Financial Tips, Money, Self Improvement Money management

Common Sense Solutions -Tips for Successful Living

Post By David Eversley December 6, 2017 26 Comments

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(Last Updated On: December 14, 2021)

We all work for money and exchange it for goods and services such as utilities, food, housing and all the essential things we need to survive. How much money we make determines our lifestyle and our financial authority during our lifetime.

Time is life, and we spend life working for money to satisfy our needs and wants… so I know that success has to be pretty important to you. Unfortunately, some of us don’t reach our full potential and we live below the mark. But with some common-sense solutions, we can redeem the time by:

learning from past mistakes
making good decisions
being accountable to others
spending our time wisely
leveraging –
- knowledge/experience
- opportunity
- education – traditional or nontraditional

Determined to Succeed

We all have wants. How we pace ourselves in our pursuit of these wants determines our prudence. How we juggle them against our needs, determine whether we become financially stable, or wealthy and how long it takes us to get there.

How we leverage time, opportunity and knowledge, is also an indication of where we will find ourselves financially in the future.

Since our habits result in our present and eventual outcome, we must immediately seek to audit our habits and follow good principles that will guarantee a successful life.

There is hope. We can live our best life yet!

Breaking Bad Financial Habits – I Can’t Afford to Be Poor

All of us have some sort of bad habit. In order to break these unwanted and regressive habits, we must have a plan. Any bad habit is undesirable but what we can’t afford are bad financial habits. These will affect every area of our lives and crush any possibility for successful living. Failure in this will also affect other areas of our lives. Let’s try this important exercise below.

3 Ways to Break Bad Financial Habits

# 1 – Stop and examine what is causing you to engage in these bad habits

Identify the root cause(s) e.g.
- You don’t budget because you believe you don’t have enough
- You believe that it is too late to change old bad habits
- You live beyond your means (usually a big one)

# 2 – Write down the plan you will use to overcome your challenges

Discuss and create the plan with a suitably trained friend or financial counselor
Set short-term goals within a long-term plan for financial success and otherwise
Execute the plan
Be accountable to the friend above (counselor) about your finances from here on

# 3 – Celebrate each successful fulfillment of the plan (goals)

Revise and tweak the plan

Surround Yourself with People Who Inspire You

Now let’s look at “time” again and how it plays an immense factor in our success. How we use time and who we spend it with is key to implementing and sustaining all that we did before in the exercise. Look for people that inspire you and by that, I am not saying to look down on others or not associate at all. Rather, strive to connect more with those who encourage good lifestyle habits.

Set the boundaries concerning what you do and how much time you spend with others (remember – time is life; spending time = spending life). Sometimes “others” can be anyone…

Trading Time for Money — Time Is Life

We trade our time every day for money and that’s why our time is so important. In the marketplace, there is a “money for your life” exchange going on. Our time equals money and money is what we trade our lives for. Things we do when we are not trying to make money is;

Rest, relax
Spend time with family and friends, church, etc.
Reinvest that time into education/training to increase our value

The list will vary according to who we are but essentially, our time is our greatest “commodity.” It is our greatest “asset” and can also be our greatest “liability.” We must use it responsibly and to the best of our ability.

So when I tell you I am busy, please understand that I mean no offense. I am spending some of my life-currency somewhere else at present. When we spend time with people or activities, we are literally spending our lives (using up and giving away value). Use your time wisely. Time is life Click To Tweet

My Decisions and Actions Create My Reality

Then we have the reality of it all, our current situation: power and worth. Our present reality is the cumulative sum of our thoughts, and the decisions we have made in life so far. These thoughts and decisions have determined our present. Bliss for some, struggle for others.

If we truly believe this, our greatest desire will be to ensure that every decision we make from now on, is the best one.

You may now be wondering why I have used the word “determine” so often in this post.

The word “determine” (there he goes again) means to settle, to decide or come to a resolution. Which then calls to mind another word, “accountability” or personal responsibility. When we combine all that with the fact that we are the ones who make the decisions in and for our lives (including our loved ones), we should pay serious attention to the potential we have to change the present and the future.

Personal Responsibility and Accountability – The Road to Success

Since we are the ones who make decisions concerning our lives, we must take full responsibility for them. We cannot blame anyone for any bad situation caused by our own decisions.

In order to succeed, we must have a clear plan and stick to it. It’s a shame that this is not systematically taught in schools. By the time some of us come to our senses, half of our lives would have already been spent, but don’t give up just yet. There’s hope as long as you are alive.

Do you know that all of us have had the same clean slate at birth? Yes, we may have come from different backgrounds, had some hardships and less learning aptitude – however, that is no excuse. There are many who have overcome great odds to be successful, and we can too. In some cases, we have had more of an opportunity than many.

Our mindset is responsible for our current situation in life. I am assuming that we all embrace change for the better. If you do, let’s change our stinking mindset. It betrays us and robs us of extraordinary living. Why not spend the rest of your life making the most of it and being the best that you can be. We must guard our minds; what we think, we become.

Proverbs 4:22-24 For they are life to those who find them And health to all their body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth And put devious speech far from you…

Choosing Between a Victim or Creator Mindset.

If we believe that chance or bad luck is responsible for our lives, then that is multiplied by the number of possibilities of failure that exists. Why add that extra mess to our lives? Why live with that additional increase of… Click To Tweet

Let’s look at the following question and its answer:
Are most things too expensive or could it be that we have not prepared for the worst?
Ans. We can’t afford something because we didn’t fully prepare ourselves to be able to.

…Sound harsh? Do you agree with this answer? The thing is, whether we agree, this statement is essentially true.

We have no control over the economic climate and high prices for everything under the sun such as;

Education — (multiply by the number of children in the household)
Real Estate
Funerals — (yes, a costly expense for families)
Car expenses — (multiply by the number of vehicles in the household)

We cannot change or control any economy, therefore, our proper and only course of action is to manage ourselves – strategize and find a way to get on top of the economic climate. We do this by careful analysis of our reality and the actions needed to transform our situation.

Some actions can be;

Seek jobs high in demand
Increase worth by acquiring new skills and education/training
Decrease expenditure significantly – yes, it’s possible
Increase income by creating other streams of income
Sell skills — no more freebies 🙂 use discretion here
Proper investing, not just saving but actually putting money to work
Staying away from debt — the # 1 advice always – No debt apart from mortgage or good debt (mostly).

We cannot simply remain victims of chance or pray for miracles without acting.

We must be steadfast in our determination to succeed by first of all having a plan, a vision and acting on it daily. We must study and make adjustments to the plan, in order to stay on course in any climate.

Conclusion

Since we humans are prone to habit whether good or bad, we must ensure that we are in charge of every moment. Staying the course and making good decisions is more than just wishful thinking. It’s knowing that our decisions will define our success or failure.

Trees don’t grow overnight and so, success is a concept that must be nurtured along the way. Let’s turn around from the path of failure and use the following recommendations to achieve a new and determined life. We must change bad habits and employ best practices

We must make good choices
We must seek mentoring and be accountable to someone who has already succeeded and willing to share their advice

Please share your comments with us. We really want to hear from you.

Here is a brilliant and more in-depth article on this topic: It’s called “Unsuccessful People Focus On ‘The Gap.’ Here’s What Successful People Focus On.”