How to develop your PLAN: Awareness of your obstacles

[Legacy Dad]

I'm reading a book on psychology and one of the ideas the author puts forward is the knowledge of our own self imposed obstacles during situations.

Most people, when they look at an object, person or event have the tendency to have biases and prejudices based on present needs, past experiences, and future expectations. Most people then make decisions unconsciously, in our case financial, based on these biases and prejudices.

Only highly disciplined and highly honest people are able to even be aware of these biases and prejudices and furthermore to silence them and their ego in order to make sound decisions based on facts.

This discipline is known in psychology as "Bracketing"

So, enough shrink talk...

In running through some of Russ's exercises and my own, I noticed certain limitations I put on myself in regards to building wealth.

One of mine is:

Because of past financial errors and the outcome they had on my family, I am unwilling to give up a certain degree of security, even though it could lead to greater wealth by doing so.

This obstacle leads me to a more "slowlane" approach to wealth I feel, rather than the more aggressive nature I had in my younger years. I finally realized that I am not immortal and ALL my actions have positive and negative consequences not just on me but on those I am providing for.

Has anyone else discovered some of these?
What are you doing or have you done to overcome them?

Lance

 

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[andviv]

I do understand you concern. And being married to a Psychologist helps, I don't have to read the books, just ask her

About the concern of security, yes I do know what you mean. If my financial decisions are wrong and things fail my family will suffer the consequences.

When I was facing this same concern I remembered the advice given in the Rich Dad's guide to investing book, about having three financial plans. I designed one for security. That is why I keep putting money in my 401(k) account and some savings, as this makes my wife sleep at night (she is waaay more conservative than me).

 

[Edge]

Nice post, wish I had an easy answer for you, but this happiness to be something I struggle with also. I think the fastlane approach to overcoming these obstacles would be figuring out what really went wrong or the cause of the last errors and eliminating those mistakes.

I am dealing with them, but not in a fastlane way. I’m dealing with them by taking smaller steps and gradually working my way back up to the size deal(s) that were failures and that caused the obstacles. This is probably slowlane, but I’ve learned that I can pick myself back up by investing in ways I feel comfortable with. Again, I know (comfortable = slowlane), but it is giving me the confidence to move forward and not get overcome with fear.

Past failures have caused me to miss out on other opportunities, because I now analyze every “what if†I can possibly think of and try to remove all risk. Well, if you remove all risk, you’ve removed all reward. This path I’m on is allowing me to remove that fear of failure, because I know I can brush myself off and bounce back.

Most people are trudging through life with the obstacle of “oh crap, I might get laid off†and my family will never overcome it. At least the obstacles we are facing are ones that show we are taking control of our futures.

If you can’t eliminate all the risk from an endeavor, maybe try asking yourself how you’d pick yourself back up through other endeavors, that way if you fail there isn’t the same detrimental outcome to your family.