Last night I was reminded once again about my life priorities and how easy it is to get out of balance when one area of life steals our focus and becomes stressful (even if we don’t immediately recognize it as stress).
I put my daughter to bed and immediately resumed my adult activities – in this case a combination of business, tax organization, and general household cleanup (multitasking again, of course). A short while later there was that childlike “mommy” call from upstairs. My first thought was that perhaps she couldn’t sleep and I would simply tell her to go back to sleep, or ask my husband who was close at hand to get her whatever it was that she needed – I didn’t want to have my business focus interrupted, this was important work after all.
The next “mommy” call quickly made me realize this wasn’t one of those “I can’t sleep” calls. I dropped my business and ran upstairs to find that my eight year old was violently ill. My business hat immediately changed to my mommy hat and there it stayed for the next couple days. All through the night and next day I sat with my daughter, attending to the bouts of sickness, carrying her to the bathroom, changing clothes, taking temperatures, making sure she had liquids, medicine, and all the comfort you need when you are sick.
I had meetings and business planned but without even thinking I rescheduled my appointments and shuffled my schedule to be available for my motherly duties. My husband did the same and between the two of us and some understanding clients, and helpful family and friends, we’ll get through the few days of upheaval.
If this sounds like it’s all too dramatic and not necessary for one child with a severe case of the flu – or that somehow in our family we don’t value our business enough that we would just drop everything for one sick child, let me ask anyone who is a parent how well they function if their child is sick, injured, or otherwise in some sort of trouble? Or who amongst us can function well on very few hours of sleep for days on end? I don’t know of anyone who when asked what was most important to them in their life wouldn’t respond that in some way their relationships with others was most important – particularly relationships with friends and family, especially children. Yet, in daily life we frequently will push through our day sacrificing our own health and giving more time to our work commitments than to our relationships (kids or otherwise).
Throughout our life there will always be things that come unexpectedly to steal our focus and divert our attention. Few, however, have the ability to impact our lives dramatically like something happening to loved one. In my case this time, if the situation drags on or becomes serious the business that was so easy to reschedule would have to be dealt with or there would start to be consequences. Then we would start to experience stress in a different way.
While we are not able to control the life events which require us to drop everything and deal with the situation at hand, we can learn to consider the important areas and people in our lives when we make decisions. There are obvious time management decisions about where we put our time throughout the day and week – at work, with friends, family, children, or on our selves. But also from a financial planning perspective there are so many systems, strategies, and programs that involve our relationships and our life priorities.
Considering the consequences of sick children, there are obviously some planning that needs to be done in that area. Adequate cash reserves to enable us to take time off from work and life insurance for our children to provide us with cash to take time to grieve if that ever became necessary are two examples. In a previous article titled “The Financial Impact of Emotional Trauma” many of these issues were discussed.
There are many other financial areas, however, that will become important, or can provide direction when we remember our life priorities when planning. Helping our kids get a head start on their own through funding education, business start ups, investments, a first home, etc. are often concepts discussed only through educational savings plans or in tax planning discussions with higher income families. Likewise planning an estate, preparing wills, power of attorneys, etc. often become part of discussions with older people. Yet, trusts, income splitting, estate planning, tax planning, helping our children become financially independent, insurance, and other financial strategies are available to everyone at any age. Often they don’t make sense until certain life, or financial events have occurred. But if we don’t do our planning with our top life priorities in mind we are likely to miss the strategies that could provide the better results because we don’t even think to ask. We don’t need to wait until we reach a certain age, income level, net worth, or to experience a particular life event before we start to ask professional advisors what financial strategies, systems, and programs we need to consider in order to meet our needs today and in the future given our life priorities and focus.
If some of the terms mentioned above are new to you, or are familiar but you’ve not incorporated them into your plans, or thought they weren’t important to your situation, now would be as good a time as any to start asking some questions. What is your top life priority and what financial systems are important to consider to ensure your life priority can receive the best results possible – today and in the future?
Money expert, Tracy Piercy founder and CEO of the MoneyMinding® Makeover system teaches you a proven system to maximize your money. Get your FREE Money Turnaround Program now at www.moneyminding.com .
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