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The thought that embracing your financial empowerment resembles many other areas in life occurred to me the other day while I was walking. I find that those aha moments come when my mind is free to wander, and that’s usually when I am outdoors doing some form of exercise or trying to sleep at 4 in the morning. Let’s look at the similarities of another life situation we can probably all relate to and how it is like financial empowerment.
The simple truth is that there are many areas of our lives where we don’t necessarily have to like the steps we need to take to reach our goals; we just have to do them. The first area that comes to mind is exercise. There are many times I don’t want to work out, usually because I am just plain tired, or, more commonly, don’t want to have to change clothes, get all sweaty, shower and re-apply makeup and lotion! (Don’t guys have it made in this area?) In those moments, I don’t like exercising, but I know I will reach those end results of better health and lower weight, so I just do it anyway.
Similarly, there may be some reasons why financial education is not very appealing in your life right now. Let’s face it; learning risk management strategies for your portfolio or how the economy affects the value of your investments is just not that sexy, but gaining an awareness of a few areas such as this will enormously increase your financial empowerment. This is true whether or not you use a financial advisor, because, as a financial woman, you are at least involved with choosing and monitoring that advisor or making your investment choices.
The bottom line is that to reach your financial goals, you don’t have to love the steps, you just have to do them, and this includes financial education. Like exercise, diet, organization, pap smears and mammograms, we don’t have to like them to get that end result we want, we just have to do them. While many areas of financial education are engaging and interesting, sometimes we just have to embrace those that aren’t as enticing to reach financial empowerment, which is an end result that we all want.
photo credit: Tony Austin