By ROBIN POWELL
A common misconception is that financial planning is all about maximising wealth. Of course, you need to ensure you’ll have enough money to lead the life you want without running out. But, fundamentally, financial planning isn’t about money at all: it’s about helping you to lead a meaningful life.
Having plenty of money and feeling that your life has meaning are two completely different things.
A 2014 study showed how people in poorer countries generally have a greater sense of meaning in life than those in wealthier ones. Psychologists Shigehiro Oishi and Ed Diener found that nearly a quarter of Americans couldn’t say what made their lives meaningful. They also found that although people in the United States and Sweden were generally happier than those in Togo or Sierra Leone, for example, the suicide rate was significantly lower in those poverty-stricken nations.
So, if not money, what does make for a meaningful life? A book called The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters by the author and journalist Emily Esfahani Smith provides some helpful insights. In it the author suggests six steps to leading a more purpose-driven life.
Stop pursuing happiness
One of the biggest obstacles to living a life of meaning, says Esfahani Smith, is that we are too focused on pursuing happiness. According to the psychologist Roy Baumeister, who has spent three decades researching what makes a “good” life, it is far ar more fulfilling to have a meaningful life than a happy one.
Paradoxically, focusing on our personal happiness often results in the very opposite of what we intend.
As the philosopher John Stuart Mill once put it, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so… Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness… Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.”
Prioritise human connections
Another reason why many people’s lives are not more meaningful is that they forget the importance of human interaction. Consider our preoccupation with technology, for example, and the way we check our phones and even messages while we’re out with others for a drink or a meal.
It’s a human need to feel a sense of belonging, but many of us live very isolated lives. In a survey in the US in 2004, the majority of people said they hadn’t had a single meaningful conversation with anyone in the previous six months!
It’s been scientifically proven that chronic loneliness can compromise the immune system and lead to premature death. But research also shows that those who are lonely feel that their lives are less meaningful.
The answer, says Esfahani Smith, is to invest time and effort in relationships — not just with our friends, but with everyone — and to connect more with those around us, including strangers.
Focus on helping others
Something readers of The Power of Meaning are strongly encouraged to think about is their purpose in life. What you need to do, the author suggests, is to consider the strengths and opportunities that you possess, and how you can use them to help others. What she describes is something very to a Japanese concept we recently wrote about, called ikigai.
“No matter what occupies our days,” she writes, “when we reframe our tasks as opportunities to help others, our lives and our work feel more significant. Each of us has a circle of people — in our families, in our communities, and at work — whose lives we can improve. That’s a legacy everyone can leave behind.”
Because we spend so much of our lives at work, it’s important that you’re able to help other people, whether directly or indirectly, though your job. You should also be kind and helpful to your colleagues; Esfahani Smith suggests saying Hi to the cleaner, for example, and letting them know that they are valued.
Reframe your life story
Whether you realise it or not, you’re a story-teller. We all are. Story-telling is the way that human beings make sense of the world.
Psychologist Dan McAdam is an expert in the concept of life stories or so-called narrative identities. These are the stories that we create about ourselves and to interpret the events in our lives.
From his research, McAdam found that those who tell redemptive stories about their past — in other words, stories that transition from bad to good — tend to live more meaningful lives.
In her book, Esfahani Smith encourages readers not to dwell on mistakes they think they may have made but instead to acknowledge the positive ways in which our experiences have shaped our lives and the people we’ve become.
See the bigger picture
One of the negative consequences of the cult of individualism in western countries is that it’s made us far too focused on ourselves. We take ourselves too seriously and assume we have far more control over events than we actually do.
A useful exercise is to look up at the stars at night and realise that you are just a tiny part of an infinitely larger whole.
Esfahani Smith refers to this ability to look beyond ourselves as transcendence; others call it self-loss or ego-death. Whatever name you choose to attach to it, the author says it’s a crucial component to living a meaningful life. Why? Because it makes us feel more connected to our surroundings; psychologists have also shown it can reduce anxiety, give us a sense of peace and wellbeing, and help us come to terms with our own impermanence.
Learn from adversity
As all of us learn sooner or later that life is not a bed of roses. Everyone faces adversity, and some people far more of it than others.
“As much as we might wish,” Esfahani Smith writes, “none of us will be able to go through life without some kind of suffering. That’s why it’s crucial for us to learn to suffer well.”
Of course, going through any kind of trauma is never a comfortable experience. But, the author reminds us, it can have positive effects as well as negative. For example, it can strengthen our relationships; lead us to find new paths in life; or help us discover an inner strength we didn’t know we had.
Learning from adversity isn’t easy, but, as the author says, simply writing about our past traumas, or talking through them with other people, can help us to process them, and yes, derive some meaning from them.
If you’re struggling to lead a meaningful life, and to match your goals and values with the financial and other resources you have at your disposal, why not get not get in touch with us? It’s time to discover the life-changing benefits of proper financial planning for yourself.
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