Just this past Saturday, I was having my baby girl’s full month party and had the chance to catch up with 2 friends from my university. They are 2 attractive ladies (not as attractive as my wife of course), and one of them is already engaged while the other one remained single. The engaged lady brought her fiance along. While we were teasing the single lady about how far she is behind in terms of forming a family, the fiance shared a study done by SDU and it revealed that if a lady would be willing to drop these 5 criteria, there is a 100% chance of her getting attached.
Make a guess what are the 5 criteria that are holding a lady back:
1) The guy must hold a higher academic qualification
2) The guy must earn more then she does
3) The guy must be older
4) The guy must be taller
5) The guy must be of similar nationality and ethic group
I was reflecting and mapping this ove finances of a person. I think there are also a couple of mindset one needs to drop to achieve financial JOY.
1) Give up trying to get rich quick. For a lot of people, their main strategy of becoming rich is to win the lottery. Or for some more sophiticated gambler, it may be getting a windfall from the casino or even using a special technique to make a killing in the stock market.
2) Give up attaching your self worth to the THINGS you have. Did you buy this car because you need it or because it makes you look good? What about the bag? There is difference between paying for function and performance versus paying for “ego”. Trying to boost your ego via purchasing high end stuff, never make sense or “cents” for the matter. Look at any one around you know who is driving that luxurious car or holding that thousand dollar handbag – do you respect, love, adore, look up to the person because of the things he/she has really? If you regard someone in high esteem, it is really becuase of the character above anything else. Things create impression of achievements but it never proves anycharacter. I once know of a very high ranking officer who is making very high pay and he drives a very old Toyota corolla, I know that people actually admire his “non attachment” to materialism, now, that is really cool. He buys a value car and gets the respect, that is totally worth it.
This mindset of needing to have THINGS to boost your own ego is costing you more than you think (and it is not even serving its purpose.)
3) Give up spending more than you earn. Sad thing is that most people do not even know how much they have been spending. Start by keepingtrack! Everytime you spend less than you earn, you get to set aside that pile of money to work for you. But if you spend every single cent, or worse, spend more than you earn, you are not going to be a very happy shopper for long.
4) Give up consumer debt. This is related to the 2 points above. If you spend more than you earn, you are basically getting into debt (or you may have a very rich spouse/ parent.) This is the number one financial Joy killer!
5) Give up thinking investing is not your responsibility. If you are going to leave your money with the professionals, that is actually ok if you understand what the professionals are doing. Even the 3 little pigs know not to open their door to wolves because they were trained to recognize one. Can you differentiate a good investment product from another? Can you differentiate a great fund manager from a scam manager? After all, the money is placed into your hands and you are responsible to do your due diligence!
6) Give up all excuses why money is not important. If you think money is not important, then please stop any complaints about it or stop worrying about it. I am not saying that you should make Money your “god” or make money the centre of your life, but you have to open your eyes and recognise that it is one area of your life which you have to take care of. Just like health or relationship, money if it is not managed well, will get you into a lot of pain!
7) Give up hating your job. As i speak to many people, one area of discontentment seems to be job satisfaction. An interesting study was done on heart attack survivals. When a person suffer heart attack for the first them, there is a 90% higher chance of a person surviving if the person has “JOB SATISFACTION!”
Very interesting study isn’t it? Job Dissatisfaction KILLS.
When you hate your job and but you can’t afford to leave because you need the money, you will start to attribute success in life to having LOTS of MONEY because it can get you all of the job you hate! Sack you boss, quit your job!
I also find out very often that it is not the “job” people hate, it is more of the people in the job that tires you out. I had a friend who told me that her mentor advise her to be clear on what is that “one thing” that is so important to her in a job that when other nonsense comes, it will still be worth holding onto it.
I think that is a wise advice, because in life, you will ulitmately need to find some work you want to do. But with every and any work comes challenges and difficulties. So it is important to be clear what is it you are asked to do in life.
What about the Financial Freedom I have been talking about? That is one sweet goal because when you reach that stage, you can really focus on what matters than merely focusing on surviving.
Are there any other things you need to give up in order to win? Could it be the mindset that investing is difficult or investing is risky? Well, if you have these mindset, i can relate with you because these were the mindsets stopping me from investing. A good thing i dropped them and managed to achieve the results i have today!
Join us at our next live workshop where we move forward together and aim for YOUR financial freedom.
Click HERE to book a Free Investing Workshop.
To your dreams,
Mind Kinesis Research Team
Master Trainer (Value Investing Options Strategy)
Investment in Stocks Blog
Value Investing Academy – the Warren Buffett Way
https://www.investment-in-stocks.com,