The process of financial planning entails documenting a comprehensive statement of the short-term and long-term goals for your security and well-being. Apart from this, it also includes a savings and investing regimen that will allow you to achieve those goals. Traditional financial planning involves the following activities:

• Documenting a clear articulation of your goals.
• Recognition of risks and subsequently identifying the need and quantum of insurance.
• Detailing the rate of return and quantity of savings that is required to achieve your goals.
• Conducting a psychometric test to measure your willingness to take risks; developing a risk profile.
• Asset allocation decisions and selection of products.
• Clear paths for executing decisions to progress towards your goals.

However, when major life changing events occur – like receiving an inheritance, having to sell your business or deciding to retire – traditional financial planning must give way to financial transition planning. During periods of transition, you will most likely experience states of ambiguity, confusion and anxiety that will cause your rational long-term thinking to be replaced by emotional turbulence and inconsistent behavior. In this light, financial transition planning is a specialised advisory service that is designed to help blend unique human experiences with observable facts. This helps empower you to make the right decision and get through a difficult period of your life efficiently.

Any sound plan for financial transitions will include the following facets:

1.Organise your present status with your future needs: 

A specialised framework to get through a transition, that takes into account your present assets and future goals with respect to the nature of a transition and the implications it will have on your life. This will help you establish order and regain your balance amidst the chaos and confusion of the transition.

2.Implementation strategies during transitions: 

A good financial transition plan will include means to move forward at each stage. It will hone the decisions that empower you as an individual so that you can regain clarity of your desires and interests. The main objective of a transition plan is to ensure that you do not shift your focus from your goals even during the ambiguity and confusion of transition.

3.Refine and Rethink: 

Finally your plan should allow you to continuously refine and rethink your opportunities and decisions to better suit your dynamic personality. This will help you regain the confidence to overcome the anxiety that you might feel during a life transition.

But, just as financial planning is most efficiently undertaken by a professional financial advisor – like a certified financial planner (CFPCM) or a wealth management firm – financial transition planning is carried out most effectively by a certified financial transitionist (CeFT). As an investor, it will be in your best interest to hire a trained, experienced and CeFTertified financial transitionist to help develop a strategy for the areas that a traditional financial plan cannot cover. A transitionist is essential to ensuring you go through ‘big life moments’ smoothly, and here’s why:

1. Transitionist are certified professionals:

Transition planning involves establishing order in the chaos of big life (and financial) changes. This skill requires specialized knowledge and technical experience to be conducted effectively. Professional financial transitions are certified by a regulatory authority based on their proficiency in these traits.

• Transitionist are best equipped to handle periods of uncertainty: 

Seeking the aid of a certified financial transitionist, is essential to guide you through uncertainty of a difficult transition. They provide advice – which uniquely caters to your personality – to help manage your financial decisions and regain clarity of your thoughts and control over your goals.

• Financial Transition Planning is a complicated process:

Creating a framework for transitions, that takes into account your present assets and goals with respect to your life-changing needs during these periods, is not easy. These complex planning activities are most efficiently carried out by an experienced and certified financial transitionist who has been trained to carry them out effectively.

• Hiring a transitionist eases your mind during a transition: 

Making your way through a well defined and easily comprehensible process, can bring you peace at a time when many questions are usually left unanswered. Using this plan, a financial transitionist will ensure that you make sound financial decisions during a transition. 

• A transitionist will help you re-evaluate your circumstances:

It is possible that during periods of transition, you may have to completely reconsider your plans for the future, be it personal, professional, or financial. At this time, you may not be able to keep up with the flood of information that you need to process to make smart financial decisions. Here, the trained eye of a certified financial transitionist becomes extremely significant. They will be able to help you identify the best possible opportunities for you, during the period of your transition.

So as an investor looking to plan for that inevitable transition, hiring an experienced and certified financial transitionist is the best way to go. However, make sure that you find a transitionist whom you trust and enjoy working with. This is because transition planning is a very personal process, and you must feel comfortable at each stage.