The Secret Formula To Improving Your Finances is Mindset

Let’s be honest, when it comes to personal finance…you either love it or hate it.

But in the end, it’s a major puzzle piece in the game of life. You just can’t ignore it.

You just can’t ignore it.

In this post, I want to share a different perspective on personal finance.  I’ve been studying and implementing personal finance strategies for the last 18 years and it’s been a pretty good wild ride.  Recently I realized that personal finance is more than just buying a home, being debt free, contributing to your 401(k) and all that good stuff.

It’s very much about learning and understanding how money flows in our world.  But most importantly it’s our mindset that determines how effective you are with managing your money.

But before we go any further, let’s back up to your childhood days.

As kids, we tend to model after adults that we trust.  Your first encounter with money usually happens with your parents.  You watch, learn, and adopt the way they manage their money.

Because they’re your parents.  It’s all you know!

So if you’re parents always had a scarcity mindset about money, you’ll eventually adopt the scarcity mindset as well.  Scarcity meaning there’s never enough money.  If their mindset was to make large purchases on credit and make payments, you’ll probably adopt the same mindset because that’s what you’ve witnessed growing up.  Of course, life is never linear, so there probably were times where your family needed a new fridge or a new car immediately because the old one broke down unexpectedly.  But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

And the opposite is true as well.  If you watched and experienced your parents have a prosperity mindset with their money management, then you’ll adopt that as well.  You’ve watched them donate money to charity, you’ve overhead them about saving money, or they taught you good basic money management skills.

All these things do have a significant impact on you when you’re a kid.  Because they are your parents.

Just think, how many times have you said to your friends…”…that’s what my parents used to do.”  Good or bad. So it’s important to know that your childhood encounter establishes your baseline knowledge about money management.

Decision Time

Now that you’re an adult, you need to stop and re-evaluate your mindset about personal finance.  Do you want to continue with the same mindset as your parents taught you?

Or do you want to adopt a new mindset based on who you are today.

There’s no right or wrong answer here.  It’s something that you need to decide.

I firmly believe that your mindset, goals and action will determine how effective your financial position will be as you get older.

Will your money last until you die?  That is the ultimate question.

The New Mindset

If you are like me, maybe your parents were immigrants to this country and just didn’t know how the financial system works.  They didn’t know anything about 401(K)s or IRAs, Trusts, etc.  They were just too busy trying to put food on the table and provide you with food and shelter.

So as I got older, I made the decision to start learning about personal finance.  As I started to read books and listen to various advisors, I adopted my own mindset about managing my finances.  And that mindset is to be open and willing to learn how money works and how it circulates. I knew that if I could educate myself on this topic, I would increase my chances at improving my financial position.  Today, I can still stay that I don’t know everything about personal finances, but I definitely do know a lot more than when I first started.

My Big Idea

It’s all about Your mindset, Your willingness to learn, and Your willingness to take action that will help you achieve a better personal financial position.  I can tell you that as I continue to keep my mindset open about money and learn new strategies, it has led me to broaden my circle of money influencers.

Influencers that I would have never met if I had the same mindset as my parents did.

I could go on and on about positive or having a prosperous mindset, but I think you get my point.  You need to decide which side of the fence you are going to be on.  Now, don’t get my wrong.  Just because I have an open mindset about personal finances doesn’t mean I invest in everything that comes my way.

There’s plenty of scams out there that you need to be careful of.  In fact the exact opposite has happened.  I’ve stopped calling investments outside my domain a scam.  Because not everything is truly a scam.  My approach now is to take note, research, dig a little deeper and then decide whether it’s right for me or not. I use what I’ve learned to evaluate the opportunity in front of me.  Then I decide on the action plan.  I’ll share more about this in later posts.

The Big Picture

Here’s something to remember.  In the grand scheme of life, your mindset about money and personal finance will determine whether you run out of money or not.

So choose wisely!

 

P.S. If you’re motivated to improve your money management skills, I’d like to introduce you to David Bach’s THE AUTOMATIC MILLIONAIRE.  It’s the book that started it all for me.  It’s a easy read and the strategies he has laid out are actionable.  CLICK HERE to get your copy today!