Having a basic understanding of money management is crucial to your savings and investments. It can be overwhelming, trying to stay on top of all the avenues in which you are earning, spending and owing money. However, establishing a good mindset can be key in learning and improving. There are some relatively simple actions you can take to get away from the negative feelings and move towards a discipline of positive money mindset.
Forgive Your Past Mistakes
There may be people in this world who have never ever missed a credit card or a bill payment. They have never overspent on anything and they have never pulled from their savings for something frivolous or a bad investment. For the rest of us, (i.e. the majority of people on this planet), it’s time to forgive ourselves for being so very human. The best part of making a mistake is that you get to learn and grow.
Apologize to yourself for making whatever foolish mistake you made, empower yourself with some forgiveness, and be nice to the wiser and more mature you. You deserve that kindness.
Remember this – you are not the mistakes you make. Your self-worth is independent of your mistakes.
Understand Your Money Mindset
You may already have somewhat of a grasp on your spending and general finance mindset, but really diving deep here is going to be key. When you are tempted to spend on something that’s not budgeted, ask yourself the following questions:
- Why this?
- What will this do for me?
- Am I feeling something right now that is making me want this?
- Am I trying to distract myself?
- Is this an investment?
These types of questions will begin to form the shape of not only your habits, but your mindset around how you think about and interact with money. This is important because if you know the why’s, then you will soon learn how to spot, and stop, mistakes before they happen.
Keeping Up with Appearances
Let us let you in on a secret: everyone is doing this, and it needs to stop. The status that comes with looking wealthy and elite will be short lived once creditors start chasing you or an emergency happens in your life that wipes out your accounts. The comparisons to people who are (or seemingly are) wealthy will never end if you chase that ghost.
All you are seeing is what is presented to you, not the actual facts of that person’s financial life. Making a comparison and finding yourself lacking will drive you mad and only deepen your negative financial mindset.
Create attainable, actionable goals that make sense to you no matter how anyone else is living their life. Celebrate your wins as you knock out obstacles to get to your goal and then once you achieve one, realize how good is feels to have worked hard to get there and that you did it for yourself and no one else.
Maintain Good Habits
Establishing habits that work for your goals is going to be one of the most crucial steps in achieving your positive financial mindset. Figure out the weaknesses in your money management skills and improve on them. Have you always been interested in investing but never took any steps towards it? Get a few books on the topic and make a goal to read 30 minutes every evening until you feel confident enough to make your first investments.
Make a habit out of reviewing your expenses at least weekly until you get a good grasp on your own spending habits and learn where your weaknesses are.
Practice Being Grateful
The art of gratitude is highly overlooked and is vitally important in the positive mindset. Daily affirmations of all that you have and what you are capable of are extremely powerful tools. Write down the things in your life that make you feel gratitude and keep them near you at all times to reference when things are getting hard. The simplest practices can sometimes be the most effective.
Allegius is here with free financial education for its members, thanks to our partnership with Banzai Financial Education. Learn more about handling your finances, making investments and more at https://allegius.banzai.org/wellness. Make 2023 your most successful financial year yet!