A VERY HUMAN PROBLEM: PART 2
This week’s article continues our discussion on lifestyle spending and debt. If you missed last week’s article, please take a moment to read it now.
Early in the process of working with The Advocates, we help you articulate your values which in turn, inform your vision of the future.
From then on, your financial plan is geared toward your vision; it’s your big picture: who you want to be and what you want to do with your life. And when needed, it can be used to bring you back to center when you’re feeling a little impulsive.
There are tangible things you need to do to get out of debt. You need to have a clear look at your numbers. Willfully ignoring the situation will not help, even if you suffer some short-term anxiety in the review process.
You need to make a budget, track expenses, and reallocate extra cash to pay down debt. These are good and true things, but it’s not enough. You need to be aware of your emotional state and be ready with a response when you’re teetering on the edge of poor decisions.
Rationality is making decisions with logic or sound reasoning. Often, people logically know what the best choice is in a given situation, but something overrides our rational judgement, and we begin to justify the bad choice (see Part I).
To stop this, we need to regain perspective about what truly matters to us and try to look at the situation rationally. The following ideas should help us refocus and engage our rational mind, assuming we have taken the prerequisite step of desiring to change the behavior.
If the prospect of an 8-step review is daunting, we understand. We implore you to do what you can, knowing that it’s better than nothing. After all, the last part of the solution is endurance, which is something you develop on your own.
It’s the exhausting art of doing daily what is required of us to achieve a greater good, until it becomes second nature. The payoff for endurance is achievement; in this case achieving your vision and living the future you want.
If you’re in Houston, check out this list of free or inexpensive things to do around our beautiful city.