One of the common financial strategies you can easily adopt to start building financial security is to “pay yourself first”. The way it works is when you first collect your paycheck, before you do anything else, sock away 10% or more of that check into an investment account. That
way you take care of your future before you take care of the bill collectors and loan officers.
In a similar vein, you can adopt a work for you first philosophy.
When you have personal goals, finding time to dedicate to them can be challenging. We have jobs, we have families. We have unexpected emergencies. That is why when you wake up in the morning, a good thought to have is “how soon can I start working on my goal?”
Or better, maybe set your alarm clock an hour ahead of time so you have an extra hour early in the morning to get rolling on it.
Technorati Tags: Goals and Goal Setting, Inspiration, motivation
The reason this habit is so important is if we are not careful, other people will put us to work on their goals. They will have us doing stuff which may never contribute to our own goals.
Work for you first
The way you win big achievements is through daily perseverance. You can’t go from minimum-wage to a million dollars in just one days effort. You can’t turn around a pending divorce by giving your spouse one day of love. You can’t get your PhD. in microbiology by only studying for one day. No, it’s
persistence that leads to the big win. Days, weeks and sometimes years of dedication on a daily basis are what leads to success. So each day you miss is a setback.
How many days pass where we go to sleep exhausted, after a day packed with work – work unrelated to our goals? That’s sad isn’t it?
A day consumed with reaching other people’s goals is a form of neglect of your own goals.
Working for you first means taking more control out of the hands of other people and gaining it back for you. Likewise the smart investor knows he has bill to pay, he has stuff to buy. But on payday, every payday, he takes a portion of his check first and puts it into investments. That
way, he takes care of others wants and desires only after his are. A wise goal setter will do the same with his time. He’ll take his limited time and work for himself first.
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Thanks for the great post.
I’ve been working on this concept to keep myself writing and developing my own projects, except I stay up an hour later – I’m not a morning person and don’t find myself being as productive at the beginning of the day as I am at the end.
My blog was started with a similar idea. I was constantly sharing information with people and giving advice one-on-one. I decided to create a place to capture those bits of information and spend the extra 10% effort to write down what I said or did. Later, I’ll have a collection of writing that can be the foundation for other work.
There are now over 45 entries written since the beginning of the year.
Okay, that does it. Quit it with the excellent posts that make me want to take the world on by storm. This is so inspirational and useful and wonderful.
Surrender. Do a podcast with me soon?
–Chris…
It’s so true. Just a little bit each day and before you know it you built a mountain.
I find starting easy, but it’s the keeping going where the gold is and where I find it so difficult.
@Andrew, sounds like you are well on your way
@Lyndon, I think that’s where faith comes in. One way to think about this is to look where you are now. Can you start your own blog? (obviously you can because you have one..) But rewind 7 years ago and ask that of yourself back in 1999…Can Lyndon of 1999 start a blog?
That’s where people get tripped up in their belief systems.
To me, I’d have to say there’s really no difference in Lyndon 2006 and Lyndon 1999 – somewhere along the line you gained knowledge, took some specific steps and before you knew it, you had your own blog.
“Surrender. Do a podcast with me soon?”
Chris – you got it! Just let me know when and what we’ll be using to harness the podcast universe.
That’s a great comment about faith and outlook. I have some goals that I know I can achieve, I just have an obstacle at the moment that I have to see myself past.
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