Keeping to a Budget – Cut Your Coat according to Your Cloth Cut your coat according to your cloth The need for acceptance and respect from our peers and people we respect is a strong human need at the sub conscious level. No one wants to be looked down upon, or seem to be looked down upon. However, the looking down upon starts from the inside. If you look down on yourself, then you will seem to fall short when you compare yourself with others. You develop low self esteem and lean on appearance to ‘equalize’. It takes confidence and self esteem to be yourself and buy what you can afford when folks around you are living it up, buying the latest phones, latest cars, live in the most posh neighborhoods and go for exotic foreign holidays. It is sign of respect for self that you do not empty your account and go into debt to please others. Are others even pleased? The funny thing about impressing others is that they may not even take notice or are impressed. Even if they are, is it worth the cost? Working hard for money instead of having your money work hard for you, clinging to a job you hate, living a few months away from bankruptcy? If you lose your job, will the folks you tried to impress come to the rescue? Why put a show for others when deep down, we are hurting financially? Why not delay gratification and allow your money to work for us? We need to cut our coat according to our cloth if we desire to achieve financial independence, our cloth being our effective disposable income (gross salary less taxes, deductions, tithes/giving and savings). What is left is what you should consider as your net income – what you get to see to spend. This is your cloth, in the context of cut your coat according to your cloth. You are to cut your cloth according to your cloth, not according to your size. Your size is a perception and is subjective. Bringing your size into the equation is opening the door for the image monster to strike. We open ourselves up to peer pressure when we try to meet up to our size or status. We allow our status to become the driving force rather than our financial goals. The work to be done is on the inside, in believing in yourself and where you are going. It has to do with changing the internal dialog that goes on inside, making us believe we are less than enough. The two most important opinions about you are what you think about yourself and what God thinks about you. If both say you are okay, then what others think does not matter much. It does not make financial sense (or any sense whatsoever) to spend money you don’t have to buy what you don’t need to please spectators. When you’re 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking about you. When you’re 40, you don’t give a darn what anybody thinks of you. When you’re 60, you realize that nobody has been thinking about you at all!”. – John Maxwell Sadly, many still worry about what everybody thinks about them way past age 40. The reality is that you are the only one that will know if you achieved your goals or not. Long after the spectators have come and gone, it is down to your purpose, goals and dreams. What someone thought about you 12 years ago does not matter anymore.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:42:49 +0000