Dont look back - Move forward

Leave your baggage behind

In a seminar I attended a year ago the speaker asked a question and said “if you were to have a lot of money, what would you all do to change your lives? What is it that inspires your waking up every single day to work?”

The answers given inspired me personally ill say.

 

The beauty in the dreams

Most the people there didn’t just dream of owning a big home, driving a fancy car or taking all those expensive holidays to the Caribbean. Instead, most wanted to do something that would impact their societies, most had dreams to change the lives of other people they have seen to be suffering and empower others to live liberated and happy lives.

There were dreams of building a shelter for the poor, providing funding for the girl child who dropped out of school because of a pregnancy and is now stuck home trying to raise a baby, her whole life disrupted, dreams of putting up an orphanage, a soup kitchen, empowering the school leaver to better manage his/her finances thus developing a nation of successful individuals and families who will change the status quo as we know it; dreams of building an old age home, setting up bursaries for better education. Everyone displayed a seed of passion.

Through these dreams I saw the hand of God manifesting in each heart, His work at hand. I was reborn and understood that we as a Swazi nation still have a heart. For the first time in a long time, I was proud of the people I get to share this country with. I realized that with their hearts and all our collective efforts, there are yet a lot of lives we can change; there is yet so much beauty to create.

 

It all starts with you

Here is the obvious truth though; it all begins with you – nothing in your life will change until and unless you get up from your comfortable and static position. Life’s answers lie in your own heart and it’s your responsibility to get out of that chair and start walking towards a liberated life filled with no regrets and bounds of riches. It’s up to you to understand that you can only make a difference in the next person’s life, can only achieve these beautiful dreams if you have mastered the art of taking care of your own finances.

 

It begins in your own home, your heart _ first with you.

The responsibility to change your financial sphere lies in your capable hands, not your husbands, not luck, not your cousin, your parents dying and leaving you a nest egg; NO. It all begins with you making a commitment to be a success, a commitment to plan for your future, spend wisely and commit to finding better ways to make money.

 

No shame, no blame

In order to build the healthy relationship required to bring you financial success, I will ask all of you therefore to first let go of some demoralizing misconceptions that have hindered your progress all your lives. Even today being in the debt mess you are in, these misconceptions are forever fostering at the back of your mind and have immobilized your ability to change, your ability to take charge of your life. I will ask you let go of them forever. As at today, let go of the burden of shame and the tendency to blame. The first step is always to accept the situation you are in, accept that only you can take yourself out of the debt trap. Only then can you work towards addressing it.

I know most of you are not feeling confident enough in your own knowledge of how money works and are therefore arguing that it is easier to

• try and hide behind the shame of being uneducated,
• deferring decisions to others “you know the thinking that my husband/wife will take care of it, he/she will find a way to get us out of this mess”,
• staying stuck in a dangerous pattern of inaction,
• continue the very repetitive action that has brought you to this point in the first place.

You wrap yourselves up in a wet paper cloth, convincing yourself you can’t change, that you don’t know how to or where to begin. At this stage you even find it too embarrassing to accept that you have a problem that needs urgent attention.

And where the mantle of shame stops, most of you allow the tendency to blame to kick in. You tell yourself, it’s not my fault. Its society, my husband’s demands, my wife who does too much shopping, my parents who never taught me the art of financial discipline, the goods in the shops that have gotten too expensive (like someone holds a gun to your head and forces you to buy that extra pair of shoes you don’t need)….all of the above. Or you argue that I didn’t have role models, no one taught me how, money decisions were always made for me ect ect.

 

Change your destiny

While these may be founded in some truth, it’s up to you to make the decision to be first in your line of generation to master financial skills.

Most of you have gone through 13 years of school, 5 years in university; learnt so many more intricate solutions to complex problems, learning how to manage money should be a piece of cake for the intelligent being you are. After all, where does blame get you? Blame renders you powerless. Get past the blame in order to become who you were meant to be. And what does shame do to you? Shame can only immobilize you.

This article is about stepping forward and not looking back at all you have done wrong – some of which include,

• all the extra money you wasted on that luncheon you had in your attempt to impress that woman/man you want to like you,
• that impromptu shopping at the trip with him/her to Johannesburg
• that extra meal you paid for the friend of hers whose name you don’t even remember as you read this page,
• that rent you’ve been paying every month for the flat you get to sleep in only once a month when your wife is away attending a funeral (while the rest of the time you have no idea how many other men get to share that bed you bought),
• that bottle of perfume she will make sure to put on as she rocks her other man to sleep while you’re at home with your family,
• that airtime you buy every month only to be buzzed each time she wants to ask you for more money; and more importantly
• that investment decision you didn’t make that would have secured a future for you and your family.

You are allowed to want to understand how you got here, allowed that women/men to play you, spent so much money trying to impress someone who clearly takes you for granted.

It’s allowed, but what’s critical is for you to change your destiny starting today.

 

Work towards mapping a resolve to move forward into a future that looks entirely different, a destiny that is all yours, move to an abundance of joy and of life.

I encourage you to use your past mistakes to propel you into a rich abundant future, rather than allow your past mistakes to continue to hold you back.

 

So where do you start?

Yes, to move forward you must start with the most basic of which is Budgeting ………..