Learn How To Manage Your Money Wisely
I don’t know about you, but I have a problem. I am ambitious; I am full of great ideas. I am also, however, extremely undisciplined. But the other day I had an idea. What if I became “my own manager”? Not a bad idea. But how, exactly, do you manage yourself?
Contrary to what the multi-million dollar management training industry says, I don’t think management is rocket science (though I am not saying it is easy). A good manager motivates and supports people, and makes people accountable. In order to manage ourselves, then, we simply need to take concrete steps to motivate ourselves and make ourselves accountable.
If you learn how to manage your money, it will enable you to live comfortably while increasing your wealth. If you are living from pay check to pay check and wondering how you are going to make it through the month, you need to stop and take a good look at your lifestyle, your income, your bills, and your day to day spending activities.
Depending on how you have done in the past, it can be relatively easy to find a way to control your spending habits. On the other hand, if your spending habits have gotten totally out of control, you may find it very hard to stop doing what you are doing. You need to stop, look at what you are doing wrong, and then make a plan to get moving on the right path to financial freedom.
You can make this a project in which you work alone, meaning you and your spouse if you are married, or you can enlist the services of a financial advisor.
Note: If you are married, unless all of your income and other assets are handled as separate entities between you and your spouse, it will be very difficult to have an effective plan if you don't agree to work through this together.
You might ask, why do I need to spend more of my money paying a financial advisor if I am already struggling? The answer to that question is simple. If you can't afford to pay a financial advisor, you have to do it yourself. To be honest, most people work themselves out of debt. It's not easy, but they do it, and so can you.
Right now is the best time to start managing your money and doing the right things that will provide you with a solid financial foundation. Like all other bad habits, unnecessary spending is an addiction that is hard to break, but if you are serious, you can put a financial plan together that will break the addiction and start working for you. "Make your plan and then work your plan."
You have to learn to take control of your spending habits in a way that is beneficial to you and your family. Managing your money does not mean that you have to become a miser while denying yourself, and your family, the basic necessities of life, but you may have to make some tough decisions regarding what is necessary to maintain the lifestyle that you are accustomed too, and what is not.
First, learn to keep records of your income and spending. Income is the most important part of your financial well being because you can't function without it. Spending is also crucial because regardless of your income, if you spend more than you make, eventually you will go bankrupt.
You may have to stop eating out at expensive restaurants and start eating the old fashioned way, by cooking at home. You may have to forgo a planned vacation or put off buying a new car.Similarly, I know perfectly well that going grocery shopping three times a week, usually after work when I’m famished and a tub of 30 frozen mini éclairs seems like an especially prudent investment, is a terrible idea. It’s bad for my budget and probably worse for my health. I know that. But I do it anyway.
Everyone has a set of bad money habits that they just can’t seem to break. Sometimes we’re aware of these habits and just don’t know how to shake them. Sometimes we try to justify them to ourselves and others. Sometimes we just know something’s amiss, but aren’t sure what it is.
But whatever you think of these habits, the truth is always this: they cost you money. Sometimes a little money and sometimes a lot. Money you don’t need to be losing.
As part of your ongoing effort to breakup with Debt for good, make it a point to identity and change one bad financial habit. You’ve probably got more than the one habit to kick, but for now just pick one and make that your focus.
Some spending cuts hurt worse than others. You may have to take your children out of private school and put them in public school. It hurts, but you may have to do it.
If you are donating a portion of your income to charitable causes, it may become necessary to stop, at least until you get a solid grip on your own livelihood. You don't have to stop tithing or donating to charities or other good causes, you just need to scale it down for right now.
Remember, you can't take care of someone else if you can't take care of yourself. Once you become financially able, by all means, resume your donations, but it's important that you know that you have to take care of yourself, and your family, first.
Which leads us to the big question: how exactly do you break these bad money habits? For that matter, how do you break habits at all?
If you make and implement a strict budget by setting realistic priorities and goals, and then keep track of how much you earn as opposed to what you spend, basic money management strategies will enable you take control of your finances and help you make wiser spending choices that will carry you into the future in good financial health.
