After meeting with one of my clients earlier this week, I followed up via email to send along her final financial plan (a.k.a. savings and spending plan) after we made some edits during our final session.
Her response back to my email was to thank me for the information and for our time together and to proclaim that she truly “felt like a grown up” after taking control of this area of her life.
Because I do this for a living and on a regular basis, sometimes I forget how empowering it can be for people to step into an area of their life and confidently gain the knowledge that they need to intentionally direct and design their lives. This was an amazing reminder from this client of what life can look like when your level of financial confidence is raised and you’re ready to move forward to begin reaching for your dreams.
It was also a reminder of the things that stand in the way of people being as financially confident as they could be, and what they can do to step into their financial power:
1) Know your numbers – This is the beginning point of building financial confidence. Many people are feeling financially stressed because they know something isn’t working, and yet they’re not sure what it is exactly. The stress is unlikely going to get any better without looking at the numbers to figure things out, and in most cases it’s not as bad as one might think it is. Confidence begins with determining where you are financially speaking right now, in this moment.
2) Be intentional – Once you’re clear on where you are in this moment, you can become clear on where you want to go. My experience is that without an intentional road map for where you want your money to go and how you would like it to be used, money will end up being used randomly and not as purposefully and powerfully as it could be to support your life. So take the time to think about your goals and to also think about what you’d like to have in your life. Once you’re clear on the things that you want in your life, you can design a financial plan to support what you’re up to. Without an intentional financial plan, money often gets used in an unaligned way that doesn’t serve what you want in your life and this often times impairs financial confidence. With a clear intention and a clear understanding of how money is working as a tool in your life, your financial confidence will grow significantly.
3) Always be in the financial flow – Once a financial plan is in place, it’s important to always be measuring and monitoring how you’re doing against the plan. Many people will design a plan, and then “set it and forget it,” forgetting that life often changes and that our plans need to adapt and/or adjust. Also, new financial opportunities or challenges may arise that need to be accounted for in a plan so it’s important to always be considering whether a plan needs to shift to incorporate those items. Also, being in a regular conversation about your money (i.e. the weekly “money date” I suggest to my clients) is also important. Without a regular and mindful review of what’s going on financially, financial confidence can be impaired and you may be left with an unnecessary experience of feeling scarce and worried instead of abundant and powerful when it comes to your money.
These 3 simple (and yet not always easy, especially at first!) steps, when used in tandem with each other, can support you to bolster your financial confidence and keep it at a high level. And with a higher level of financial confidence, you’ll be able to make confident decisions in your life as you use money as the divine tool that it is truly meant to be to support the life of your dreams!
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