‘Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought,’ Marcus Aurelius.

How we engage with our money reflects what’s going on inside our heads, which is an extension of what’s going on inside our hearts. They’re all connected.

Our feelings affect our thoughts, which in turn direct our actions – but we can also turn that around by changing our actions to create new patterns of thinking, which in turn can change the way we feel about things. Regardless of the direction that change takes place, our mind is at the centre of this process.

This means that the actions we take with our spending, savings and investing (our money habits) will not only be shaped BY our thoughts, but can also shape the way we think and feel. It is why we often experience cognitive dissonance, or buyers remorse, after making money decisions.

The term cognitive dissonance describes the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. When there is an inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave, it motivates people to engage in actions that will help minimise discomfort.

Buyer’s remorse is an example of post-decision dissonance, where we feel stressed by a decision and seek to decrease our discomfort. Purchases that require high amounts of effort but do not bear high rewards are likely to lead to buyer’s remorse. If we focus on them, these thoughts will contribute to a largely negative mindset.

If we always regret purchasing risk products that protect us in emergencies or ill health, we will be more inclined to cancel those policies. It’s hard to spend money on something that will only benefit us in the uncertain future; cognitive dissonance will be fueled by thoughts that are inconsistent with trusting the process. If we are constantly looking for immediate gratification (spending and receiving, investing and seeing growth), our minds will be limited, and our thoughts will affect our feelings and actions.

Marketers know this well, so in most product booklets, they begin with a congratulatory message for choosing their product. If we want to shape our minds, we can set up systems of support that help us remember why we’ve made certain decisions that will be healthy for our future self. This is how we ‘hold in thought’ the choices to keep a healthy mind when it comes to our money (and all other things in life!). 

Support systems include working with a financial adviser that we trust and keeping a written record of our financial plan and policy portfolio (a one-page overview is a great start). We can also set milestones for moments of celebration and acknowledgement, like clearing our debt, saving a specific amount of money, or improving the way our family communicates about money. The bottom line is this: the more we think about something, the more likely it is to manifest in our lives. So if we keep thinking that we will never have enough money, we will most likely never have enough. But, if we learn to work with all we already have and hold thoughts of gratitude and awareness of our abundance, we will continue to have more than we need. It will directly affect how we feel about our money and the habits we form.

We all know that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. Even after we’ve gone, taxes are still levied against our estate. The more money we make, the more money the taxman looks to take.

Tax can be a serious stumbling block in our financial mindset, especially when we think about all the ways in which we are taxed, where that money goes and how it is ultimately invested into our community, whether it’s local or across the entire country. As we also know, most of our success in life happens in our head; how we think and what we think about are crucial to making healthy decisions and choices. So, if there’s a mental stumbling block, we need to flatten it or learn how to jump it.

First, we can change our perception of tax and accept that there are elements that we will never fully agree with. This is because tax is not just for us, but for everyone else too and whilst you can keep some of the people happy some of the time, you can’t keep all of the people happy all of the time.

We can think about our country like a country club. Every country club offers benefits to its members, and in order to enjoy these benefits, membership fees need to be paid on time. This keeps things equal, and it keeps the country club in a position to keep providing benefits to its members. The committee that runs a country club needs to account for ensuring that the ideals of their community are upheld and maintaining the facilities with the membership fees paid.

It’s a simple illustration, but it’s a helpful way to understand that when we choose to live in a country, we too need to pay the fees to maintain the resources, infrastructure and ideological leadership. The complexity with tax is that we move from a couple of hundred people in a very similar demographic to millions and millions of people across multiple demographics. But at its core, if we understand that tax is designed to help us contribute to shared resources, we can start to flatten or jump this mental hurdle.

Second, we can change our behaviour when it comes to earning money and paying taxes. Life is already so busy and complex, if we don’t pay regular attention to our money and our taxes, we will always find ourselves rushed and stressed over the tax season. Here are a few things to do differently this year:

1. If you’re not money savvy (most of us aren’t), find a financial adviser, planner or coach who you trust and make sure you have regular meetings with them.
2. Keep track of your income and your spending. This is the fundamental basic law of good money management; your financial adviser will help you with this.
3. If you don’t pay tax every month, keep a small savings account active where you can pay your estimated tax. Smaller monthly amounts are far easier to stomach than bi-annual or annual payments. You’ll also accrue interest on the saved money, which will help you when payments are due.
4. When you check in with your financial adviser, stay up to date with tax exemptions or tax-free savings initiatives to maximise your financial potential, both in the short and long term. These options and rulings are often updated in annual budget speeches and will affect how you move towards financial independence.

Being tax savvy is not about working hard at the end of the tax year; it’s about understanding that tax is part of our daily financial planning. If you need to chat – let’s set up a time and ensure your financial situation is at its healthiest.

“Remember the past, plan for the future, but live for today, because yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come.”

The best time to live is in the present. It’s easy to get lost in a daydream of how life could have been different or how good life used to be. It’s equally easy to succumb to the speculative dreaming of what might happen in the future.

