THE HARDEST FINANCIAL SKILL , EPISODE 44, LIFE LESSONS

 

THE HARDEST FINANCIAL SKILL

Hi friends and welcome to Life Lessons.

We all are aware of the importance of financial knowledge in our life. A basic knowledge of finance can save our day in many cases. Among all of this knowledge, have you ever wondered what is the hardest but most important financial skill that we need to possess as responsible personal finance managers.

This skill is- Stop moving our goal posts in life. Let us look into the same in the coming sections.

Why are dreams important in life

Everyone as they grow up develop some or the other sort of dream. This is the result of the atmosphere we grew up or continuous observation towards a peculiar personality.

Whatever may be the reason is dreams are always special in lives of all individuals. If followed, these decide the track that we can fit into. We get an opportunity to work our favorite (dream) profession.

All these factors make dreams important in our life.

How to set life goals? What are goal posts?

There is a narrow line that separates the meaning of goals and dreams. We all have dreams but they need a perfect planning to be achieved. The final step or the destination of these set of steps is the goal.

Thus we can interpret the importance and need of setting life goals. Goals set are different for different persons based on several factors like the extent they want to work upon, the type of dreams, their current situation etc.

What are goal posts?

Goal posts in life are nothing but the stage/level in life where we consider it as the successful point. For example: a young graduate sets his goal post to own a motorcycle in a year after getting a job.

It has been quite common that the goals differ for a particular individual. How? Let us consider the above example. The guy who set his goal post owning a motorcycle will not stop at this stage. Once he got his motorcycle, within few days he will move his goal post towards a car or apartment.

Now the question is- Is it healthy to move our goal posts? The answer is NO.

The answer for the question seems to be simple and straight forward, but it needs in depth brainstorming to understand the underlying life lessons.  I will try to answer it in the next section.

Stop Moving the Goal Posts

Setting up a goal post is an appreciable decision. If you have set a goal post before or after this article, I would congratulate you for your concern towards life and dreams.

But it is a sad truth to know that the goal posts once set generally tend to move. This is because we are not same every day. When we grow personally, our needs and wants change accordingly. In this course when the prior set goal posts are achieved, it doesn’t bring satisfaction anymore.

Here is a short chronicle for better interpretation:

Ram was a middle class guy just finished his graduation. He wanted to earn Rs 25K a month to meet his personal expenses and start saving. He set this goal post to be achieved within a year. Everything went fine and he could reach this goal post at the end of the year. He had a job compensating him of Rs25K a month.

But the lifestyle of Ram changed in this due course. He made new friends in his office. Many of them owned motorcycles. His mind now has turned towards owning a motorcycle. With the salary he was getting, he was not in a condition to afford a motorcycle. So he started to do OT (Over time) in his workplace.

After few months he got his own motorcycle. Thus his second goal post is achieved.

Soon he got married and the expenses began to rise, his wife wanted him to own a car too. All these made him set a new goal post of higher income. This process went on all his life.

What do we observe here? Ram’s entire life has been filled with number of goal posts and his hard work to achieve it. In this course he forgot that he had a life and he have to enjoy it.

This is the problem with many people in our society. The perception that we don’t have enough money comes from this process of moving Goal posts.

Just imagine that Ram have taken some time to think and decide the only goal post of life. Say, he made his goal post of earning Rs1lac a month in order to get a settled life. All the needs and wants (depicted above)would have been filled in this goal post itself.

This small change in the process of setting up of goal posts would change his perception and once achieved, he would live the entire life peacefully.

I hope this instance have given good explanation of the concept of moving goal posts. It is common that the set goal posts change intentionally or unintentionally. It is acceptable in minor decisions but not in those that are life changing.

Therefore, I would like to advise you to take to take some time and set up such a goal post that would cover almost every ups and down in life.

Get This Book

I have learned this perception from the book-  The Psychology of money written by Morgan Housel. From the link above you can purchase the book if you are interested to get one. Please be free to purchase from the above affiliate link to support me for more interesting articles like this.

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