Like you, I read many articles on the topic of personal finance. And more often than not, I come across tips on how we can save and earn more money.
The article will say something like “do this and you will become rich.” Some of these article may be from someone you trust, while others make so much sense that you want to try the tactic even if you don’t know who wrote it.
Some of the articles are so persuasive that you might even dream about becoming rich after you read them.
But what happens after a week?
Half the time, we forget about the tips all together. The other half of the time, we either try the money tip and assume it doesn’t work because we didn’t see any results immediately, or remind ourselves that we will never have time to try it.
Don’t worry. You are not alone since we are all like this.
1. Forgetting about the money tips altogether.
1. Forgetting about the money tips altogether.We are busy and don’t have time to debrief after reading personal articles. After all, most of us read personal finance because we want to kill time or take a break from work, not to become rich.
If we read money topics because we wanted to become rich, we would have a pen and paper ready and take notes just in case the article contained useful information. (Now that’s an idea. Why don’t we write down the tip so we can choose to try it later?)
2. Trying the money tip for a week and then assuming it’s not for us.
Perhaps this is the writers’ fault because we do not always mention the consistency and dedication it takes to achieve financial wealth. We would write tips like “cook at home instead of eat out” and end the tip but we really should show you in the same article how much $5 every day will amount to if we have it fully invested (preferably in a low cost index fund by the way).
We make excuses for ourselves, and complain all the time about why we are so unlucky. We complain about the personal finance guru not giving enough detail. We complain about our environment, and why it works for others but not us. What we really are complaining about is why no one does all the work and hands us free money.
Who said becoming rich is about doing nothing?
Read all the passive income blogs and you see that setting it up is nothing but hard work. Picking dividend stocks for the long term requires brains. Running a blog requires tremendous dedication. Success requires time and effort people, wake up.
3. Reminding ourselves that we will never have time to try it.
If we tell ourselves that we don’t have time, we just told ourselves that we don’t have time to become rich. Keep working forever my friends, because we don’t have time to live financially free.
We read the tips, agree that it makes so much sense, then we sit there and flip on TV to watch other people make money while we spend money watching them.
Don’t procrastinate. If you don’t have time, make time. The biggest mistake is to wait and don’t do what you really want to do. If you want to run a blog, you should try it. If you want to try cooking at home, go buy groceries today.
Just remember that just like everything else, you won’t have instant gratification and it will be 100 times tougher than you initially thought. But believe in yourselves, believe in your abilities to adapt and everything will work out.