Are you worried about your financial future as we enter another year with an uncertain economy? If you have worries, I want to challenge you to change your perception about uncertain economic times. Understand that life is always about ups and downs. It is part of the natural cycle of life to have up and down cycles in every area of our lives: financial, love, career and friendships. After every high period, there is always a low period. Just as after a low period, there is always a high period. A great unknown is when these periods will come and go. We never really know how long any given period will last, either.
The challenge for us is to learn how to adapt and adjust to up and down cycles. There are always possibilities and opportunities within every cycle. There are lessons to learn and opportunities to grow in each cycle. We can learn how to be happy, even if the economy is uncertain. We can learn to live with less. It is all in how we choose to view the times.
During economic downturns, be open to new possibilities for generating income. Understand that you have more options than your current or your former job. You have new skills that you can develop that could generate future income. You are a creative person with so many possibilities and opportunities for generating income. You are never at a disadvantage, no matter how circumstances may appear. Challenge yourself to be creative and consider bold new ideas that you might not have been willing to consider in the past. You might have a wonderful business idea that you could consider. It might be an ideal time to go back to school and train for a new career.
Work on believing that you are safe and that you will be taken care of, regardless of your bank account balance. We tend to feel more secure as size of our bank account rises. However, we can learn to cultivate a sense of security that is not dependent on external conditions, which may not always be within our control. Faith comes into play. We have to learn to believe that we will always be taken care of. Somehow we will find a way to get what we need. We can never anticipate the exact means that our needs will be met, but we need to learn to have faith.
You are probably wondering if managing financial uncertainty is about having faith that our needs will be taken care of, then why are there so many people suffering and struggling? We have important life lessons to learn through our experiences. Unfortunately, we do not get to choose the exact circumstances to which we get to learn our lessons. Some people may be learning valuable lessons through financial difficulty. It is wise for us to focus on our experiences and trust that everything is always happening for a reason. Our job is not to analyze and understand why certain circumstances happen to some people and not to other people. We are responsible for finding the lessons in our experiences, not in other people's experiences.
Keep your mind free of worry as much as possible. Challenge yourself to stay focused on the present moment and try not to guess what might happen in the future. Resist thinking of what could go wrong in the near future. Think about what unexpected opportunities could come out of changing economic times.
Have faith in yourself and your ability to manage during uncertainty. You are strong enough and wise enough to figure out how to manage during changing economic times. Ask yourself, "What opportunities are here for me?" Remind yourself that you can handle the circumstances of your life. Nothing is too difficult for you to handle.
Try not to see yourself as a helpless victim of random, changing economic trends. As financial circumstances change, we may have to modify our spending and make some tough choices about our financial priorities. We may have to downsize our lifestyles to some degree. Challenge yourself to see every change that you choose to make as a gain instead of a loss or blow to your ego. Try to understand that it might be wiser to spend less now or spend your money in a different way than you did before. Different does not mean that you are on the losing end. You may discover that you really do not need to have as many possessions as you previously thought.
Changing economic times can be a wonderful time to simplify our lives. It is good to ask yourself what do you really need to be happy? Look at what you spend your money on and ask yourself what value does this item or service add to your life? Can you find value in other ways that does not cost money? We may need to sit down and clearly establish our true priorities. Often, we are following somebody else's ideas about what we need to have and how we need to spend our money instead of creating our own priorities. Advertisers are very effective in persuading us that we need their services and products, when we may not really need them at all.
Speak in the langauge of prosperity instead of poverty. Comments such as "We cannot afford this...", "We do not have the money for this..", or "We do not know where the money is gonna come from for this..." imply lack and limitation. Speak in terms of choice and prosperity instead of lack. Examples of prosperity thoughts include "We are choosing not to buy this now.. or "Now is not the right time to buy this..." or "We trust that more money will flow into our lives in the future, so we will let the future take care of itself." Do you see the difference between these statements?
Even if money is tight, find a way to create a little fun with your money. Life is such a drudgery when people accept the belief that every single dollar has to be spent on necessities. They do not allow themselves to see a movie or do something fun. Fun is an essential necessity for living. Decide what you enjoy and put a little money aside for it. Try not to let economic downturns take away all the joy out of living.
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