Planning…

Photo by Smint75

The Aussie Perspective

With Sandy Dingwall

Remember the good old days?

Those years when you went to primary school, hung around with your mates, did what you parents told you to do, went to high school, thought about what you wanted to do; there were a few choices back then. Would you go to University or would you go to Tech School, would you pursue a career or a trade? Or, hey, what if you wanted to bum for a while and take a year long travel hiatus then come back and get a job… it was all possible. There wasn’t much planning involved.   If your plans didn’t pan out how you envisioned them, you could always do something else. You could come back, get a job, know it was yours for a lengthy period of time, (usually when you decided to move on), get married, buy a house, have some kids etc, etc.. Goodness, back then, our parents lived in the same house for years.

What about in today’s world?

While there are always going to be changes, there has been a massive change in the loyalty, reliability and possibility of the job market. There are a plethora of choices for what you can actually do, but there is also a tenuous nature to the actual chance of securing one of those desired positions. What about company loyalty? No one in the present day can expect either employer or employee to maintain allegiance under all circumstances. Businesses are downsizing; companies are all the more aware of keeping the profit margins – at all costs. Governments are finally seeing sense in running their public service like a private enterprise, but it means the abundance of government jobs is waning, and are not as secure a tenure as in the past. Every aspect of life, from our education system, to training and university, to financial planning and asset building, to superannuation and health and well-being is changing.

Truly exciting times now and on the horizon

No doom and gloom here.  In fact, it’s the opposite!  The planning of the past, with a reasonable level of reliability in the outcome, is no longer a given. The paths are wider and there are a lot more of them. Creativity is key in either finding the career you want or designing your own income stream. Of course this means more and more people have the opportunity to find their real passion, to do what they love to do.

It’s also about dropping the shackles of expectation; expectation of past generations. It is about being freer and more malleable. It’s about debt reduction and loosening materialistic expectations so that the true planning can flourish. Not old school planning, not what our mothers and fathers did. I am sure that the upcoming generations would be reading this and saying, yeah really, we already know this. But those of us sitting halfway between the transitions are not that smooth. Do we have kids, how many do we have, do we get married, do we buy a house, will we want to stay in the same place for years, how many careers will we have in a lifetime? I am not sure that these questions can be asked and expect the responses to be the same as they were in the past few generations, or expect that they should be.

So while the landscape is changing, and the horizon looks a little foggy in the distance, remember, it’s still there. We simply need to have faith, be passionate and true to ourselves and construct plans that belong to each of us, not because it’s what has been done before. Planning is an important part of this life journey and, yes, there are probably tough questions you need to ask yourself in order to develop that blueprint, but the opportunities and possibilities are endless and exciting.

How does your future look?

• Be creative.
• Be honest with yourself and start drafting your plan.
• Set your intentions and climb aboard, the future looks bright!