Updated: July 28, 2011
Success is simply a product of excellence.
And to be excellent, it’s best that you follow your passion.
But following your passion does not automatically create excellence.
You need perseverance, determination and focus.
You need to practice and hone your craft until it becomes almost second nature to you.
And that’s what Kiley, our guest contributor today, will try to help us with today.
Below, she give us some advice on how we can change our ways and foster better money habits that will lead us to excellence, and eventually, financial success.
Let’s now read what she has to say.
One of my athletic coaches always told me “winning is a habit“.
While he was speaking only in terms of sports, I believe that this applies to everything in life. Instituting change in your life of any kind requires a change of habit, including changing how you deal with your money.
Looking past your short term goal
If you are saving for something specific, say a new car or a new TV, chances are you will slash your spending so you can start saving.
Maybe you will limit how much you go out to eat or maybe you will ditch cable for a few months. But what if you kept up those savings all the time?
If you could save money by making small adjustments, why not just keep saving even after you can afford your dream item?
It’s all about mindset
While having a goal to save up to is great, if you center your mindset on a short-term goal, you won’t be able to keep saving in the long run.
If you’re trying to save for a new car by cutting things out of your budget, you will start to see the things you cut out as temporary sacrifices.
But if you take the same action with the mindset of saving money for a lifetime, it becomes much easier to see those things as helpful money savers rather than painful losses.
Saving is a habit
Choosing store brands over name brands when you shop for a week won’t help you achieve any long term goals. Instead of seeing saving as a temporary solution, look at it as a lifetime of benefits.
To save consistently, you must plan out how you are going to save money and stick to it.
For example, if you decide to only go to the movie theatre once a month, don’t make exceptions. If you do, you’ll slowly break your habit and ease back into your old ways without even knowing it.
Habits take time
Building up good habits can be difficult at first. It takes some patience because habits take time to be created, sometimes months or even years!
If you get in the correct mindset and you work at it, you can save thousands of dollars and you will be well on your way to financial success!
This guest post is written by Kiley Theiring, a working student who loves writing about saving money and frugal living.
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Photo credit: Thomas Hawk
It is really good if we follow our passion and at the same time experiencing success on what we do. For me as a blogger, and I am happy on what I am doing and at the same time it converts to cash. I am not forcing my self to do things that is not within my passion. Nice article Fitz.
Nice tips sir Fitz. Our general manager always remind us this formula… Income-Expense=Savings, lesser expenses, greater savings.
Hi Semidoppel , I think the formula should be Income – Savings = Expense… you need to pay yourself first before expenses… this way you can get out of the rat race quickly
I would have to agree with CT. You should always pay yourself first.
i agree with you sir fitz and CT. what a very cool way of looking into things.