New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg pondered that very question and, after quite a bit of research, wrote the book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. In the book, Duhigg identifies how and why we create habits and – most importantly for us – how to break those habits by replacing them with healthier/more productive/more desirable habits.
Create a Personal Mission Statement
I think that we get so caught up in the mundane details of daily life that we often lose track of why we’re here, what we want and, most importantly, what we value. Manage yourself by finding a way to integrate your values into what you do. Write your own personal mission statement.
My personal mission statement, at the moment, is this: “To live simply and give selflessly, and to work diligently towards financial independence and the opportunities such independence will afford me.”
Your personal mission statement doesn’t have to be profound or poetic – it just needs to convey your core values and define why you do what you do each day. (Hint: If you can’t find a mission statement that fits your current career or life, maybe it is time for a change!)
Identify the routine
What do you want to change? What’s that thing you can’t stop yourself from doing no matter how much you chastise yourself?
Let’s say that you eat out too much. You’re busy or you don’t know how to use the oven or you just don’t want to cook food at home. But you’re living on a tight budget as it is and you know it’s costing you more than you can afford to eat out five nights a week.
So let’s say this is the routine: every day after work you meet up with a friend or co-worker and go out to dinner.
Set Micro-Goals
There are countless benefits to writing down goals of all sizes. Annual, five-, and ten-year goals can help you expand on your mission statement because you know you are working towards a tangible result. But long term goals are useless unless you have a strategy to achieve them. Manage yourself by setting micro-goals.
What is a micro-goal? I like to think of it as a single action that, when accomplished, serves as a building block to a much larger goal.
For example, the resolution to make a larger-than minimum monthly payment on a credit card balance is a micro goal. Each month you successfully increase your payment, you are closer to your big goal of getting out of debt.
At work a micro-goal might involve setting up an important client meeting. Getting all the elements for a meeting in place is one step towards a larger goal of winning or increasing a particular business relationship.
A micro goal is not, however, anything that goes on your to-do list. Responding to a customer inquiry or cleaning out your cubicle is not a micro-goal, unless of course you have bigger goals to specifically involving that customer or to get more organized.
Use Lists Wisely
Lists – from simple to-do lists to complex project plans – can be a helpful tool for prioritizing and planning your day. If lists are too big or poorly organized, however, they can overwhelm you and defeat their purpose. Manage yourself by using lists effectively: keep a small to-do list of 5 or fewer items. If it’s not important enough to be on the top 5, leave it off. As you complete activities, you can add more.
One way to help achieve smaller, more manageable lists is to break one big list into several. I often find my to-do lists contain a dozen or more activities than can be grouped. If you’re a blogger for example, and you have 5 great article ideas, writing each one might be on your to-do list. I would recommend putting one item on your to-do list – write 5 new articles. Prioritize it accordingly, and when you sit down to write, break out the list of topics and don’t move to another project on your primary to-do list until all the others are complete.
Make Yourself Accountable
Managers hold employees accountable. After all, managers want to make sure employees are earning their salary. If you are a sales rep, managers want to know how many calls you make and how much business you close. If you are a lawyer or a consultant, managers want to know how many hours you bill. Manage yourself by making yourself accountable for how you spend your time.
Some of the most successful people I know review their to-do lists each night and every Friday. They study what they accomplished—and what they did not. Even outside of work, you can do the same. Schedule a time each week to reflect. How were your eating habits this week? Did you exercise this month? What about your spending? Did you stick to your budget or did you splurge? What can you do better next week?
Experiment with Rewards Yourself too
One of the biggest obstacles to overcoming a habit is identifying the real reward that your bad behaviour is meant to earn. Because often the reward is not quite what we think it is.
In this scenario, maybe you think the reward is simply that you were hungry and now you aren't Or maybe the reward is that you didn't have to cook for yourself. Don’t presume that you know what the reward is. Instead experiment with your reward.
