are not moving forward". Certainly the current life-situation on the back of the ongoing pandemic in which we find ourselves is definitely a cause for concern and likely making us take a good hard look at our life priorities, but we cannot stay in paralysis forever, we have to keep going and we will. Those who get on it more quickly are those that are likely to benefit the most.

I enjoy the conversations with our younger clients who are most eager to get back to building their compounding curve. With 50 to 60 (or more) odd years in front of them, they can afford to be taking a little more risk.

I can't help but be motivated by their attitudes toward building their wealth and their future.

However, we all do not have the same time horizon's, so it is important to pull out our plans (at High Rock, we call them Wealth Forecast's), take a good look at how they are structured and note what adjustments may have to be made. Everybody's circumstances are different: building our wealth or utilizing our wealth, we need to assess our current circumstances and take a good hard look at our expectations of return as a function of the risk that we are prepared to take on.

That is why a "one size fits all" kind of strategy is only to the benefit of the advisor who cares more about building her / his practice for scale and revenue rather than addressing the needs and goals of their clients (in my opinion, an enormous conflict of interest). Anybody who has been / is still over exposed to Canadian preferred shares or REIT's will understand that. 

So it is time to reassess. Perhaps set out your lifeline: ask yourself where you want to be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years and so on. Set your goals and prioritize them (they may not necessarily all be financial goals).