Your financial life determines where you live, the job, car, clothes you do or don’t have, the education available to you, the entertainment and stores you can/can‘t access, etc. As your appreciation for the relationship between your financial life and your overall quality of life expands do you feel excited and empowered to make friends with it or overwhelmed and incapacitated by the very thought of doing so?
Negative thinking produces negative outcomes; if your finances are a source of fear, stress and worry it’s most likely because you haven’t made friends with your financial life.
In these (and in most) economic times there is no shortage of financial uncertainty which too often makes avoidance of all things financial seem like a good choice. Unfortunately, avoidance only leads to a greater misunderstanding of what money management is and why it matters and to increased financial problems such as foreclosure, bankruptcy, credit card and student debt plus countless other social and financial problems.
How exactly do you think you begin to make friends with your money? If you answered by spending less, saving more, making more, starting an emergency fund or anything else having to do specifically with dollars and cents you would be wrong.
The practicality of money management is certainly relevant but unfortunately it is also what drives the financial life disconnect for so many men and women. So where does that leave you?
The first three steps to making friends with your financial life are to:
- Make a clear and conscious choice to do so. All change is grounded in individual, emotional and personal choice. If you believe you have no choice in this you are wrong because everyone has choices. If the choices you have aren’t the choices you want then it is important to begin to make better choices today that will allow you to have more choices tomorrow.
- In twenty-five words or less explain the benefits of making this choice. This can be in paragraph form or in list format.
- Identify three to five specific actions you will to take to achieve the benefits you identified in step #2.
Taking these three steps will create a new awareness of your financial life and start you on the road to making friends with it.
In Thursday’s blog we will share More Steps to Making Friends with YOUR Financial Life
