You would think that the number one thing we would answer when asked ‘what’s your goal?’ is to enable clients to meet their financial goals. But that’s only half of why we do what we do. The second half? Confidence. We aspire to make you confident in your end result before you get there.
Think about it – imagine you met your goal of, say, building a positive cash flow for your business. Yet when you looked back from that place of success, all you saw were five years of sleepless nights, crippling worry and events you couldn’t change but had to learn to adapt to. Then, imagine you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would achieve your goal and spent five years thriving and still achieving a cash-positive bank balance without years of suffering beforehand?
We know it’s no good having the perfect financial plan in place only to be sabotaged by your own lack of confidence in yourself, the market or your money. So we’ve put together some simple tips to build your confidence levels so that you can start enjoying the journey more today and get to your destination tomorrow that much easier.
A healthy client makes healthy decisions
A staggering amount of poor decisions can be traced back to an impulsive decision lead predominantly by emotion instead of rational thinking. So, the first step in ensuring your own confidence is to get things in check which wreak havoc with your emotions.
Sleep seven hours or more a night, exercise regularly and avoid blood sugar-spiking foods which affect your emotions like refined sugars and fast food. You’ll be amazed at how much less plagued by thought-clouding tiredness, emotional stress and impulsiveness you’ll be in just a few short weeks. Even better, try meditation or another mindfulness technique to learn how to master your internal thoughts and make them more positive.
Break it down
Most ultimate financial goals are set for far in the future, like starting a fund for your child’s university education while they’re in nappies or opening a retirement annuity in your twenties. It can be easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal here and, so, to lack confidence in it or in the sense of putting away money now for this nebulous event far in the future.
The best cure for this is to break your goal down into small, achievable steps that can be done today, like researching the average cost of university fees on Google or booking an appointment with your financial advisor.
Make small goals and keep them
This leads us to the most rewarding step that takes your financial confidence from zero to hero – making promises and keeping them. When you tell yourself you’ll do small step 1 today and then you do it and congratulate yourself, you stimulate a surge of endorphin in your brain. This is the feel-good, ‘I can do this!’ hormone and it physically enables you to be more confident.
Even better, it creates a cycle of positive momentum, as you now have the energy to carry out your next small step to achieving your goal. As the steps get bigger and bigger naturally, you learn to have confidence in the wealth-making process but also, most importantly, in yourself.
Reward yourself by investing small sums in what really brings you joy
So how to stick with that momentum? Many clients are afraid of failing by letting themselves down and not following through with their promised goals. A simple yet very effective way to safeguard against this is to reward yourself with something that truly, deeply brings you joy once you’ve done one task. Reward yourself again every time you complete something and your brain will learn that the way to get this reward is to do that task. Think about the payoff and it’ll be easy to keep to your goals. You’ll still build the same amount of confidence and have fun getting there too!
Of course, all of this assumes that you have a good financial plan in place and that it’s being watched over by a professional who knows how to get you there.
This is how our advice at WellsFaber helps you thrive!