National Recommitment Month: Reflecting on Your Estate Planning Resolutions

May is National Recommitment Month—a unique event you may not have heard of, but one that has some serious value nonetheless. It’s a month aimed at giving us a chance to revisit our plans, hopes and commitments in an effort to get back on the right track if we’ve strayed along the way. For many of us, this may mean taking a closer look at the estate planning resolutions we made almost six months ago.

If this sounds like you, this could be time for a positive change! We’re looking at a few smart ways to reflect on your plans and, if necessary, make new ones to follow through on in the months ahead.

Rethink your relationships

Since you first committed to drafting your estate plan, have any of your relationships changed? While legal changes such as marriages and divorces will obviously warrant a chance in your estate plan, less concrete changes might be reason for a reconsideration, too. Do you still want the first person you appointed as your healthcare surrogate to retain that role, for example, or do you want to shift that responsibility? This Recommitment Month, it’s important to keep your commitments—but it’s equally important to recognize when a legal commitment you made just won’t work.

Evaluate changes in health or circumstance

Changes in your personal health or life circumstance will also warrant estate planning action. If your health has changed, for instance, you may want to get back to your estate plan and specify actions you want (or don’t want) taken later on. Similarly, if you’ve come into a large amount of money through career or inheritance, these changes will prompt you to reconsider and recommit to a firm, updated estate plan.

Understand what’s been holding you back

If there are reasons you have kept yourself from committing to an estate plan, what are they? Explore the answer to this question to tackle the issue and finally commit to an estate plan that works for you and your family.

Planning for difficult, unexpected events is never easy—but by understanding this and moving ahead anyway, you and your family will be all the better for it.

We hope that today’s blog provides you with the information needed to get started on your estate planning process. While it may not seem like a pivotal move now, drafting your first plan may be one of the best things you do this month!