When I was in college, so many of my friends asked me: "Isabelle, why do you want to go into finance?"
Over the years, I have come to realize the deeper meaning behind why I wanted to become a financial advisor in the first place: I wanted to solve a problem.
Here’s the problem: Most of us are so stressed by money that we have a hard time focusing on the present.
But my goal is to help educate people about their finances and help them understand their financial dreams so that they can worry less about tomorrow and focus more on the present. One way that we can start living more in the present when it comes to money is to start thinking of money as a tool rather than a stressor.
With that said, I wanted to share with you two practical ways that we can start changing our mindset about money.
Step #1: Set up a game plan
This is the first step in learning how to treat money as a tool because in order to think of money as a tool, you have to make it a tool. At Desert Wealth Management, we want to help you do this by making a game plan. The first step is asking you more questions about your goals:
What do you want your current life to look like?
What do you want your future to look like?
If you had all the money in the world, how would your life be different than it is right now?
We start constructing this game plan by focusing on the end goal. We want to help create a vision for you so that you know what you are working towards. After we help you understand and define your vision, we then discuss your cash inflows and outflows. In order for you to reach your goals effectively, we need to know what your money inflows and outflows are so that we know how much money you have to fund the game plan. Once this step is completed, we dive into my favorite part, which is the savings and investment management. I like to think of a financial plan as a car. Just like a car needs fuel to run, a financial plan needs fuel to run. For a car, its fuel is gasoline. For a financial plan, its fuel consists of savings and investments. Once we have created a comprehensive savings plan and investment portfolio for you, we like to leave you with actions steps. We want these action steps to be both specific and straightforward. Setting up a game plan can help you view your money as a tool because a plan tells your money what to do. We no longer want you to be controlled by your money. Instead, we want you to have control over your money.
Step #2: Record milestones in a journal
I want to share a personal story with you really quick. I LOVE to-do lists. I absolutely love the feeling of planning out my day, completing my tasks, and checking them off (sounds like I should be a professional planner or something, right??). However, several years ago when I first started college, I became so obsessed with my to-do list that I wasn’t enjoying the present at all. In fact, I was so stressed out about checking things off of my to-do list that I totally missed out on a whole year of enjoying school. What I learned from this experience is that while it is important and rewarding to be productive, you need to take a moment to smell the roses and appreciate how far you’ve come. That’s why I recommend that you record your financial milestones in a journal. As you complete your specific and straightforward action steps, write down them down. As you reach both your incremental goals and your life-changing goals, write each of them down. Describe how you felt in the moment. But don’t just write down your victories, write down your struggles and hardships. A milestone can take the form of a completed goal, but it also can take the form of a hardship you experienced. Writing down your financial experiences helps you view money as a tool because it can show you, through your own experiences, that money can either cause a sense of stress or a sense of peace depending on how it is used. Writing down your money experiences can help you learn from your past and motivate you to continue to complete your actions steps in the future.
I hope you enjoyed these ways that you can start thinking of money as a tool rather than as a stressor. If you want to learn more about creating a game plan and taking control of your money, please visit our contact us page so that we can connect and help you start the journey of financial confidence.
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The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.
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