The secret that all financially successful people know
Q My financial life isn’t going quite the way I’d like. It’s not really my fault because life threw me a bunch of curveballs, all at the same time. My 2022 income taxes and my house insurance are both due on April 30. And just my luck, my truck needs a new muffler system and my employer recently reduced my work hours because his business has slowed. The timing is bad because I spent thousands of dollars on my recent winter vacation and it’s taking me months to pay off my credit card. All my friends and colleagues seem to have it easy. Why is this happening to me and how can I fix it?
A There’s a secret that financially successful people know and accept: life is hard at times. I don’t know anyone who has always had an easy financial life. We all have had struggles at one time or another, so do not be misled to think that someone who appears to have it easy has, in fact, actually got it easy.
The first trick to managing financial difficulties when they appear is to forget the “poor me” verbiage.
That attitude casts you as a victim and shuts off your ability — and the imagination — to find creative solutions to a current problem, or to prevent a problem in the first place.
Instead of relying on luck in your financial life, you can accept full responsibility; that is, you are “able to respond” to any circumstances to create a better situation, to produce the results you want.
Ask yourself, “How am I responsible for the financial situation in which I find myself ?” When you dig really deep, you will realize that you were somehow complicit in creating it, either directly (like your recent holiday or truck repairs) or indirectly (like when your employer changed your hours). You will discover that financial difficulties aren’t just bad luck and they don’t just happen to you.
I trust that no one other than you made purchases on your credit card during your winter holiday. And it’s no surprise that any vehicle will, at some point, require servicing for a new muffler, brakes or tires. And April 30 is not the first time that your income taxes or house insurance came due. Sure, you may not have a meaningful impact on the profitability of your employer’s business, but you always knew that cutbacks were a possibility, as they are for any business, and could have prepared accordingly.
Here are a few questions to ponder to help you assume full responsibility, and control, over your financial life:
What are your financial goals and what specific actions are you taking to fulfil them?
What current strengths and skills can you further develop to advance your career options?
What opportunities can you explore to help solve your current financial problems, such as reducing income taxes, eliminating credit card debt or systematically saving for house insurance and vehicle repairs.
Financial responsibility begins — and ends — with you. You hold all the cards in your financial life. You may not always have control over which cards are dealt to you — but you absolutely get to determine how to play those cards in your life.
I encourage you to accept that you are one hundred per cent responsible for your financial state of affairs. And this is very good news! Because the corollary is that you are also one hundred per cent responsible to change it for the better.
Life can be financially challenging at times. But remember the old maxim: nothing changes if nothing changes. Taking full responsibility for the situation empowers you to take action, to create the financial life you really want. And in the process, you’ll have one — and only one — very important person to thank: yourself.