A financial planner is like a fitness coach for your finances.

Have you ever wondered what a financial planner can do for you? 

You’re not alone. Many people, especially millennials, misunderstand the benefits of working with a financial planner. The first mistake is thinking that you need to be wealthy to work with a financial planner. That may have been true in the past, but not anymore. There’s a revolution in the financial planning profession being led by millennial advisors who are focused on helping their peers achieve wealth rather than wait until you’re wealthy. 

I love fitness and most people understand how they could benefit from a personal trainer, so I like to compare the two when explaining how one can benefit from a financial planner. So let’s dive into a few of the basic similarities between a financial planner and a fitness coach.

Goal Setting

Fitness Coach: Takes the time to understand the client’s goals and motivation for hiring them. Are they looking to lose weight, build muscle, or just be a healthier individual?

Financial Planner: It’s impossible to work with a client as a financial planner without understanding their financial goals. You may come to a financial planner not knowing what your financial goals are, but it is our job to walk you through exercises to better understand what your vision and core values are. You might want to start a business, start a family, pay down debt, or simple save for retirement. The reality is that you’re most likely going to have many goals competing with your financial resources and a financial planner will help you prioritize and balance them.

Start With The Basics: Emergency Fund = Proper Form

Fitness Coach: Educates their clients on basic form and safety of the exercise they’ll be assigning. They make sure their clients have mastered the basics before moving on to more complex workouts.

Financial Planner: It’s important to start with the basics and set a foundation. The equivalent to proper form in personal finances is establishing a sufficient emergency fund, reducing consumer debt, and identifying your savings rate. This will look different for every client depending on their personal circumstances, risk tolerance, job security, etc. but it’s common for clients to try to skip this step. Apparently an emergency fund is less sexy than investing! However, the basics are what you can actually control and are important for long term success. Like improper form could lead to long term injury, an insufficient emergency fund, excessive debt, and low savings rate could derail an entire financial plan at the first sign of an obstacle.

Tracking: Cash Flow = Nutrition

Fitness Coach: Tracking nutrition is a key aspect to understanding what’s going into your body. Adjusting your calorie consumption is one of the most important metrics towards reaching your fitness goals. It’s trackable and within your control.

Financial Planner: Abs are also made in the spreadsheets…okay, maybe tracking cash flow isn’t exactly like tracking calories! But it is very similar. You need to have an understanding of your income and expenses to figure out where you can improve. The best way to do that is monitor what’s coming in and out of your bank account, credit cards, etc. It’s easy for money to “vanish” and not realize where it is going, but once you start monitoring the outflows you can get intentional about how you spend and align it with your values. 

Accountability: Habits = Long Term Consistency

Fitness Coach: A coach understands that emphasizing daily movement, calorie goals, and a healthy relationship with food will foster daily habits that lead to long-term success on a fitness journey. They will hold you accountable to hitting those daily goals.

Financial Planner: We’re looking to improve your habits and create long-term change that allows you to succeed financially with or without me on your side. The great thing about focusing on habits, is that over time you will also see a shift in your mindset. We can anticipate the impact it’s going to have on your net worth in the long term by monitoring savings rates and confronting spending habits. Sometimes we all need a little kick in the a** to get going and it’s our job to make sure you’re following the plan. Once you start accumulating those small wins you will create momentum.

We’re aware that you can do it yourself!

Uh oh. The elephant in the room..

Fitness Coach: They are aware that you could choose to do it on your own. You could go to the gym without a coach, you could Youtube how-to videos, or utilize thousands of other free exercise options. Not everyone needs a coach.

Financial Planner: We’re also aware that anyone can do this on their own if they want to! Some individuals are passionate about personal finances and others would rather not think about it ever. It takes a lot of time and energy to perform the necessary research and stay up to date with constantly changing tax laws and other rule changes. Not to mention, it’s nearly impossible to put your emotions and biases aside to look at your financial plan objectively.

We know it’s not rocket science! You can definitely do both on your own, but you will go farther when you hire an expert to be on your side. Schedule a free, introductory call with us to learn more about he could work together.

Disclaimer: This blog shouldn’t be considered advice, or recommendations. If you have questions pertaining to your individual situation you should consult your financial advisor.