These days I am experiencing Art of living Course part 1. One of my friends enrolled me into the course which is for 5 days where the teacher let you experience some yog asanas and also a powerful breathing technique with the name “Sudarshan Kriya”. I am generally reluctant to attend such sessions but believe my words it’s been just 2 days and now I feel that I should attend more and more courses and should explore more.
And you know what has made me write this article towards this art of living course, the similarity of Art of living preaching with the financial planning advises and Good Moneying thought process. Well, I believe that all good things/activities which help you lead a good, stress free, progressive and powerful life has the same inherent advice and comes in almost the same package. Accept the life as it is, Work towards your future but live in Present, Give your 100%, be focused, be disciplined, be happy, be healthy etc. Yesterday was day 2 of my Art of Living session, and they had a discussion on “Mind”. My today’s sharing is on those advices and similarities it has with financial planning.
1. Happiness and Sadness are inseparable. There’s nothing called as opposite to each other. Everything which seems to be opposite is actually complimenting each other. You cannot enjoy one thing if you have not experienced the other. So accept the life with open hands and handle the situation as it is. Learn to recognize happiness in your life which can turn into sadness if not handled carefully. Both are state of mind.
Same way Gain and Loss or Safety and Risk compliments each other. You have to accept both. When you are looking for some investment which can generate you good returns then you should also be alive to the Risk portion in that instrument and should understand the potential losses in that. If high returns can bring happiness, then you should also accept high losses which may bring sadness. The main thing is when you are in profit, how you handle it. Do proper asset allocation.
2. Live in Present and work towards your future : Past is gone, you should not keep on cribbing about it , future is uncertain and you can’t be sure on how it is going to be like. So better to learn from the past, live in present to improve your future. Try to be happy in this moment. But you have to define happiness. You should know what makes you happy and what you need to do to make yourself happy.
In Financial planning also the main goal is to keep your finances happy. The money should get the respect it deserves without compromising on your Current lifestyle, so you stay happy. Also it may, If necessary tweak upon some areas of your personal finance to increase the overall financial happiness. In reality Financial planning brings your future into present and encourages you to define every step and goal that makes you happy and design a structure to achieve those goals, and thus allows you to enjoy the journey.
“The Art of Living Lies in eliminating your troubles then in growing with them” – Bernard baruch
3. Whatever you do give your 100%: This is one of the very important learning I had from Art of Living course. You should not regret later that had you done that thing at that time, your life or experience would have been better. Either you accept it to full or ignore it completely, but whatever you are doing give your 100% to it. You can only do efforts and results are not in your hand.
Financial Planning gives you a holistic view of your personal financial life and Planner will advise on each and every aspect of your personal finances which matters to help you reach your financial and life goals. But following it in bits and pieces may not result what was expected. Concentrating only on savings or investments but ignoring insurances may prove to be risky, worrying about increase in income and not working upon reducing expenses will only increase tension. In financial planning to derive the actual benefit you have to follow it 100%.
I don’t know how the next 3 days of this Art of Living Course be like, but yes the last 2 days experience was awesome. And I recommend those who are following art of living sessions that if you apply and follow those teachings on your personal finance your financial planning is almost done. And to others, go and experience any one of Art of Living Sessions to learn basics of Financial Planning.
