Life is much easier when you are good with your money. Personal finance may be personal, but some fundamental ideas are general. Like everyone has, many people make good decisions and some not so good with their money.
lack of financial discipline will always make you struggle with money, even if you make Million or Billions a year.
Being disciplined about your money can be exceedingly difficult. More so, in today’s disruptive world where it’s very much easy to buy new things at any place and hour of the day.
Becoming good with your money is not always easy, but it’s necessary if you really want to achieve your financial goals.
Anyone can develop financial discipline, try these clever ways to stay disciplined and achieve your Financial goals.
see also: Money, Spending & Saving: 3 Important Concepts of National Income that every Household Consumer should understand.
Put your ideas on paper and draw your path
One of the big questions to shed light on is whether you have a financial dream or a financial goal. A financial dream is something you hope for and a financial goal is something you have planned for.
It’s the planning and not the hoping that makes you become good with your money.
When planning about the financial goal you want to achieve, the first thing to do is to brainstorm and generate ideas. Put down all your ideas on paper.
This process is primarily used for capturing thoughts and exploring ideas.
The second thing to do is to draw your path on the ideas that you have come up with and look for the best paths and processes to achieve your financial goal.
The best way to do it is to be honest to yourself and be clear how much money you’re going to make and how much you’re going to spend or save.
For example, if your goal is to make x amount of money in x amount of time; Focus on it and write it down as a promise, sign and date it. That should be the major focus of your life to get it done.
Build a system and make it a habit
In “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big”, author Scott Adams explains: “A system is something you do on a regular basis that achieves your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system.’’
Self-discipline can seem difficult, but it can be simplified to one simple concept of automating your process; building a system and making it a daily habit.
you can design a system that makes it much easier to achieve your financial goals. it’s the foundation for making consistent progress in many financial endeavors.
When building the system, you should design a system that will give you predictability, efficiency and the one that creates leverage on achieving your financial goals.
A good system will make your financial goal real. It will get you moving. It helps you focus on long-term gains, instead of short-term wins.
Love the process and not the goal
Naturally, it’s easy to talk about the importance of sincerity and commitment in our goals, even so these financial goals become especially difficult to attain given the fabricated ways we associate ourselves with our money.
Most people want to be disciplined with their finances, they want to become good at making, spending and even saving or investing, but focusing merely on being great is missing the mark. The process is the real deal; the prize.
Along the way you should ask yourself the following questions: How bad do you really want to achieve your financial goals? Will you begin the process? Will you stick with it long enough to give yourself a chance to fall in love with it?
That love we have for our money is perhaps one of the most important aspects of achieving our financial goals. The love, not the goal but for the process that lets us find what we are after, what’s inside of us, it reminds us why we really need to be financially free, to create freedom for ourselves.
Achieving your goals should not be the main purpose in life. Your purpose is to be happy and fulfilled. The process you use to achieve your financial goals should be chosen wisely because they are your inspiration to keep moving forward.
Focus on your mission and not others
Staying focused is one of the most important skills in life to achieve your financial goals or dreams. In the world we live in today, there are tons of things lying in wait to distract you from your ultimate goal.
With innumerable possibilities, new opportunities and receiving contradictory advice, it can be onerous for many people to stay focused on their financial mission.
Real emergencies will come up and you have to deal with them. Majority of the circumstances that do come up to distract you are not emergencies and do not require you to respond immediately. Many of these situations will sort-out themselves on their own with time.
People you positively connect or associate with in your lives can offer you inspiration, but at the same time, they can also create unrealistic expectations, which can create more stress than inspiration.
These are the times when you need a tool to help you persevere and stay connected to your goals. When it gets tough to keep going, you need that magic tool to help you. That “tool” is a mission.
The key to success in achieving your financial goals is directly related to your emotional connection to your money.
If you don’t have a clear understanding of why you want to be financially free, then it will be easier to get off track, lose motivation and perhaps even lose the enjoyment that drew you to the goal.
Get a mentor
As Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
Mentoring is important, not only because of the knowledge and skills you can acquire from your mentor, but also because mentoring provides professional socialization and personal support to facilitate success in your life and beyond.
Mentors have a way of seeing more of your faults that you would like. They will always be brutally honest with you and tell you exactly how you are supposed to go about rather than downplay any weaknesses they see in you.
In order for you to experience the full benefits of mentorship, you must also be aware of your own role as a mentee.
Become an active listener and learner and be open and respectful of their advice, feedback, and those hard conversations you may have every so often.
Key takeaway
While success demands many things from us, willpower and determination always come up at the top of the list.