One day, you can go out to dinner, but limit yourself to just a salad (you can eat more later if you’re still hungry). The next day go out to dinner, but by yourself. The day after that try getting a drink or coffee with a friend instead of dinner. The next day pick up a prepared meal at the grocery store on your way home.
Try a wide range of alternative rewards and ask yourself after-ward if they satisfied your craving. By comparing the rewards that did or didn't satisfy your craving you’ll be able to identify what you really needed.
Now pick a healthy reward that satisfies your craving and is good for your budget. This will be the first building block of your new, healthier habit.
Great managers know that rewarding employees for a job well done is far more effective than doling out penalties for failure. Rewards range from simple praise to promotions to cash bonuses, but they all achieve the same goal: Rewards make us work harder to get something we want.
If you have a mile-long to-do list, want to start exercising, or want to tuck away more savings, manage yourself by creating a reward for each goal. If you get through your to-do list, leave work early and do something you enjoy. If you get to the gym every day, indulge in a food you enjoy but ordinarily avoid. And if you have a savings goal, tell yourself that when you reach it, you will take a month off of saving and buy yourself something you have always wanted.
Isolate the cue
Habitual cues generally fall into one of five categories: location, time, emotional state, other people and immediately preceding action. If you find yourself doing something over and over again there’s usually a trigger to be found somewhere in one of those five areas.
In our example the cue is pretty easy to spot: you’re triggered to eat out because it’s dinner time. But in a lot of cases the cue isn't quite so obvious. In order to root out the cue, every time you find yourself engaged in your habit, ask yourself these five questions:
Where are you?What time is it?
What’s your emotional state?
Who else is around?
What action preceded the urge?
Over time, you’ll start to spot patterns and those patterns will help you identify the cue that leads to your habit. Maybe you only smoke around your friend Dave. Maybe you online shop when you’re stressed out. Whatever the habit, eventually you’ll pick up on the cue.
Do One Task at a Time
How many job postings include the line “must be able to multi-task”? In today’s wired world, it is impossible not to multi-task most of the time. If I were hiring an employee, I would be infinitely more interested in his or her ability to focus and to see tasks through to completion. You can manage yourself by striving to do one thing at a time, and not stop until it is completed.
Working on one thing at a time is easier said than done, but the harder you concentrate on completing one task, the faster you will get it done – even if you are interrupted.
Get in the habit or checking email only two or three times a day and decide to either respond immediately or delete the message. Close your door, mute your phone, or work from home when you need to get through significant projects.
In your personal life, don’t try to give up coffee, smoking, and sugar all at the same time. If you’re tackling debt – or trying to save more – pick the most important debt to pay off, or saving goal to reach, and put everything towards that goal.
You will find that you reach your goals faster, and you will be less stressed.
Emphasize Your Strengths, Improve Your Weaknesses
Nobody is born to do everything. We all have natural talents and abilities in some areas, and we all struggle in others. For example, some of us are born writers, but have a difficult time with conversation. Others can work a room or present to hundreds like a pro, but can’t write a coherent email message. Good managers want to help their employees shine, and also develop. To manage yourself, take every opportunity to show off your strengths, and actively seek out ways to improve in improving in weaker areas.
Value Your Time
Do you know how much an hour of your time is worth? No matter how much you earn per hour, chances are, each hour is worth far less. After all, you spend time each day getting ready for work, commuting to and from work, and even thinking about work when you aren't actually working.
When you divide your salary by all that time spend on things related to work, you hourly rate is probably a lot less than you think.
Now, think about your free time – however much of it you may have. What is it worth to you? Could you put a price tag on an hour at the beach with nothing to worry about?
If you’re like most people, the time you have yourself will almost always be more valuable than time at work. Manage yourself by learning to maximize your productivity during the hours you are actually working, and by maximizing your personal time by ignoring your cell phone, Blackberry, and laptop, and focusing on the things you enjoy.
