Personal Finance Budget Series: No 20 – What Wealthy People Really Think About Their Money
One of the main characteristics of wealthy people is that they have confidence in their ability to make decisions, in their purpose, and in their personal finance budget. Confidence, self confidence specifically, is a learnable skill, and to become strong in confidence is to understand how to place the mind in the right state. With mind and money aligned, wealthy people are much happier than those who only chase money as an end goal.
Confidence: The Four States of Thought
Autopilot Thinking is when people are over familiar with routine decisions, and can quickly form assumptions about what is expected – like when using credit cards in the store, or driving home along a well known route. This is an external thinking state and can be harmful. Another harmful state is the internal, critical voice, which so often tells people that they are an imposter – that they “can’t do” or “aren’t good enough”
There are two helpful thinking states which balance this – the internal voice is the thinking state where the mind assesses options, while the external helpful state is the engaged state, where the mind is concentrating on solving problems.
The objective in managing money, in assessing the personal finance statement, and especially if financial planning has been ignored and money is a problem, is to move from a harmful state to a helpful state, by working out where all the money goes, balanced against when it all comes in. Reflecting and evaluating alternative choices brings confidence back into the personal finance budget process.
Confidence: Why Negative People are so Destructive
Negative people are destructive because they can suck out the enjoyment of life from all the people around them. These people suffer from afflictive emotions, they become jealous, angry, fearful. They are critical, condescending and demeaning. These people are the opposite of what they seem because they are not at all confident, and project their toxicity as a protection against being touched by the people around them.
In seeking to build confidence as a skill, these people need to be avoided, or managed because they will do everything to precipitate doubt in those around them
Confidence: Strategies to overcome Doubt
The secrets to overcoming doubt, are to become confident in taking action and making decisions with personal finance. By moving away from self consciousness, by deliberately tuning out, focussing on something else, concentrating on financial goal setting, budgeting and forecasting, people can grow confidence because they can see a future to pursue, which takes attention away from self – building confidence.
Another way to overcome doubt is to picture the situation as a movie in the mind. Then make it black and white, then dim the picture before finally moving backwards as if leaving a cinema, so the image gets smaller and distant. Finally, positive thought and positive action both dispel doubts – so doing something active, and surrounding yourself with positive people works too.
Confidence: The difference between a Public victory and a Private victory.
In growing the skill of confidence, it is necessary to experience both private victories and public victories. Private victories are where outcomes are focussed on the personal results of being proactive, thinking about the end game before starting, and then choosing the first steps to take. In matters of personal finance planning, it is important to work with a personal finance spreadsheet, or a family budget worksheet.
Better still to subscribe to a personal finance budget software, preferably online for ease of use. The outcome is to be clear and precise about the budget decisions to be taken. Public victories are where attention turns to the outside world, where it is important to see the win for both sides, to understand first the consequences of spending money, and then to involve the family or those around you in a team effort to curtail wasteful spending.
Personal finance online software allows for this behavioural victory, the growth of confidence in managing money and in forming new personal finance budgets.