THE Dalai Lama once said: "Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions." When you look at the context of the same, we realise we are the sole creators of our happiness. And no one incident or person can change the course of this. Happiness is the ultimate goal that everyone wants to achieve, it be in terms of health, wealth or social status. Bur rarely do we ask the question, what really makes us happy? For most of us, our happiness revolves around our goals and desires that we want to fulfill; it may be buying a house at 30 or planning a world tour with your spouse by 45. For us, our happiness is determined by the goals and dreams we plan to achieve.
Planning for your happiness is not as tough as it may sound. However, it is important to know what you're planning for.
Know your dreams and how they make you happy. This is the first step towards understanding your goals. While you may have many wants and needs, it is important to segregate between the two and fulfill the ones that are more important to you and would make you happier. Once you have listed all the goals, discuss the same with your financial planner and explain to him the importance of a goal and how achieving that goal would make you happy.
Science of happiness helps:
Though you may have a tough time figuring out which of your needs are important enough to be fulfilled first, there is a simple process that we have come up with, called 'the science of happiness test'.
Start this test by asking yourself this question: What do you want? Once you have answered the same, follow it up with a "why". Each time you get an answer for the previous why, follow it up by another. By the end of five questions, you will realise how important that goal is and if it makes you happy. All our actions and goals are directed at helping us become happy, even if we are not aware about it consciously.
Understand your resources well. Your financial resources will help you reach your goals. If you are not aware of how you are placed financially, it will become difficult to attain you dreams and fulfill your goals. List all your sources of income and expenditure to your planner, as he will find a suitable plan for you to invest your resources in the right medium, to facilitate and realise your goals.
Impact of money:
It is also important to understand the psychological impact of money and face those financial fears with a goal. This will help you realise how you can achieve that goal, without compromising other desires.
Management is the key:
If you are planning for long-term fulfillment of your goals, it is important that you do cut down on frivolous spending. A client of mine would buy things as they would give her "temporary happiness." It became imperative that she cut down on such spending and concentrate on fulfilling her long term goals to attain the happiness she wanted.
Pursuit of happiness:
We are always on a quest to find happiness. Though in this hierarchy of life, we usually first fulfill our basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. Once these needs are taken care of, we move on to accomplishing other needs. This is where planning comes in. Planners can help you achieve the various goals by organising goals into different stages like contingency planning, risk planning, etc.
Planning and happiness go hand in hand. When we plan our lives we make sure the result is happiness. And to attain that happiness, you need to plan your money as well, as it plays a very important role in our lives and our happiness also depends on that to some extent.
