What We Want for You in 2021

Every year, your team at Spring Plans thinks about what we want for you, in the next 12 months.

In 2017, what we wanted for you was structure – the kind of structure that gives you the freedom to pursue the life you want.

In 2018, we wanted you to have some time – sweet, precious time.

In 2019, we wanted you to design your life, and use design thinking to do it.

In 2020, we wanted you to take that concept of design thinking and apply it practically in your day-to-day.

This new year, 2021…which we approach cautiously considering how the last one went…what we want for you is real clarity about what your values are, and how you can live them deeply each day.

What do values have to do with your finances?

Everything.

Money, and how we work with it, is embedded in every single aspect of our lives. It’s one of those things that if you ignore it, it all goes wrong, but if you pay close attention, and think deeply about it, it can be used as a tool to make sure everything goes right.

But what is “right” for you?

We often run into people who expect that, as financial planners, we believe that what is right for everybody is to amass as much money as possible, make it grow, and never, ever spend it.

We don’t know exactly when financial planners became Scrooge McDuck, but we can assure you that this is not the model that Spring Plans follows. Around here, we like the idea of money being one of the many things you use to support your version of success – your life, well spent.

Therefore, the first thing we need to figure out is… what is your version of success? From there, we should have some real clarity on why that is important to you. That “why” comes from your values. You might want to keep an emergency fund because financial security is a deep value of yours. You might want to keep a careful accounting of growth because you value achievement. You might want to make sure you’ve set aside a significant amount of your money for your children because family is important to you. You may want to ensure that you have enough money to walk away from obligation because freedom is your top value. You may want to make impact investments because community rings all your value bells.

You may want to ensure that you live in a well-designed, well-furnished home because design is one of your top values. You may want to invest in education and vocational experience because competence is a core value. You may want to ensure you have enough time in your day to connect with your deepest relationships because empathy is an important value. You may want to have both your time and money available because celebration is so meaningful to you.

We have learned that there is no one set of values that fits everyone. Even where people share values, how each of us approaches and lives those values is unique to each one of us. We have also learned that, without connection to our specific set of personal values, our goals fall flat, our achievements feel unimportant, and we lose motivation.

When your goals are connected to your values, you are invigorated and invested in achieving them. These goals become so much more than some metric that other people gave you. They become so much more than something you should do and instead become something you really really want.

When you are connected to your values, you are focused on your sense of purpose. When your mind and your money are focused on that sense of purpose, any feelings of lack and scarcity fall away. Your confidence increases substantially, and from that, so does your likelihood of success.

At Spring Plans, we are committed to your success – the unique version of success that you have designed around your values, with the structure and time you need to practically apply it. These are the tools that will have you living your life, well spent.

All throughout the year, we’ll be helping you define your values, give them names, and put them to work. You might have a particular value and not know what it means to have it show up in the way you manage your money, or you might have a money management strategy but aren’t sure how your values fit into it. Each month, we’ll be looking at values from one or the other of these lenses.

Stick with us, and by the end of this year, you will know exactly how to line your money with meaning and live your most intentional life.