Three Tips for Staying Positive About Your Financial Future

Even if you are a natural optimist, there may be times when your financial future will seem dim to you. The cause could be as dramatic as a job loss or a medical emergency that completely upends your financial plans.

It may be the sudden realization of a long-brewing problem — a career (and salary) that has stagnated or a debt load that only grows.

Or it may be a persistent, gnawing feeling that while nothing is critically “wrong” per se, nothing is quite right either.

You’re just not feeling on track to meet your long-range goals. Whether a new-found issue or an old sore, your gaze into the crystal ball is met with fog.

Let’s clear things up, shall we?

Step One — Determining the Root Cause

Our opening move is to answer the obvious question: “ Why do you doubt your potential to achieve your financial goals?” But we need to get down to the root cause.

For example, if you have turned pessimistic because you lost your job or your business failed (and who wouldn’t be in that circumstance!), we need to understand why this happened.

Be honest with yourself and record your responses to the following questions:

If your financial prospects seem grim because you’re carrying what feels like an impossible debt load, let’s interrogate this further:

In each of the instances above, we need to understand at a granular level what problem we’re trying to solve before creating an action plan.

While confronting missteps in your journey may be a painful exercise, your path forward will be much straighter with the time spent in self-reflection.

Step Two — Setting Actionable Goals

Staying with our examples above, let’s consider our next step: You need a goal…or rather, a few goals. It’s all about the process.

If your grim outlook stems from a lost job or job stagnation, your “get out of your funk” plan is to articulate (in writing again, please!) the concrete steps that you will take next: