Finding Financial Motivation
We all know how it feels to set a goal for ourselves that doesn’t seem entirely attainable. Worse yet, most of us (probably all of us) know how it feels to set a goal and fail to accomplish it. It’s a terrible feeling and unfortunately sometimes, all-too familiar. So how exactly can we improve our odds and start achieving instead of failing? Everyone has a different method or philosophy they subscribe to and today we’re going to share one of our favourites with you. Finding financial motivation can work for you!
Regardless of your individual goal, there is a way to achieve it. Whether your aim is to boost your savings, run a marathon or travel to India, there are plenty of hacks, apps, books and experts that can get you there so without further ado… let’s get started.
Sure, we’re a finance company and we like to pride ourselves on our fifteen+ years’ experience of helping individuals bring their dreams to life, so we can confidently say there is a solution. Not unlike many parenting books, we like to recommend operating on a reward/punishment system. What do we mean by that? Let’s start by writing down your goal. Again, it doesn’t matter what this goal is. As an example we’ll say your goal is to exercise 5x a week. Now that you’ve set your goal you can choose your motivation: reward or punishment. Here’s a little secret, in the end, they both are more like a reward.
Reward Yourself
Now let’s assume you’re like us and prefer to work on the reward system. You’ll need a sub-goal (aka a reward) that’s directly related to your finances. Perhaps in addition to increasing your exercise habits you also want to buy a new television. Let’s assume the new television you want is $800 dollars and you’d like to own it in 4 months. Now you can set up your promise.
Your promise is essentially the recipe or equation that you’ll need to follow in order to achieve both your goal and receive your reward. Every time you go to the gym, you’ll ‘reward’ yourself with a $10 deposit into your savings. If you stick to your goal of going to the gym 5x a week for four months you will have saved enough money to purchase that television however, if you got lazy it will take you longer. You can stay on track by setting up an excel spreadsheet, utilising a calendar and reminders on your phone or you can even opt to download an app that will do this for you (there are plenty).
If you don’t work well with a reward system and prefer to focus on the punishment method that’s okay too! You’ll follow essentially the same process but you won’t need to have a reward in mind. You’ll need to come up with an amount you are comfortable ‘punishing’ yourself with. Each time you skip the gym when you promised yourself you would go, you’ll need to deduct that amount out of your spending money and put it in your savings. Therefore every time you skip the gym you’ll have less spending money to be frivolous with but your savings will also grow.
These simple methods will work to keep you on track to achieve your goals and financial motivation will help improve your financial situation. If you’re looking for other helpful budgeting and finance tips you may like to check out our recent blog post; Sharing Economy: Maximising your Income.