Seek Feedback
Good managers don’t only rely on personal observations of their employees. Good managers will seek other opinions of employees – opinions from co-workers friends, and customers. Such feedback will provide valuable insight into the employee’s competencies and weaknesses, and will help the manager give the employee tools to grow and succeed.
As your own manager, how you see yourself may be radically different from how others see you. Don’t be afraid to ask others how you’re doing. Ask co-workers or friends to provide an honest evaluation of how they think you perform your job, and survey customers to learn what you’re doing right – and where you can improve.
Review Yourself
Going back to holding yourself accountable, every manager provides formal feedback to employees at regular intervals in the form of a performance review. Whether quarterly, semi-annually, or annually, make a habit of managing yourself by taking an hour to perform a self-review.
Ask yourself: what have I accomplished in the least year? Have I met my goals? Have I met my micro-goals? Have I built upon strengths and improved my weaknesses? Have I grown as a person? Even this simple, infrequent habit can transform your productivity, attitude, and success.
Create a new routine
Once you understand why you do what you do, you need to replace the bad habit with a healthier routine. That doesn't happen overnight. In fact, it doesn't happen at all if you don’t work on it. Because habits tend to be deeply ingrained, it takes repetition and commitment to build new, healthier replacement habits.
Let’s say you discover that you've been eating out so often because you simply don’t like being alone in your apartment in the evening all that much. It didn't really have much to do with eating or socializing, so you don’t need to go out to eat with a friend in order to satisfy the craving. Instead, you build a new routine: three nights a week you put your gym membership to good use and workout, one night a week you go to the library and browse for a new book and one night you organize a happy hour with your co-workers.
Keep in mind that your new routine won’t take unless you stick with it. And your old habit isn't going away all that easily. But if you make a commitment and stick with it for a few weeks, you’ll find that the cues that once drove you towards a negative habit now drive you towards a positive one.
Our problems with debt are usually aided and abetted by a series of bad money habits. They’re hard to break, but the reward for doing so is more money in your pocket and a very real sense of accomplishment. So give it a try! The only thing you have to lose are bad habits.
I don’t know about you, but I have a problem. I am ambitious; I am full of great ideas. I am also, however, extremely undisciplined. But the other day I had an idea. What if I became “my own manager”? Not a bad idea. But how, exactly, do you manage yourself?
Contrary to what the multi-million dollar management training industry says, I don’t think management is rocket science (though I am not saying it is easy). A good manager motivates and supports people, and makes people accountable. In order to manage ourselves, then, we simply need to take concrete steps to motivate ourselves and make ourselves accountable.
If you learn how to manage your money, it will enable you to live comfortably while increasing your wealth. If you are living from pay check to pay check and wondering how you are going to make it through the month, you need to stop and take a good look at your lifestyle, your income, your bills, and your day to day spending activities.
Depending on how you have done in the past, it can be relatively easy to find a way to control your spending habits. On the other hand, if your spending habits have gotten totally out of control, you may find it very hard to stop doing what you are doing. You need to stop, look at what you are doing wrong, and then make a plan to get moving on the right path to financial freedom.
You can make this a project in which you work alone, meaning you and your spouse if you are married, or you can enlist the services of a financial advisor.
Note: If you are married, unless all of your income and other assets are handled as separate entities between you and your spouse, it will be very difficult to have an effective plan if you don't agree to work through this together.
You might ask, why do I need to spend more of my money paying a financial advisor if I am already struggling? The answer to that question is simple. If you can't afford to pay a financial advisor, you have to do it yourself. To be honest, most people work themselves out of debt. It's not easy, but they do it, and so can you.
Right now is the best time to start managing your money and doing the right things that will provide you with a solid financial foundation. Like all other bad habits, unnecessary spending is an addiction that is hard to break, but if you are serious, you can put a financial plan together that will break the addiction and start working for you. "Make your plan and then work your plan."
You have to learn to take control of your spending habits in a way that is beneficial to you and your family. Managing your money does not mean that you have to become a miser while denying yourself, and your family, the basic necessities of life, but you may have to make some tough decisions regarding what is necessary to maintain the lifestyle that you are accustomed too, and what is not.