Believing in a better future is hope, and being confident of what we hope for; that is faith. Faith is grounded in the reality of the past; hope is looking to the anticipated reality of the future. In this way, to truly live with purpose today, we need to remember our past and plan for our future.

But there is a difference between thinking about the past or future and living in it. Sometimes we live in the past because it’s familiar; we know what happened; there are no surprises. So too we might live in the future because we are deeply dissatisfied with where we are.

When we dwell on thoughts to the point that they consume most of our energy and attention, this is when we move from thinking to dwelling. As the old proverb goes, “home is where the heart dwells”.

When the past was really good, we can be tempted to live in our memories because just thinking back on it gives you a feeling of comfort and happiness. And, if the past was really bad, we can live in the future seeking the same comfort and happiness.

We need to identify this in our lives because we can’t change the past and we cannot predict the future. The only place we can make changes is in the present moment. No matter how certain our plans might be, if some major event happens, that can all dissipate into the ether with the snap of a finger.

Being present to our present is where we regain and maintain control of our power to choose. When you speak to people with children or people on their deathbed, a common regret is missing their kids growing up or wishing they’d spent more time with their loved ones.

If you feel like you’re not quite focussed enough on the present, grab a journal and a pen and jot down one of these questions on each page. When your mind wanders and you find yourself dwelling on something that is taking you away from the present moment, jot it down on that page. This will help you release it from your focus, but still, be able to recall it to help you in your planning.

1. Is there one particular period from the past that you find yourself clinging to?
2. Are you frustrated with where you currently are in life?
3. What causes you to be anxious for the future?
4. What are you most grateful for in life?

Whilst these are helpful life questions, they’re also rooted in the core motivations for how we work with our money. When we can slowly break these questions apart and work through them, we can start to understand our money better and embrace what it means to remember the past, plan for the future and live for today.

As financial planning conversations deepen and explore more value, we find ourselves moving from the empirical to the emotional, from processes to perceptions and from products to people. It’s an enlightening journey that takes us away from numbers and allows us to reflect and reconstruct our future planning approach.

But, it’s also extremely challenging as we find questions we can’t easily answer; but, that’s still healthier than having answers we can’t question! This point of reflection helps us form questions that enable us to navigate the flow and rate of change around us. The questions empower us to see choices more clearly and engage with our life and financial plan in a significant and impactful way.

But, before we make any changes to our investment portfolio, there are some helpful questions to ask. A recent article from fbfs.com offered several questions; here are some of them.

Am I working with a financial adviser I can trust?

In the same way, our personal and professional relationships depend on strong bonds of trust; our relationship with our money needs the same foundation. And, this begins by working with a financial adviser we can trust.

We all have blind spots (which is why financial advisers ALSO NEED financial advisers for their personal portfolios!), so it’s not just about working with someone our bank recommended; it’s about working with someone who we know, like, and trust.

How have my circumstances changed?

Some life changes are apparent, and we don’t need someone to help us spot them, but other life changes are slow and gradual. When we’ve been working with a trusted financial adviser, they can help us track and identify the gradual changes that will impact how we invest and plan for the future. Not all life changes require a shift in funds, but some might. This is how we build an investment strategy that consistently reflects what is important to us.

Has there been a change in my risk tolerance?

Various factors influence risk tolerance, but one of the most significant is our investment horizon. Ask yourself: “Has my financial timeline changed?” For example, if you’ve decided to move your financial independence (retirement) date, this might change your investment strategy. Your financial situation or a change in your risk preferences could also trigger tweaks to your investment portfolio.

Are any of my funds underperforming?

This is probably the question we ask ourselves most… but it’s also one of the most detrimental if not answered correctly. A bad week, month or even year may not be a valid cause for concern for long-term investment strategies. However, consistent poor performance over several years may yield a legitimate concern and reason to reflect on your fund selection. But, even so, it still needs to be taken in the context of the entire portfolio and the outcomes for which we’d hoped.

No matter how much we plan and how meticulous we might be, things generally never go directly according to plan. So there will always be reasons to feel like we need to switch funds; some will be valid, others won’t be. Hopefully, this blog helps you prepare for your next financial planning conversation!

As we build businesses and seek to create various income opportunities, we are always confronted with the challenge of pricing. It’s a challenge because all of our situations are different.

Those with qualifications and experience often charge more for their time. But it’s not a sure way to work out billing and costs; sometimes people feel very confident in the value they’re bringing, so rather than looking at the time and experience they bring to their hour of work, they look at the value it brings to the consumer. 

Another differing factor is how much money we all need to make each month to provide for our families and responsibilities.

Regardless of how we reach that “golden number”, the underlying view of all of these approaches assumes we will work out our billing based on a finite amount of hours in the day. So – if I need to earn forty grand, I need to earn x-amount per hour. The problem with this approach is that we lock ourselves into a certain amount of billable hours to cover our costs and make a profit.

