Before you read my thoughts, consider these steps as the start of building a foundation. This is a big question with an even bigger answer. In fact, books could be written on the answer. This is intended to get you started with building the foundation.
Dear Bob,
I am stuck when it comes to my finances. I cannot get motivated to take the steps to get unstuck. What is your advice?
When something isn’t working financially, it can be scary and downright paralyzing. We worry about it and wonder what to do. The answer is pretty simple. You have to determine the problem before you can find the solution. Yet, often times we come to the conclusion that the answer is more money. If I had just made more money, I wouldn’t have this financial problem. If I won the lottery, all of my problems would go away. There is a reason roughly 70% of lottery winners go broke.
More money is rarely the answer. Instead, it is the decisions you make and the habits you create that separate those who are financially sound versus financially insolvent.
Borrowing more money to fill the gap and kicking the can down the road is never the solution. Borrowing money is a process that is often repeated until the breaking point is hit and there is no more money to borrow.
First, the key is finding what habits or decisions keep you stuck. For instance, let’s say that living outside of your means is the true problem. You find yourself borrowing money, you spend that money just like you did before the new loan, and you find the solution you thought you had was a temporary band-aid. Once that new loan is spent, you have a bigger problem with an additional loan payment or higher minimum payments on your credit card. You have to guard yourself against thinking that more money can buy you enough time until some solution in the future is magically going to appear.
It is almost as if we were designed to be self-sabotaging machines! In reality, that is not how God designed us. It comes down to the choices we are making. Try this litmus test for the decisions you make with money: Do those choices bring you closer to a stewardship relationship with God, or do they push you further away from that stewardship relationship?
The key is dealing with the problem in the present. The past is in our life to teach us valuable lessons. The key is implementing those valuable lessons today and not repeating the same cycle of choices that don’t bring us closer to stewardship.
Once you start to identify the problems, you need to take action as if your financial life depends on it (and maybe it does). Procrastination is a stewardship killer.
Most importantly, the answer to all financial problems is to give it up to God and include God in the process. God wants the small things, the big things, and everything in between. ONLY God can open doors and opportunities that you would never imagine existed.
Bob Brooks is the host of the Prudent Money Radio Show heard every weekday from 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM on FM Radio 91.3 KDKR