First, learn to keep records of your income and spending. Income is the most important part of your financial well being because you can't function without it. Spending is also crucial because regardless of your income, if you spend more than you make, eventually you will go bankrupt.
You may have to stop eating out at expensive restaurants and start eating the old fashioned way, by cooking at home. You may have to forgo a planned vacation or put off buying a new car.Similarly, I know perfectly well that going grocery shopping three times a week, usually after work when I’m famished and a tub of 30 frozen mini éclairs seems like an especially prudent investment, is a terrible idea. It’s bad for my budget and probably worse for my health. I know that. But I do it anyway.
Everyone has a set of bad money habits that they just can’t seem to break. Sometimes we’re aware of these habits and just don’t know how to shake them. Sometimes we try to justify them to ourselves and others. Sometimes we just know something’s amiss, but aren’t sure what it is.
But whatever you think of these habits, the truth is always this: they cost you money. Sometimes a little money and sometimes a lot. Money you don’t need to be losing.
As part of your ongoing effort to breakup with Debt for good, make it a point to identity and change one bad financial habit. You’ve probably got more than the one habit to kick, but for now just pick one and make that your focus.
Some spending cuts hurt worse than others. You may have to take your children out of private school and put them in public school. It hurts, but you may have to do it.
If you are donating a portion of your income to charitable causes, it may become necessary to stop, at least until you get a solid grip on your own livelihood. You don't have to stop tithing or donating to charities or other good causes, you just need to scale it down for right now.
Remember, you can't take care of someone else if you can't take care of yourself. Once you become financially able, by all means, resume your donations, but it's important that you know that you have to take care of yourself, and your family, first.
Which leads us to the big question: how exactly do you break these bad money habits? For that matter, how do you break habits at all?
If you make and implement a strict budget by setting realistic priorities and goals, and then keep track of how much you earn as opposed to what you spend, basic money management strategies will enable you take control of your finances and help you make wiser spending choices that will carry you into the future in good financial health.
New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg pondered that very question and, after quite a bit of research, wrote the book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. In the book, Duhigg identifies how and why we create habits and – most importantly for us – how to break those habits by replacing them with healthier/more productive/more desirable habits.
Create a Personal Mission Statement
I think that we get so caught up in the mundane details of daily life that we often lose track of why we’re here, what we want and, most importantly, what we value. Manage yourself by finding a way to integrate your values into what you do. Write your own personal mission statement.
My personal mission statement, at the moment, is this: “To live simply and give selflessly, and to work diligently towards financial independence and the opportunities such independence will afford me.”
Your personal mission statement doesn’t have to be profound or poetic – it just needs to convey your core values and define why you do what you do each day. (Hint: If you can’t find a mission statement that fits your current career or life, maybe it is time for a change!)
Identify the routine
What do you want to change? What’s that thing you can’t stop yourself from doing no matter how much you chastise yourself?
Let’s say that you eat out too much. You’re busy or you don’t know how to use the oven or you just don’t want to cook food at home. But you’re living on a tight budget as it is and you know it’s costing you more than you can afford to eat out five nights a week.
So let’s say this is the routine: every day after work you meet up with a friend or co-worker and go out to dinner.
Set Micro-Goals
There are countless benefits to writing down goals of all sizes. Annual, five-, and ten-year goals can help you expand on your mission statement because you know you are working towards a tangible result. But long term goals are useless unless you have a strategy to achieve them. Manage yourself by setting micro-goals.
What is a micro-goal? I like to think of it as a single action that, when accomplished, serves as a building block to a much larger goal.
For example, the resolution to make a larger-than minimum monthly payment on a credit card balance is a micro goal. Each month you successfully increase your payment, you are closer to your big goal of getting out of debt.
At work a micro-goal might involve setting up an important client meeting. Getting all the elements for a meeting in place is one step towards a larger goal of winning or increasing a particular business relationship.
