Are you actively planning and managing your wealth? Or do you go through life on autopilot?   Most people get up in the morning, go to work, come home, eat, get an hour (or more) of TV, go to bed, and then get up the next day and do it all over again. They know there's more to life, but they don't know how to get it and don't have the energy to figure out how.   This routine can go on for years. For some, it adds up to a lifetime lost. If this scenario feels painfully familiar, you might want to step back and take a hard look --

How do you really want to live your life?

It's hard enough to achieve your goals if you have a good map. After all, life throws you plenty of curve balls. There's conflicting advice from various people -- including your advisors -- who all have different agendas. There may be real estate management headaches, problems within the family, rising costs, changing government laws, and more. Those are hard enough to handle even with a good plan. Imagine how you'd do without one.

Unfortunately, most people live their lives on an event-by-event basis and end up doing their financial planning the same ad hoc way.  When some sort of financial crisis comes up, they go get a fix for that problem.  This sort of  ad hoc "planning"  results in a hodge-podge of conflicting objectives -- with dire consequences.  People needlessly lose hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of dollars from taxes, lawsuits, legal fees, market fluctuations and more.   All of that is avoidable.  What's missing is a sense of the whole picture, with an understanding of where and how each component fits in relation to the others.

So how do you get a sense of the whole picture? 

Start by designing your ideal life. Then design your wealth management plan to serve your real goals.  If you're like almost everyone else on the planet (including most wealth advisors), you don't know the plethora of options available to you to manage your wealth. 

Don't let that stop you.  There are competent advisors available whose whole mission is to understand the big picture and all your options. They can help you decide which ones actually help you accomplish your goals instead of serving the private agenda of the "other" kind of advisor who gives you only a few of the traditional options that make him the most money.

Still, designing and implementing your wealth plan is not the first step.  Designing your ideal life is.