Don’t fall for some of the Deadly Money Sins
When building a financial plan like any plan it has to be unique and it has to be built on your values which requires deep soul searching and can be a long but worthwhile process. Values are a person’s core beliefs about what they consider most important and how they translate to our financial behaviours.
Most of the time our values guide behaviour. They are highly relevant to establishing our individuality and helping explain our actions.
What if a person claims that health is one of their primary values exhibits unhealthy traits like lack of exercise and poor diet that adversely affect energy and quality of life? They are not living a life consistent with their values and beliefs which is called a disconnect.
You will all identify many people in your daily life who are failing to match their values and their behaviours and hopefully you can see many in yourself that you can look to improve and rebalance. Often the difficult thing for us to understand is that discipline in one area doesn’t naturally translate to discipline in other areas. That’s why we see great athletes who love their body have bad gambling habits or in my case I know I am a disciplined investor but I am not so disciplined when faced with chocolate.
These disconnects are usually cause by ignoring our true self and giving in to one of the deadly sins which are the same with money as they are in life.
Greed
We want instant gratification we want something now, we want to buy things we can’t afford to impress people we don’t even like. The vicious cycle of lifestyle creep means you are working for money to pay for the things you don’t even want with little mission or purpose. The definition of madness is driving to work in your car that you pay for to get to the job you hate to sit in an expensive suit you can’t afford so that you can return for only a few hours to the house you left that you need to pay for and have a large mortgage on.
Envy
Many family members and friends fall out over money or envy which is the worst of all traits as this is usually a reactive behaviour because if you told them they had 5 minutes to live and they could wish their family or friends incredible success or incredible failure I will hang my hat on the answer being incredible success almost 100% of the time.
Sloth
I am amazed by the amount of people I meet who stay in a job simply because they have a good pension. They are actually admitting and willing to waste the next 10 or 20 years of their lives doing a job that brings no satisfaction because the company has a good pension scheme.
That’s all well and good but if you are not being true to yourself and living a lie so that you can retire you will feel constant internal conflict…. then what?….. try and start living your dream when you retire or will you have given up by then?
Will you really go to the gym everyday if you are not going now when you are young or middle aged and client facing and hardworking? If you love your job and it pays a good pension that is brilliant and a fantastic benefit that shows how much the company values employees and is a great bonus for a job you love.
If you don’t love your job and feel you are wasting key skills then let’s start looking at ways to get you to where you want to be
Know your Enough
Morgan Housel in the “Psychology of Money” talks of a party given by a billionaire hedge fund manager attended by the famous author of Catch 22 Joseph Heller. His friend Kurt Vonnegut turns to Heller to advise him that the host and hedge fund manager makes more in one day than his book has made in a lifetime. Heller responded “Yes, but I have something he will never have….enough.”
Plans fail because it’s not your plan it’s a financial advisers plan for you it’s not had enough input from you there’s not been enough time spent on getting to know your true values and goals for the future and what’s important in you finding your unique financial wellbeing.
Remember more money is not they key to happiness just like more clothes in the wardrobe doesn’t mean you have anything to wear if it’s not what you want to wear.
Do you love money or your work people with money continue working when they love what they do….think of former Chelses legend and current Everton manager Frank Lampard. A multi-millionaire with a beautiful successful wife and young family who still gets up at 5am to drive to a cold dark wet training ground,to coach players who will more than likely never be as good as him. Why? ……….because he loves what he does!.
You can change your career and you can change your future by planning and focusing on your economy and your money……. make it happen don’t waste time living someone else’s life.