Do you feel like people who are confident in managing their money have some sort of secret magical powers? Becoming financially confident is more simple than you think! No expensive university degree or secret magical money powers required.
These are the 3 steps you can take; starting today, to build confidence and destroy fear and overwhelm about money. You know these are the two most common reasons I hear why people don’t get started with building their wealth, fear and overwhelm!
Expand your financial intelligence
Knowledge with action = power. Power builds confidence and destroys fear.
So let’s look at the first part of this equation – knowledge.
I’m sure you’d agree it’s hard to feel confident about something you know nothing about. How confident would you be about reaching a destination on a road trip without a map and no idea about the area you’re travelling in?
Same goes for money. If managing your finances feels like a big deal, complicated and confusing, your confidence isn’t likely to soar.
Getting in the know about money is the first step in laying a solid foundation for financial confidence. This doesn’t mean you need to do an expensive financial degree.
Taking on a big loan to pay to educate yourself about money is kinda counter-intuitive I’d say!
Instead, reading books is one of the best ways to boost your financial confidence. For me, this one book was the beginning of turning my financial life around.
Dive into three or four of the top-rated money books in a particular area. If your budget is super tight, head to the library and borrow them instead.
Build Confidence with these recommendations
Money, Master The Game – 7 Simple Steps To Financial Freedom – Tony Robbins
Secrets of The Millionaire Mind – Harv Eker
The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
Invest Like A Billionaire – Warren Buffett
Your Money Or Your Life – Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez
Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert T. Kiyosaki
Aside from books, the internet is a goldmine of resources for money management. Read personal finance blogs, listen to podcasts or even dive into a self-paced course.
A word of caution….don’t start with the goal to get in the know about EVERYTHING to do with money all at once. You’ll only burn out. Pick one area to start with.
If you know you have a major debt problem, for example, it might make more sense to start learning about managing debt first before learning about how to invest in the stock market.
By digging deep into one area, you’re heading in the right direction and you can branch out to other money-related topics as you go.
Mastering one area at a time is a great way to build confidence, oh and momentum.
Take action….immediately
“To fight fear, act. To increase fear — wait, put off, postpone.” – David Joseph Schwartz
The next step to building money confidence and destroying fear is taking action. Don’t wait too long to take action. It’s easy to fall into the trap of continually learning without actually implementing any of it. Knowledge without action is useless.
Beyond a point, reading another book or taking another course won’t make you any more confident. It will actually leave you overwhelmed with analysis paralysis.
Not only that, any knowledge you gain but don’t use, quickly fades. It’s called the ‘forgetting curve’. You can fall into the trap of relearning the same old thing because you didn’t implement it the first time.
Create a plan for getting out of debt, starting to invest or whatever financial goals you want to achieve. Then take action.
Remember, this plan doesn’t need to be perfect. Successful people start before they’re ready from where they are, usually with incomplete information!
Now you’ve started, just keep moving forward. Every single day. This means sticking to your guns even when things get tough and it all seems too hard.
Progress = momentum and momentum = motivation and motivation = more progress. It’s the success loop, small actions today lead to big results in the future.
Don’t forget to congratulate yourself on taking steps to get your money under control, no matter how small!
Learn as you go
The next keys for building money confidence? Regular reflection and course correction!
You can’t be an expert immediately. You learn by taking action and then reviewing both the good choices and the mistakes you’ve made.
Let’s take investing for example.
Many people don’t start investing because they’re afraid of making some huge irreversible financial mistake. If you take things one small step at a time and monitor your progress it will be difficult to make one life-altering money blunder you can’t reverse!
Regularly (not obsessively) comparing your progress against your money goals will help keep you on track and let you know when to make adjustments.
A final tip…..you can actually build your own confidence by taking in inspiring stories of others who’ve reached or are well on their way to, their financial goals. If they can do it, so can you!
The core principles of wealth generation are actually pretty simple, and really never change. A commitment to learning, taking action and regular reflection is the recipe for money confidence!
On a scale from 1 – 10 (10 is super confident!) how would you rate your money confidence? Let me know in the comments below.
That’s great to hear Dave, well done on your progress and keep it going, persistence and action pays off 🙂
Hi guys,
My money confidence was probably a 3-4, before finding The Investors Way.
Now after I have done the Investing Boot Camp and reading the emails my confidence levels are at 9-10. The Investors Way has given me the confidence to give it a go, I have already invested using the tips from the Boot Camp, and leaning as I go, reading the books recommended and listening to podcasts.
I did get over excited and tried to learn everything at once and got bogged down, but after reading a couple more of Andrews emails I calm down and set about doing things one step at a time which is working much better.