Critical thinking as a sound practice enables problems to be approached in a consistent, logical and thorough manner. When critical thinking is applied to the various facets of life, it maximises the efficiency, solution and benefit for the critical thinker. On the contrary, when poor techniques are utilised in the thought formation and decision-making process, the outcomes can lead to chaos, sub-standard outcomes and unintended consequences for the parties affected.
To ensure that critical thinking is developed, it is vital for one to become a critic of one’s own thoughts and the processes underpinning them. The art of learning to think critically, and focusing on developing this key skill, is emphasized at MiPlan in creating both a financial plan that matches your future income needs to the key decision – how best to allocate your investments – and how we manage these assets. Important questions are asked in the thought formation process and the team is continually seeking methods to improve upon this.
It is vital for thoughts to remain clear, to the point, reasonable and thoroughly probed when the complexity of the investment decision is tackled. This tactic is essential in the construction of a concise and conscientious investment process, which aids in generating consistency in the investment outcome.
The sub-standard product stemming from poor logical reasoning deters from adequately managing future wealth and thus MiPlan is guided by the art of critical thinking instead. Risk moderation is essential and is a by-product of critical thinking, as conscientious and thorough analysis avoids the otherwise chaotic outcome, the by-product of poor logical reasoning.
At MiPlan we encourage our investors and clients to apply the art of critical thinking, which often involves emerging from the comfort zone and asking the difficult questions and challenging your thoughts and methods.
This is vital when embarking on a process which is aimed at generating positive consequences and maximising the potential outcomes. The art of critical thinking should be sought after and nurtured so that disciplined thinking emerges and becomes an embedded habit for positive decision-making and well-rounded conclusions. To this end, MiPlan provides its financial planning partners with our MI-PLAN financial planning software which adopts an all-encompassing view of an individual’s wealth, income, and lifestyle over time and under multiple scenarios to give financial advisers the ability to create personalised, dynamic, and time-dependent risk budgets for all asset classes and funds over an individual’s lifetime to bring about more certain financial outcomes for their clients.
In contrast, most solutions ask you to assess your appetite for risk based on a questionnaire or some test that attempts to evaluate your tolerance of risk. Some of these approaches, whilst well-meaning, are fundamentally flawed in that they fail to inform you of the key benefit associated with risk diversification over time. MI-PLAN applies financial intelligence through its time-based risk management process and spends no time assessing the client’s emotions to risk. Being too conservative can be far more damaging to your financial plan than you may imagine.