A micro goal is not, however, anything that goes on your to-do list. Responding to a customer inquiry or cleaning out your cubicle is not a micro-goal, unless of course you have bigger goals to specifically involving that customer or to get more organized.
Use Lists Wisely
Lists – from simple to-do lists to complex project plans – can be a helpful tool for prioritizing and planning your day. If lists are too big or poorly organized, however, they can overwhelm you and defeat their purpose. Manage yourself by using lists effectively: keep a small to-do list of 5 or fewer items. If it’s not important enough to be on the top 5, leave it off. As you complete activities, you can add more.
One way to help achieve smaller, more manageable lists is to break one big list into several. I often find my to-do lists contain a dozen or more activities than can be grouped. If you’re a blogger for example, and you have 5 great article ideas, writing each one might be on your to-do list. I would recommend putting one item on your to-do list – write 5 new articles. Prioritize it accordingly, and when you sit down to write, break out the list of topics and don’t move to another project on your primary to-do list until all the others are complete.
Make Yourself Accountable
Managers hold employees accountable. After all, managers want to make sure employees are earning their salary. If you are a sales rep, managers want to know how many calls you make and how much business you close. If you are a lawyer or a consultant, managers want to know how many hours you bill. Manage yourself by making yourself accountable for how you spend your time.
Some of the most successful people I know review their to-do lists each night and every Friday. They study what they accomplished—and what they did not. Even outside of work, you can do the same. Schedule a time each week to reflect. How were your eating habits this week? Did you exercise this month? What about your spending? Did you stick to your budget or did you splurge? What can you do better next week?
Experiment with Rewards Yourself too
One of the biggest obstacles to overcoming a habit is identifying the real reward that your bad behaviour is meant to earn. Because often the reward is not quite what we think it is.
In this scenario, maybe you think the reward is simply that you were hungry and now you aren't Or maybe the reward is that you didn't have to cook for yourself. Don’t presume that you know what the reward is. Instead experiment with your reward.
One day, you can go out to dinner, but limit yourself to just a salad (you can eat more later if you’re still hungry). The next day go out to dinner, but by yourself. The day after that try getting a drink or coffee with a friend instead of dinner. The next day pick up a prepared meal at the grocery store on your way home.
Try a wide range of alternative rewards and ask yourself after-ward if they satisfied your craving. By comparing the rewards that did or didn't satisfy your craving you’ll be able to identify what you really needed.
Now pick a healthy reward that satisfies your craving and is good for your budget. This will be the first building block of your new, healthier habit.
Great managers know that rewarding employees for a job well done is far more effective than doling out penalties for failure. Rewards range from simple praise to promotions to cash bonuses, but they all achieve the same goal: Rewards make us work harder to get something we want.
If you have a mile-long to-do list, want to start exercising, or want to tuck away more savings, manage yourself by creating a reward for each goal. If you get through your to-do list, leave work early and do something you enjoy. If you get to the gym every day, indulge in a food you enjoy but ordinarily avoid. And if you have a savings goal, tell yourself that when you reach it, you will take a month off of saving and buy yourself something you have always wanted.
Isolate the cue
Habitual cues generally fall into one of five categories: location, time, emotional state, other people and immediately preceding action. If you find yourself doing something over and over again there’s usually a trigger to be found somewhere in one of those five areas.
In our example the cue is pretty easy to spot: you’re triggered to eat out because it’s dinner time. But in a lot of cases the cue isn't quite so obvious. In order to root out the cue, every time you find yourself engaged in your habit, ask yourself these five questions:
Where are you?What time is it?
What’s your emotional state?
Who else is around?
What action preceded the urge?
Over time, you’ll start to spot patterns and those patterns will help you identify the cue that leads to your habit. Maybe you only smoke around your friend Dave. Maybe you online shop when you’re stressed out. Whatever the habit, eventually you’ll pick up on the cue.
