What Is Your Financial Thermostat?

Before you can secure your financial success, you need to identify your financial thermostat - your current beliefs about money - because these beliefs might be holding you back. Often, these beliefs are ingrained in you since you were a child and you carry them into adulthood.

List down everything you've heard about money. It might be something like this:
Money doesn't grow on trees.
Money is the root of all evil.
Money doesn't buy happiness.
Making money is hard work.
Rich people become rich by stepping on other people.
...........

How many of these statement have influenced your attitude towards money? How have the beliefs influenced your behavior?

After you've identified your limiting beliefs, brainstorm for a list of new, positive beliefs to replace the negative ones. Your new beliefs might be:
Money allows me the help the needy.
I'm a money magnet. I attract money easily.
Money allows me to travel to places I've always dreamed of.
...........

One of the important success habits is to pay yourself first. Make sure you save at least 10% of your income. This sounds simple, but it's surprising how many people find that it's the hardest thing to do. Many say they'll start saving when they have extra money, but that day never comes. You can make paying yourself first easy by having a standing order to transfer money to a saving account. If you never see the money, you won't miss it.

Make a list of all your debts and work out a plan to pay them as quickly as you can. If you need help doing this, get the help. After you've paid your debt and you have a small amount of saving, you can then think of investing.

That is a story for another day.

Cultivate Success Habits

One of the important steps to become successful is to build awareness about your current habits. Do they support you in achieving your goals or are they a hindrance?

Sit down with a piece of paper and draw 2 columns. One column for your limiting habits and the other for productive habits. Be honest with yourself. You gain nothing by trying to hide your limiting habits.

Ask people who are close to you what they think are your limiting and productive habits and add them to your list.

For each limiting habit, what new habit can you replace it with that would support the achievement of your goals? Write as many as possible.

Did you know that anything that you do consistently for 13 weeks would become a permanent habit? That's right.

Decide what habits you want to cultivate within the next year (start date and end date). Prioritize which habits you want to cultivate first. Count 13 weeks from the start to the end date - this should divide the year into 4 quarters. I recommend you list 3 or 4 habits you want to cultivate in each quarter to avoid overwhelming yourself with trying to do too much.

Now that that's done, put a system in place to will support it. For example, if you want to lose weight, you might want to block 40 minutes after work 3 times a week to go to the gym. Or maybe you want to reduce the money spent on coffee by bringing a flask of coffee from home for breakfast.

I'd done my list and my support system 4 days ago. Good luck to us.

Nothing But The Truth

We must be attractive in order to attract success. People like people like themselves. That's why birds of a feather flock together.

If you want to attract people who are honest and of integrity, you must first be a person of integrity. Build a character that reflects from the inside out the type of people you want to be surrounded with.

In order to be a person of integrity, we must be true to ourselves. Telling the truth is part of building a character of integrity and being authentic. Telling the truth does not only mean you should not lie. It includes being honest and saying that you believe something is wrong or wouldn't work even if it puts you in an uncomfortable position. For example, if you see an injustice and you keep quiet and not do anything to make things right, you're just as guilty. You're not being true to yourself. You're not acting like someone of integrity.

Telling the truth includes facing the reality about yourself or your situation. You're not telling the truth and you're not being honest with yourself if you're in denial. Example: "I haven't put on weight, this dress just shrunk a bit when I did the laundry last week". Well... may be that's not the best example of denial, but I think you get it.

Now be honest with yourself. Is there anything you're not telling the truth about? Make a list and then ask yourself what you can do about it.

Honouring you agreements and commitments is also key to building character. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt let down or disappointed when someone did not keep his/her word? Other people would probably feel the same if you don't honour your agreements.

Make commitments sparingly. Think carefully about whether you have the time, energy and resources to keep your commitments. Learn to say "No". You'd probably have to say no more often. When you do commit yourself, under commit and over deliver.

I end this note with this quote:
"I don't want any yes-men around me.
I want everyone to tell me the truth
even if it costs them their jobs."
-Samuel Goldwyn