Do You Wait Well?

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Personal Finance and Personal Health are similar in a few ways, but one of the most important ways (in my mind) is your patience level, or how well you wait.

While this is true for a lot of things, I’ve come to believe that this is one of the reasons why people don’t change their personal finance situation, or why they try for a month or two then give up: It takes too long. In The Total Money Makeover, Dave Ramsey says that it will take you anywhere from 18-24 months to get rid of all your debt.  That’s a long time.  It may not have taken you near that long to rack it up.  It could have taken you half that time (or less, if you hit a really nasty patch you were unprepared for or you’re a prolific spender) or it could have taken you twice that long, building slowly over the course of 3-5 years.

Looking at the day when I’m finally debt free is still a long way out, but it’s something that I think is worth waiting for.  It will worth it in the end, so I’m waiting for things that I want right right now, or finding ways to do without them all together. The same goes for your health.  You didn’t wake up one morning to find yourself 35 lbs overweight and pathetically out of shape.  It took quite a bit of work to get to that point.  Well, actually, it took the shirking of quite a bit of exercise and eating rather poorly to get to that point.  Now that you’re there, you want out right?  Well, why not just turn on the radio or open a magazine and follow whatever fad diet/lose weight quickly scheme they are promoting?  Oh, you’ve tried that already and it didn’t work? I’m not surprised.  Those things are the weight-loss equivalents of a “get rich quick” scheme.

Getting healthy, just like getting out of debt, is going to take time and effort.  You’re going to need to first change your eating habits.  Once that’s done, hopefully you’ll have more energy to exercise after work instead of watch tv.  So, you’ve decided you still want to do try to get out of debt or lose weight even though I just told you it would take a lot of work?  Good for you.  Here are some tips to help you bide your time.

1. Realize its going to take time –  One of the most bothersome things (to me, anyway) is working on something that you expect to take 1 hour and it ends up taking 4.  Realize that losing weight and getting financially fit are going to take time.  Be prepared to be in it for the long haul.  Your work wont stop when you are debt free or at a healthy weight, either.  Once you’ve gotten to where you want to be, your work will surely get easier, but keeping that healthy weight and keeping a handle on your finances are really about 1 thing….
2. Form Good Habits – This is important for long term success in health and finances.  If you’ve got habits now that involve spending gobs of money or are terrible for you, consider replacing them with cheaper or healthier habits.  Going out to an expensive dinner is an expensive habit, and may or may not be healthy.  Going for a run or on a hike with your friends is good, cheap/free exercise that’s also fun.
3. Know you’re going to slip up – Look, it happens to everyone.  You’re going to buy something you probably could do with out/shouldn’t buy, or you’re going to eat that 3rd cookie.  It’s not a big deal.  It really isnt, the important thing to do when this happens is…
4. Stop the slip ups – The worst (and probably the easiest) thing you could do in this situation is compound your mistakes.  I did this a LOT.  I’d slip up and buy something that I was pretty sure I shouldn’t have purchased, but did anyway.  Once I did that, I went ahead and did it again, explaining to myself that I already had failed to reach my goal so I may as well just fail completely instead of failing a small amount.  The end result is the same. Here’s the thing: The end result isn’t the same.  If you miss a weight loss (or budget) goal by a pound (or dollar) or two, you’re close  enough that you know you can hit it on target next time.  If you blow it out of the water, you’re more likely to just say hell with it and scrap the whole process.
5. Enjoy it! – Losing weight/saving money is going to suck if you don’t have fun with it.  Turn it into a game or contest.  Sign up for a team sport where you’ll get a lot of exercise, or go in with your friends/significant other to see who can clip the most relevant coupons and be responsible for the most saving at your local Kroger.   One of you can plan the menu/do the shopping one week, and then you can switch.  See who can spend the least!

Those are just a few tips for what to do when you’re undertaking a task that is going to take some serious time.  What do you do to make long processes like this more fun?

Some Yakezie love for today:

Low Cost Business Ideas at PF Firewall

How to Cut Costs when Starting a Small Business at Narrow Bridge

Lessons that Almost Were at Budgets are the New Black

photo credit: Monika Thorpe

Tagged as: Finance, long term, waiting

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