Do One Task at a Time
How many job postings include the line “must be able to multi-task”? In today’s wired world, it is impossible not to multi-task most of the time. If I were hiring an employee, I would be infinitely more interested in his or her ability to focus and to see tasks through to completion. You can manage yourself by striving to do one thing at a time, and not stop until it is completed.
Working on one thing at a time is easier said than done, but the harder you concentrate on completing one task, the faster you will get it done – even if you are interrupted.
Get in the habit or checking email only two or three times a day and decide to either respond immediately or delete the message. Close your door, mute your phone, or work from home when you need to get through significant projects.
In your personal life, don’t try to give up coffee, smoking, and sugar all at the same time. If you’re tackling debt – or trying to save more – pick the most important debt to pay off, or saving goal to reach, and put everything towards that goal.
You will find that you reach your goals faster, and you will be less stressed.
Emphasize Your Strengths, Improve Your Weaknesses
Nobody is born to do everything. We all have natural talents and abilities in some areas, and we all struggle in others. For example, some of us are born writers, but have a difficult time with conversation. Others can work a room or present to hundreds like a pro, but can’t write a coherent email message. Good managers want to help their employees shine, and also develop. To manage yourself, take every opportunity to show off your strengths, and actively seek out ways to improve in improving in weaker areas.
Value Your Time
Do you know how much an hour of your time is worth? No matter how much you earn per hour, chances are, each hour is worth far less. After all, you spend time each day getting ready for work, commuting to and from work, and even thinking about work when you aren't actually working.
When you divide your salary by all that time spend on things related to work, you hourly rate is probably a lot less than you think.
Now, think about your free time – however much of it you may have. What is it worth to you? Could you put a price tag on an hour at the beach with nothing to worry about?
If you’re like most people, the time you have yourself will almost always be more valuable than time at work. Manage yourself by learning to maximize your productivity during the hours you are actually working, and by maximizing your personal time by ignoring your cell phone, Blackberry, and laptop, and focusing on the things you enjoy.
Seek Feedback
Good managers don’t only rely on personal observations of their employees. Good managers will seek other opinions of employees – opinions from co-workers friends, and customers. Such feedback will provide valuable insight into the employee’s competencies and weaknesses, and will help the manager give the employee tools to grow and succeed.
As your own manager, how you see yourself may be radically different from how others see you. Don’t be afraid to ask others how you’re doing. Ask co-workers or friends to provide an honest evaluation of how they think you perform your job, and survey customers to learn what you’re doing right – and where you can improve.
Review Yourself
Going back to holding yourself accountable, every manager provides formal feedback to employees at regular intervals in the form of a performance review. Whether quarterly, semi-annually, or annually, make a habit of managing yourself by taking an hour to perform a self-review.
Ask yourself: what have I accomplished in the least year? Have I met my goals? Have I met my micro-goals? Have I built upon strengths and improved my weaknesses? Have I grown as a person? Even this simple, infrequent habit can transform your productivity, attitude, and success.
Create a new routine
Once you understand why you do what you do, you need to replace the bad habit with a healthier routine. That doesn't happen overnight. In fact, it doesn't happen at all if you don’t work on it. Because habits tend to be deeply ingrained, it takes repetition and commitment to build new, healthier replacement habits.
Let’s say you discover that you've been eating out so often because you simply don’t like being alone in your apartment in the evening all that much. It didn't really have much to do with eating or socializing, so you don’t need to go out to eat with a friend in order to satisfy the craving. Instead, you build a new routine: three nights a week you put your gym membership to good use and workout, one night a week you go to the library and browse for a new book and one night you organize a happy hour with your co-workers.
Keep in mind that your new routine won’t take unless you stick with it. And your old habit isn't going away all that easily. But if you make a commitment and stick with it for a few weeks, you’ll find that the cues that once drove you towards a negative habit now drive you towards a positive one.
Our problems with debt are usually aided and abetted by a series of bad money habits. They’re hard to break, but the reward for doing so is more money in your pocket and a very real sense of accomplishment. So give it a try! The only thing you have to lose are bad habits.
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