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Welcome to the Mike Robertson Associates Ltd Lifestyle Planning Blog. Here we share tips on how you might be able to make changes to your lifestyle and making plans for the future.

Get your money confidence back

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Have you lost confidence in your ability to manage your finances effectively? Often a busy life can take over, unforeseen events happen, and we can easily get into a muddle with our money. Setting goals can be an excellent way to get your money confidence back through building competence. Here are our tips to get you started with creating a brighter financial future for yourself.

 

Your relationship with money

You may be a generally unconfident person who worries about things going wrong, and because of that you are afraid to reach for the things you really want, and you don’t utilise your finances in a way that could give you the lifestyle you dream of.

Or you might be a person who is not good at dealing with their money. You may have debt, overspend or struggle to live within your means. Finances are not something you find easy to understand or manage. You have good intentions but never seem to have the funds necessary to achieve the aspirations you have. Affecting your confidence of ever being someone who is successful.

Our relationship with money is affected by so many things from the family we grew up in, our own experiences when we first started earning an income, to our current financial situation. It can be easy to lose confidence in your ability to deal with your own finances effectively.

 

Self- confidence

Self-confidence is twofold. Firstly, it’s about how we see ourselves and others who we deem to be like us. If we see ourselves, and others, mastering specific skills and those skills leading to positive changes and the achievement of related goals, we gain confidence in that area. We believe in our ability to learn new things, and that it will bring us benefit and value in our lives. We believe that we can succeed if we focus our attention and talents on something specific. This type of belief is what helps us accept difficult challenges or continue on despite any setbacks we encounter.

Secondly, self-confidence stems from how we cope with our day to day lives. Believing that we deserve to be happy and have a wonderful life. Our confidence can also be affected by those around us, whether people approve of us and like us. Whether you believe that you’re a good person who is doing their best and a sense of whether you can compete in life and succeed. Some of these aspects, like approval from others, are not always in our control, making our self-confidence more vulnerable.

 

Building competence

One way to make a real difference to your self-confidence is by building competence. In other words, setting goals and achieving them. Through that success and achievement, your confidence will grow. Download our free guide for more help with goal setting.

This is key when managing your finances. Many people are at a loss with how to make more of their money because they have no goals set to aim for. They have set off on a journey without knowing the destination, what direction to go in, and they don’t have a map to help them. This is why you can feel like you’re always going around in circles and chasing your tail but getting no-where fast. Your money situation never seems to improve, and despite your best efforts, you still find yourself struggling.

 

Let’s get started

The good news is that regaining your confidence with money and in other aspects of your life is possible. So, let’s get started:

 

1. Prepare

Take some time to really prepare for the changes you wish to make. Look at what your current financial situation is like. What money do you have coming in versus expenditure? What debt do you have outstanding? Commit to improving on this position and making the changes necessary.

 

2. Use previous achievements

If you are feeling nervous about whether you can really make inroads towards a different future, then use previous successes to bolster your confidence. Perhaps you landed that job you really wanted or gained certification for a course you took? Did you successfully run a home and raise a family? Maybe you were a leader at work whose team looked up to them? Whatever it is, remind yourself that you have achieved things before so you can do so again.

 

3. Identify your strengths

We all have things that we are good at, and it is different for everyone. Really think about where your strengths lie. If you are stuck and can’t seem to identify anything confidently, then ask close friends or family. Other people can often clearly see our strengths, even when we don’t fully believe it ourselves.

Also, acknowledge your weaknesses or areas you find challenging. This is so that you can see how to address the things you find trickier by utilising your strengths. You will also be able to foresee issues that may get in your way and create a process to mitigate it.

For example:

You cannot seem to stick to a budget for socialising and paying by card seems to make this even harder.

Mitigate this by:

Using cash to manage your socialising budget. You can easily see the funds available, and once it’s gone, it’s gone.

 

4. What’s important to you

Identify what’s important to you, what kind of lifestyle would you like to have, what do you want to achieve in this lifetime?

Consider looking at the following areas to help you set goals:

Mental - goals that will expand your mind or knowledge, for example, studying a foreign language.

Physical - goals that are about your physical wellbeing, whether that be to drink more water or exercise daily.

Family - goals that increase the value of your family life.

Social - goals that involve your social life, your friends, how you spend your free time.

Career - what career goals do you have for the future?

Financial - what financial support do you need to provide to achieve your dream?

 

5. Get smart with your goals

S - Is the goal specific?

M - Can it be measured?

A - Is it attainable?

R - Is it relevant?

T – Is your goal timely? When does it need to be achieved by?

 

6. Prioritise

Don’t overwhelm yourself and create so many goals that it becomes impossible to make any real headway in any one area. Identify the goals that are either the most important or the most urgent. For example, you may need to concentrate all your resources on paying down your debt and decide that until that’s achieved other goals that require financial support will be on hold.

 

7. Create a plan

Once you have your goals, then break them down into actionable steps. For example:

Goal – To become debt free in 2 years

18-month goal – have paid off the car loan

9-month goal – have paid off a credit card

2-month goal – start making increased payments towards the debt

1-month goal – Create monthly plan to reduce debt with the help of a financial adviser.

2-week goal – Have researched options for support with the goal and made an appointment with a finance professional.

1-week goal – Ascertain how much debt you currently have and what rates of interest you are paying. Work out how much you can afford to dedicate financially to the goal each month.

This is a very basic plan to give you an idea of how to break down your goals into manageable steps so that you can make progress each day. In this example, you may also have daily activities such as checking in with your bank account or noting down everything you spend.

 

8. Take control of your mind

If your confidence is low, then it is likely you will have negative thoughts popping into your head trying to derail your progress. Actively tackle these by recognising when that happens and replacing those thoughts with positive statements about yourself. If it helps create an image of your goal and how it will feel so that when your confidence is wavering, you can look at the picture and remember why this is important to give you the courage to continue.

Write any doubts down and try to look at them objectively. Counteract them with actions that you are taking to mitigate the risk of it going wrong. Look at your strengths and see if the statement you are thinking about is actually false based on your strengths and abilities.

 

9. Achievement breeds confidence

Once you start to see yourself reaching those small step goals and making progress towards your main ambition, your confidence will begin to grow. You will see that you can make positive changes and start to identify opportunities for utilising your money in a way that better serves you.

There may be challenges ahead, and it might even knock you back a little, but remember you will still be further down the path to a brighter financial future than you were previously. Stay committed, and you will see results. If you need further support with setting goals, creating a plan to achieve the lifestyle you always dreamed of or just talking through your financial concerns, then contact us today for a 1-hour complimentary consultation and see how we can help you regain your money confidence.

 

Further information

If you found this information useful you may also want to check out the following:

 

Mike Robertson Associates Limited is an appointed representative of Lighthouse Advisory Services Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. See Full Details.

They help individuals, businesses and families achieve the best quality of life they can with the resources they have. MRA specialises in cash-flow analysis, taxation, savings and investments, life centred planning and much more. Life Centred Financial Planners are passionate about working with you to help you achieve your life and financial goals, get control of your finances to enjoy a brighter financial future.

 

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Based in East Sussex we service clients across the South East, Sussex and Kent, including smaller towns such as Ashford, Battle, Bexhill, Bodiam, Brighton & Hove, Cranbrook, Crowborough, Eastbourne, Hailsham, Hastings, Heathfield, Herstmonceux, Lewes, Mayfield, Newhaven, Rye, Seaford, Sevenoaks, Tenterden, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

 

Tags: goal setting, financial planning advice

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