Fearless Living: Moving Forward Financially

This post is part of the Fearless Living Series, whose posts serve to spotlight areas of your life where fear may be holding you back and to motivate you to find a plan to use in squelching that fear. As long as fear hinders or motivates you, Taking Care Of You will not be a priority in your life.

As Leo Babauta of Zen Habits said so well, "When you take action on a problem, it’s not so bad — it’s just a series of steps you need to take to solve the problem...The plan will kill the fear. It is taking something that is scary and unknown, and turning it into something concrete, solvable, doable."

Fear is such a life drainer. Do not give your power over to fear. Instead, use that fear as a catalyst to prompt you into action. Are you ready to take your power back and experience Taking Care Of You through fearless living?

Doing Anything Is Better Than Nothing
Something I've heard before keeps coming to mind: If we keep doing what we're doing, we'll keep getting what we've got. I don't know if the attribution I found was correct but I'm sure you might have heard something similar before. It's a simple statement that serves to remind us that action produces results.

What results are your current actions producing?

• Are you just getting by?
• Are you feeling so overwhelmed that you ignore every chance that comes up allowing you to proceed down a different financial path?
• Are you working a plan that is working well for you?
• Are you afraid?
  

Ah, there's the truth; fear stops you from taking action on handling your finances. Each of us will not share the exact same fear, however, most of us live with some sort of fear about money. Do you fear not having enough? Or fear that you can't recover from the mismanagement you've done to date? Is your fear that you should be doing better managing your investments? Or fear the responsibility of managing it at all?

The Only Thing Stopping You Is You
For every contradiction that you could provide to that statement, I could counter each one. However, it would be a useless exercise because each stems from that same belief; the only thing stopping you from moving forward financially is you.

For example, here are a few common thoughts we use as roadblocks:

• Waiting for "the right time"...No such thing exists.
• Worrying about the perceptions of others...You are only responsible for yourself and accountable to yourself.
• Life is unfair...Life is just biology; you are the one that defines it in any other way.

I could go on but have you gotten my drift? It's all in the way you look at it. The way you perceive things becomes the way things are, in your mind. Why not look at things with a positive spin?

What Do I Mean By Moving Forward Financially?
Just that. When it comes to your finances, there is no looking back at the job choices you've made, the money you've spent, etc. It's all past tense; there isn't anything you can do to change them. What you do have the ability to change is from today going forward.

Your top priority is to appreciate who you were, realize that the choices you made were the best you could do at the time and forgive yourself. Although looking back may feel like you are moving backwards, you are not. You are simply showing yourself love, patience and grace. This step is to sweep aside all of that past stuff and prepare yourself for moving forward. Do not keep rehashing the past because that will not, I repeat not, ever move you forward.

The present is all you need concern yourself with and this "in the moment thinking" will make you unstoppable, if you allow it.

Think about it. If you move forward with the thoughts and feelings of love for yourself and the positive feelings of excitement towards where you are heading, why would you even want to create those roadblocks? Instead, you will more likely only see bumps that might need a little navigating to get over, under or around but will never block you.

Find Your Plan and Move Forward
Where you go from here is up to you. What is your plan? Are you going to ease into this change through a babystep approach by choosing a small first step to work on and proceed slowly from there? Are you going to create a megalist of everything that needs changing and start working down the list? Maybe you're somewhere in the middle. Regardless, as long as you realize that the only "must do" is to move forward, you will be successful.

After deciding on your basic strategy, do your research and look at the numerous methods for acquiring, saving and spending money. Find the financial strategy that does work for you---that motivates you, utilizes your strengths, does not work against you, etc.--and move forward on it!

If you give it some time and find that the strategy you are pursing does not suit you as well as you'd thought, repeat the process. Life is not stagnant. It has an ebb and flow; a changing of seasons. A plan that is not working for you is a signal for a new season to begin. Recognize it and continue to move forward.

Until next time...Take Care Of You!

Photo Credit: Fear In The Eye
Photo Credit: Dollar Sign In Eye

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