Starting on this journey though can take a lot of courage. Many find themselves stopping and starting for a while. However, this year you have decided that to achieve your big time goals you need to increase your financial fitness permanently!
You know you need to take action but not sure where to start. Sustainable long term financial fitness requires a mindful and a practical approach. Otherwise you will forever go round in circles.
To start building financial courage, let’s look at courage first. It is interesting to note that courage can be explained 3 ways – Courage generally is the ability and willingness to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death, or threat of death. Moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal or discouragement. (source: Wikipedia)
I included all three because some people do indeed suffer physically as well as mentally due to the stresses and anxieties that occur around money.
Let’s get cracking with 8 ways to help build your financial courage:
- Take your time but don’t take forever – Build your courage and confidence slowly. Smaller bite size goals are crucial. Jot down all your initial thoughts about where you might start no matter how ridiculous or how small you might think they are and start with the smallest.
- Raise your consciousness – Listen to the words you use around money and finances when you are thinking of your resolutions, goals and dreams – are they positive or negative, restraining or encouraging? Take a note of the words you use and where necessary reframe them so they are supportive and encouraging.
- Connect with other courageous and positive people – Borrow and share courage and inspiration from others – This TED talk is a great example http://http://www.ted.com/talks/diana_nyad_never_ever_give_up.html
- Disconnect – Actively disconnect from those (people, media or internet articles) who are discouraging and/or negative.
- Team up – Open discussion rapidly increases your consciousness and increases your understanding and creates more opportunities. A place for mutual encouragement to strive, to acknowledge that you might trip over here and there and repeat something but then to acknowledge and explore how to move on in the right direction, is priceless!
- Choose to always take action – Successes and failures – We have all stuffed up something somewhere and yes “failed”. You only really fail when stop so keep looking for ways to succeed.
- Knowledge gives you the edge – Courage can be built up by reducing your fear. The best place to start is to build your knowledge.
- Seek a mentor – It is fabulous having some on your team to help generate that extra motivation! A mentor is someone often with more experience, loves to see other people succeed, listens, is supportive and encouraging. Importantly doesn’t just agree and challenges your thinking to encourage you to grow.
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