Make a Resolution, Set a Goal, Form a Habit
You can make a resolution, set a goal, or form a habit. Making a resolution is making a firm decision to do or not to do something. Setting a goal is setting a desired result to achieve. Forming a habit is forming a behavioral routine that is repeated regularly without thought. As you can see, these are three different approaches to achieve what you want.
Which one you select is critical to get what you want and maintain it. Resolutions usually fade and goals are rarely achieved. The whole reason this happens is because we don’t focus on forming good habits. We blindly keep doing the same thing, wishing to be different. You have to do something different to see different results. What we have to do differently is form good habits.
Systems
One of the biggest myths is that change happens over night. There are so many stories of overnight success. We see the success, but not the work that created the success. The truth is that success doesn’t happen overnight but over time with consistency and a system.
A system is the processes that lead to our goals. We have to focus on systems rather than goals. If our goal is financial freedom. We have to form systems that promote good financial habits.
Good vs Bad
Good habits make time our ally and have positive compounding effects. Automating our bill payments saves us time and has positive compounding effects through less stress, no thought, and credit score increase. Investing allows time to work for us and compounds to create wealth. Budgeting saves us time and has positive compounding effects from reducing energy and stress required to manage money and having ownership of where our money goes.
Bad Habits make time our enemy and have negative compounding effects. Paying bills late makes us spend more time on payments and has negative compounding effects through more stress, more thought, and credit score decrease. Mismanaging debt, like maxing out credit cards, allows time to work against us and compounds to create debt. Spending more than we make wastes our time and has negative compounding effects from increasing energy and stress required to manage money and burying ourselves in a deficit.
Change
Change is never easy. Replacing bad financial habits with good financial habits is easier said than done. However, with the correct systems, change is possible. I like to think of change as a journey. Along this journey you will have temptation and failure, but to continue you have to remember the goal of the journey. Find those who can support you on this journey. Before you start your journey, discover your good and bad habits and the systems behind them. Then, map out the path to your goal and form good financial habits.
Be WIZE with MONEY