Winging it: Why 'vision' is crucial to your financial plan

A few weeks ago, I went to see the comedian Romesh Ranganathan. He was performing in front of a much smaller audience than he’s probably used to.

‘Hello Aylesbury!’ not ‘Hello Wembley!’

It was one of those gigs where the comedian tests out new material to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s the type of show where we saw him pause to make notes, happily circling the best jokes and furiously crossing out the ones that didn’t land. (With a warning to the audience that if we came to see the actual tour those jokes might still be in it. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘I think I know more about comedy than you’!)

When a joke has the crowd in stitches, it’s satisfying to know that you’re one of the first to hear it. There’s something reassuring about seeing the funniest people on TV at their most down-to-earth and vulnerable. They’re winging their way through life just like the rest of us. 

But how far will winging it get us? And when do we need to stop flying by the seat of our pants and put a plan in place?

Winging it works… until it doesn’t

In 2021, Boris Johnson was criticised for losing his place during a speech. He apologised and flicked through a series of notes on his desk, before telling an anecdote about a recent trip to Peppa Pig World. 

Perhaps most people are winging it at work, in one way or another. The number of workers choosing to ‘quiet quit’ unfulfilling jobs has risen since the pandemic, according to the London School of Economics. Instead of handing in their notice and finding a new role, they’re coasting their way through their careers and hoping to not get caught. 

Other white collar workers are juggling more than one full-time job at once, keeping each role a secret from their other employers and enjoying more than one salary in the process. 

Not only are people winging their way through their careers, the same can be said for our finances. One in six over 55s have no money saved for retirement, according to research from Unbiased. Meanwhile, half of UK adults do not have a will and 63% of Brits don’t have life insurance. 

There are many reasons why Brits might be financially unprepared, from the cost-of-living crisis to societal pressure to tackle several goals at once. It can be hard to save for retirement when you’re also buying a house, planning your dream wedding, and having kids. Similarly, it can be hard to spend the time or money to enjoy your retirement when you’re also trying to support your grown-up children, help with the school run, care for your parents, and have an eye on the possibility of your own long-term care. The challenges never go away, they just change.

When working with clients struggling to ‘do it all’, I often find that they lack a specific vision for the future. Only when they get clear about what they actually want in life, can they move forward in a meaningful way. 

Finding your vision

When you want to start a new chapter, or make sure that you are making real progress along the way, a clearly defined end goal is just the first step to creating a good financial plan.

“Find your vision and follow it,” Arnold Schwarzenegger once said. “If you don’t have a goal, if you don’t have a vision, you’ll just drift around.”

Arnie dispensed this advice as part of a 2014 motivational speech on the secrets of success. Growing up in Austria after the Second World War, he was desperate to move to America. He said: “I knew exactly that is where I wanted to end up. The question was just how do I get there? How do I get to America?”

It was only when he spotted bodybuilder Reg Park aka ‘Mr Universe’ on the front of a magazine that his vision turned into a plan. Born in Leeds, Park trained for 5 hours a day to become Mr. Great Britain, then Mr. Universe, before eventually landing the role of Hercules and starring in a number of other movies. 

Schwarzenegger explained: “From that moment on, everything that I did, no matter how hard I had to work or how much I had to struggle, it didn’t matter ’cause I knew what the purpose was and I found my passion. Always discover your vision and the rest will follow.”

When creating a financial plan for a client, I’ll spend a surprising amount of time on ‘vision finding’ activities. 

It all starts not with a fact find and a spreadsheet, but rather a blank sheet of paper and a conversation designed to identify the client’s hopes, dreams and fears. How did they get here, and where are they going? What do they want to do with their life? What have they achieved already? What are they most afraid of? I don’t expect clients to answer these questions on the spot, but it’s crucial that we explore these personal topics before taking action.

Creating your plan

Once we’ve identified your vision, it becomes so much easier to actually build a personal and comprehensive financial plan. I’ll create a road map showing that you can get from A to B, as long as you follow the necessary steps. 

When you wing it, not only do you lack a plan, you lack a backup plan too. With my help you’ll have a Plan B and maybe even a Plan C and Plan D, too. 

In 2019, few people could see the pandemic coming. Regardless, the best advisers will have had plans in place to protect their clients from financial shocks. They didn’t know what was coming, but they knew something could throw their clients’ plans off course eventually.

Once you’ve got a plan in place, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Even if you’re behind on your retirement savings or you’re in a lot of debt, you’re still in a better place than you were when you were winging it.