Navigating Life’s Priorities:

Merging Control and Influence with the Five Bucket System and the Power of a Statement of Financial Purpose

Life is inherently complex, demanding a balance across multiple dimensions while grappling with factors that range from those we can control to those beyond our influence. Strategos Group’s approach to holistic planning emphasizes clarity, structure, and proactive strategies. One effective way to conceptualize this balance is by combining two powerful frameworks: the Five Bucket System and the three categories of control, while anchoring all decisions with a Statement of Financial Purpose.

A Statement of Financial Purpose acts as your guiding principle for financial decisions, aligning your monetary goals with deeper personal values. Integrating this statement into each bucket provides consistency, motivation, and clarity, ensuring that your actions are driven by purpose rather than impulse.

The Frameworks

System 1 involves breaking life into three categories:

1. Things you can control

2. Things you can't control

3. Things you can influence

System 2 segments life into five buckets:

1. Finances

2. Friends and Family

3. Work

4. Health

5. Community

Combining these systems and incorporating the Statement of Financial Purpose into each bucket helps prioritize efforts and focus energy efficiently while staying true to your overarching goals.

1. Finances

• Things You Can Control: Personal budgeting, spending habits, saving strategies, and investment choices. By adopting strategic financial planning and ensuring each action aligns with your Statement of Financial Purpose, you can shape financial stability.

• Things You Can’t Control: Market fluctuations, economic downturns, changes in tax laws, or unexpected expenses. Accepting these uncertainties with the reassurance that your core financial purpose is intact helps maintain perspective.

• Things You Can Influence: Career trajectory and earning potential through skill-building, negotiating raises, and networking. You can also influence the financial habits of dependents through education and planning. Reinforce how these steps support your financial purpose, ensuring each decision ties back to your larger objectives.

2. Friends and Family

• Things You Can Control: Your behavior, communication style, and time dedicated to nurturing relationships. Aligning time spent and financial support provided to family with your Statement of Financial Purpose ensures resources are directed towards shared values, such as planning for family vacations or supporting educational opportunities.

• Things You Can’t Control: The actions, decisions, and emotional responses of others. Remember that the purpose-driven approach in your financial life allows you to be more flexible when unexpected events occur.

• Things You Can Influence: The dynamics of relationships through empathy, positive reinforcement, and fostering an open environment for dialogue. Influence can also come through modeling financial responsibility and transparency in family discussions, linking it to your broader financial values.

3. Work

• Things You Can Control: Your work ethic, professional development, time management, and adaptability. Knowing your Statement of Financial Purpose helps guide career choices that align with your values, ensuring that the work you do contributes meaningfully to your financial and life goals.

• Things You Can’t Control: Company policies, economic factors impacting your industry, or management decisions. Having a defined financial purpose helps buffer against these uncontrollable elements, providing a constant when navigating career shifts.

• Things You Can Influence: Team collaboration, advocating for projects, and creating a positive work culture. Leveraging your financial purpose in professional discussions—such as focusing on roles or tasks that align with your values and bring long-term stability—reinforces a sense of fulfillment.

4. Health

• Things You Can Control: Lifestyle choices like diet, exercise routines, sleep hygiene, and stress management. Investing in your health should reflect your Statement of Financial Purpose, emphasizing that health expenditures are investments in longevity and quality of life.

• Things You Can’t Control: Genetic predispositions, unforeseen illnesses, or accidents. Financial resilience built around your core purpose ensures that even when health events occur, your financial response remains aligned with your values.

• Things You Can Influence: Health awareness and preventive care by scheduling regular check-ups and influencing others to adopt healthier habits. Integrate your purpose by allocating funds to activities that promote well-being, knowing that these align with your overall goals.

5. Community

• Things You Can Control: Your level of engagement, such as volunteering, participating in local events, or contributing to community projects. Use your Statement of Financial Purpose to direct how you allocate resources—whether time or money—toward causes that resonate with your values.

• Things You Can’t Control: Broader societal trends, government policies, or community-wide decisions. Your purpose can serve as an anchor when external changes arise, helping you remain focused on long-term, value-driven contributions.

• Things You Can Influence: Advocacy for causes, supporting local businesses, and contributing to community discussions. Utilize your financial purpose to guide charitable donations or community involvement, ensuring that your influence and resources are channeled effectively.

The Power of the Statement of Financial Purpose

Applying a Statement of Financial Purpose throughout these combined systems adds a layer of intentionality and resilience. This statement acts as a compass, directing not just financial decisions but how you prioritize efforts across all areas of life. It helps maintain balance, resilience, and forward momentum, crucial elements in both personal development and comprehensive financial planning.

Aligning daily choices and financial decisions with your guiding purpose means that even amidst uncontrollable challenges, your broader vision remains clear. The result? A well-rounded, purpose-driven life where each bucket is managed not only with clarity but with deep personal significance.