The flip side of this coin is that we could say that if we work more hours, then we can earn so much more. If we’re not disciplined, we can become caught in a situation where we become overworked and unbalanced.

So – perhaps, instead of asking how much time we have or how much money we want, we can set a baseline of determining what our time is worth to us. It’s a simple change in perspective that places value on our time rather than how much money we can make.

This immediately places us in a position to start asking new questions about how we perceive and assign value. We start to think about other things that we would rather do with our time if we didn’t need to earn off each “working hour”.

It separates us from the spreadsheet of hourly rate vs hours worked and looks at questions of physical, mental, relational and spiritual health. Instead of weighing up the value of an hour against how much money we earn, we can consider how it has benefited our overall well-being.

As we open ourselves to these different questions, it’s much easier for us to start creating a life and financial plan to which we can feel fully committed. We can set metrics that are independent of market performance, intuitive to our goals and in line with the journey we’ve chosen.

So – how much time is your money worth?

Whilst intentional reflection may happen at the end or beginning of a year or personal growth journey, unintentional reflection happens all the time. And, we barely notice it, most of the time. But, several times a week, if not several times a day, we measure ourselves against something or someone; we’re either measuring ourselves against others or ourselves.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we set benchmarks all the time. It’s how we discern how well we’re doing, and we can either set internal or external benchmarks. There’s a place for both, but it’s important to start to acknowledge where we’re dropping our anchor. Like a boat on the ocean, we can’t healthily remain anchored in one place all the time, but there are good times and places to drop anchor between floating or sailing.

When it comes to setting benchmarks for growth, it’s often healthier to spend more time with our internal benchmarks and maybe use external benchmarks for lighter references. It’s almost like saying: Look where I am now (external) versus look how far I’ve come (internal).

For someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, earning millions a year or selling a company for tens of millions is not really a big deal. But for most of us, it would be life-changing! Likewise, if we look at the performance in specific funds and compare it to the growth in our personal investment portfolio, we may not see a correlation. These are all external benchmarks that are easy to internalise and, if we anchor there, we may feel extremely disheartened in our reflection.

So, when we create a plan, we’re essentially creating a framework for internal benchmarks. These could relate to our financial situation, but they can also apply to every other area in life; personal relationship goals, studying, health, hobbies and community outreach. When we work on our internal benchmarks, it’s helpful to have reference to what’s going on in the world around us.

A poignant example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic that changed the world forever. If we had only considered our internal benchmarks and ignored what was going on externally, we would have felt enormous pressure to perform better. But bringing in the social, economic, political, and health issues of that event helps us to adjust and review our internal benchmarks in a relative context – and still be able to say, “Look how far I’ve come!”.

And, if we’d only anchored in external benchmarks, soley focussed on what was going on around us, we would have been completely overwhelmed. One of the reasons for this is that when we see the success of others, we only see the spotlight on the end achievements and don’t see the hard work, frustration, dissapointment and failed attempts that went in behind the scenes. We then assume that our own journey is not matching up.

If we want to measure our progress in a relatable and balanced manner, it’s important to understand the role of both internal and external benchmarks and learn to be comfortable with moving freely between the two.

One of the biggest challenges with change is that it can be overwhelming. There are many reasons why we might be averse to constant change, but when it is just simply too much all at once, we will find ourselves overwhelmed and in this space, our ability to make healthy decisions is seriously hampered.

The secret to sustainable, non-overwhelming change is to approach it with the 1% rule. This rule basically recognises that we don’t need to be twice as effective to achieve twice as much. We only need to be a little bit more effective, every single day. Improving 1% and sustaining that change, and then building on it 1% at a time, means that our change will be exponential over the long term.

When we procrastinate and avoid change, we start looking down the barrel of a very intimidating gun and think there’s no way we can survive what faces us. But, if we choose to make small changes every day, we can avoid being overwhelmed by change altogether!

Consider two plants in a forest that have just broken through the soil and catch the early rays of sun on their leaves for the first time. If one plant will grow and take over the area, it doesn’t have to grow twice, three times or even ten times faster than the other one. All it has to do is grow a tiny bit faster each day.

With each day, the plant that grows faster will soak up a little more sunlight, absorb more nutrients and very soon, it will overshadow the other plant. It will most likely be significantly larger and healthier within a few weeks, just by growing a little faster every day.

If you want to change your financial situation, you don’t need to earn double your income or half your expenses. If you want to improve your personal relationships, you don’t have to find twice as much time in your day; you can improve by showing a little more interest every day and showing up 1% more than you do already.

If you want to improve your health, you don’t have to cut sugar, meat, dairy and gluten all at once. You can start by eating clean one day a week (which is actually 1/7, or 14%), then two days, then three, until you reach your healthy sweet spot. Within a few weeks, you’ll realise that you’ve achieved a goal that would have completely overwhelmed you and derailed your plan to change if tackled full-on at the start.

Changing your financial situation could mean changing how you save and spend or changing how you feel and talk about your money. These changes can be daunting, but you can avoid being overwhelmed by change if you can commit to making small changes every day.