Financial motivation is one thing that can help push you into reaching your goals. Motivation is a powerful tool in getting you closer to your goals. However, it is not always an easy task to try to be motivated all the time. There are even people, especially artists who just wait for the moment where they are inspired and motivated to work.
Artists and some creative people usually wait for inspiration or motivation to create a masterpiece. This is why most of them take a long while to create an artwork. Format even shares that waiting for the right mood to strike could take a long time. When it comes to your finances, being motivated can be a great push but you do not have the luxury of time. If you wait to be motivated, you might have already missed opportunities. Here are a few things to help you find that motivation you need.
Manage your finances with a budget
Financial motivation can come from having a good hold of your finances. If you want to be in control of your finances, the first places you need to start with is having a comprehensive budget. This is one of the most important financial tools you need to reach your goals in life. It can also help motivate you to do better with your finances.
When you have control over your finances with a budget, it can give you the motivation to continue on or do better to help you reach your target. Take your mortgage loan for example where having good control over your budget shows you how much you put into the payment and the extra amount you can pay towards it.
It can motivate you to pay your mortgage faster by paying more every month. You can make extra monthly payments to speed up your mortgage payoff. It is also possible to make payments only on the principal amount. If you get to lower your principal amount, you save money from interest payment and pull your payoff date much closer.
Set your goals
One thing you need to know is that financial motivation has a lot to do with your goals in life. You need to have goals in life to aim for. These goals are the reasons why you do what you do. You put in the work so you reach your goals, It may be the reason why you put in some overtime work, look for passive income, or even turn your hobbies into income-positive ones.
Take a car purchase as a goal for example. If you set that you want to buy a specific car at a specific price, your actions should lead you to that goal. If you will be buying a second-hand car in cash, you start saving for it. You get a side gig so you can earn extra money to save. It is also possible that you start selling things you no longer use to raise cash.
Incorporate rewards into your journey
Some people use the reward system to help motivate them for a specific goal and your finances can benefit from this as well. Financial motivation can come from rewards you put in place to help keep you going. It can be a day of pampering after you pay off a credit card or even a nice meal with your family. Just be sure that the reward does not negate the work you have put in.
What holds you back?
Now that you have an idea what helps motivate you financially, it also helps to understand the things that hold you back. Here are some of them which you need to avoid to help motivate you further.
Not having a growth mindset
Financial motivation has a lot to do with your mindset. You can have all the reasons in the world to be motivated but if you have the wrong mindset, you may miss all of them entirely. This is just like getting into a healthy lifestyle because you want to either have a specific type of body, trying to lose weight or even distancing yourself from sickness.
This is a noble goal but as soon as you find out that you have to change the way you eat, the exercise you need to put in, and the other work you have to do, you back down. You might think that you cannot do it even before you have had the chance to try it out and get started. Rather than being positive about the change, you put yourself down and never accomplish anything
The same thing can be said with your finances where you need to take the challenges and be positive about it. Rather than saying you cannot save for emergencies or even max out your 401k for the match, you need to be challenged with it. Look for ways to either increase your income or lower your expenses so you can free up funds to reach your goal.
Putting off things for the next day
Financial motivation will be hard to come by if you keep postponing for tomorrow things you can do today. If your goal is to raise some money by selling unused items around the house, you could be putting it off day after day. Unused items are still scattered around your house and you are nowhere close to starting a garage sale.
It might seem to be a lot of work but you do not have to do everything in a day. You can schedule activities you need to accomplish daily but the goal is to start. Have a plan and do it every day until you reach it. If it means going through each room in your house getting unused items and putting them in the garage, then do so. Do not put off the work for the next day if you can do it today.
This mentality will help motivate you to move forward and reach your goals. If you need to save, do it now. Skip that expensive coffee every morning and pack your lunch for work. You can also start walking to and from work so you can get that exercise you always wanted. The idea is to get started and do not put off work for tomorrow.
Thinking you can do everything on your own
Financial motivation can come from a lot of places and you should not think that you can do everything on your own. Motivation can come from other people if you can process it correctly. This is because you might just feel envious of what other people have. Once this happens, you can be filled with grief and fail to accomplish anything in life.
If you see other people more accomplished than you are, use that as a motivation. If you know them personally, you can even talk to them. Try to learn from their mistakes and challenges and see how they were able to overcome them. Take inspiration from what other successful people around you have attained so you will be motivated to do better.
Financial motivation can be a very potent tool to use in order for you to get ahead in your finances and reach your goals faster. Motivation can come when you least expect it but you should not rely on it being unpredictable. You need to find a way to consistently motivate yourself in order for you to move forward and reach your financial targets. If this becomes a habit, it will help you realize not only your financial goals but even your short and long-term life goals as well.
