It's Been There All Along

If you do what you’ve always done, you will get the results that you’ve always gotten. BUT…..if you do something different you just may stumble upon a long awaited solution. I am talking about how we handle our money. Consistency is great. In fact it is necessary in order to carry out any real change anywhere in your financial life. However without reflection, the results you get for your consistency may be limited. As our lives change we tend to do things differently to accommodate these changes, except when it comes to our money. For some reason when it comes to money, what we have learned as children and what worked for us as teenagers and the habits we picked up as twenty-five year olds stick with us long into old age. We change, our lives change, even the people in them change, but how we handle money many times does not seem to change. 

 

Even good financial habits still need to be examined from time to time. We still need to take inventory of what we have, where we are and where we are trying to go financially. That is how we grow. Repetition without reflection can lead to disappointment and lack. For example, let’s say your friend Grace realized at 25 years old that she needed an emergency fund. So she started putting $50 aside per week for that purpose. Great! She has been blessed to have few emergencies and now she is 29 years old with about $10,000 in her emergency fund. So where does the disappointment and lack enter the picture? Well Grace is only saving which was great at 25. However at 29 she is not focusing on cleaning up her credit or paying down her college debt or setting aside some of that cash for a down payment on a home. That means that her dream of home ownership may stay a dream or be deferred. Now comes disappointment and lack. Grace is disappointed because after all that hard work and discipline she still didn’t get what she really wanted and she lacks the right financial equation to equal home ownership.

 

Reflection does two very important things. It helps to keep you on track with your goals and helps you to balance your spending based on your greatest life needs and wants. Reflection helps to keep you on the road to abundance.

 

The definition of Abundance is “a great or plentiful amount; fullness to overflowing and affluence, wealth.” However most of us believe that in order to have more we must earn more, not so. In order to have more we must successfully manage the money coming in, for example our paychecks. You have the ability to live a more abundant life right where you are by becoming mindful of how you use your money. Saving is one slice but it is not the whole pie. You have to decide on where you want to go in your life.  You must know in your heart and mind what abundance will look like in your life. Only then you go about financially planning for it. You money is the gas to get you where you need to go so you have to have a direction.

 

 

You can have more by thinking ahead, prioritizing and cutting the fat from your financial diet. If you don’t have a budget, develop one. If you already have one, look it over to make sure it is still meeting your needs and helping you to meet your goals. But the very first thing you need to do is pick a direction for your abundant life to take. Only then can you plan out how to pay for it.

 

Tanai M. Coleman

Your Money Is A Tool. Are You Using It Wisely?