11/01/2019
AFFLUENCE BEHAVIOUR: GOING OFF THE RAILS AGAIN?
Having personal wealth is not only about trying to “follow a proven system”. It is also about having the “right mindset”. It’s the right combination of systems plus psychology that will always get you there.
I have witnessed and experienced disastrous spending behaviour, when a sudden influx of money comes in the door, both with me (at least 3 times of note that has cost me $ millions), and with many of my coaching clients. This is baffling, if you don’t know what is going on behind the scenes, in your emotions.
When you experience affluence, even though the extra money is a direct result of actions you planned and took, you can end up spending your extra cash unwisely, and lose out in devastating style.
Why does this happen so often? The answer is plain and simple, “I got distracted”! It is all too easy to engage in unrequited satisfactions that derail our longer-term plans, through being steered involuntarily by our unsatisfied, pent-up emotions. In short, we got hijacked by our subterranean programming, in the back of our mind.
Being forewarned helps you create awareness that, at least, gives you a fighting chance to combat it.
So, let’s look into what happens more deeply. When an increased amount of money arrives, your heightened personal feelings rise up and have a tendency to alter your desired behaviour. At first it feels exciting, even thrilling. Then a chain of your other feelings take over. These may be in the following sequence: relief, relaxation, worry, fear, or the like.
Following immediately behind these intensifying feelings, are a flood of powerful, self-justifying thoughts that “rationalise” taking a break from disciplined spending habits, to satisfy our backlog of wants and needs, or that hone in on a larger more specific desire to be fulfilled, like; an overseas holiday, new car, new house, new relationship, etc. Anyone could add to this list. We thus experience involuntary motivation to pursue these expensive and costly desires because we feel “we deserve it”.
And this is not the end of the story either, because there is a second crippling, and false illusion that envelopes us.
Secondly, we can succumb to the idea that this influx of money is a “trend”, and feel like we have arrived. We falsely “project” it forward as our ongoing future, when, in reality, it is just a short term thing. What follows is; we take our foot off the gas, and become caught up in the delusion that “it will always be like this”. We prematurely celebrate before having proper working systems installed, and tested, to keep the money flowing in, without us being there.
Third, we can very quickly develop an increased spending pattern that incorporates additional future commitments, based on that hiatus of income. This is foolish behaviour. Have you ever heard the phrase “a fool and his money are soon parted”? This is because
the “trend” misconception creates a “false” sense of security, and instant self-gratification takes over, to grab the trophy, and steal the show.
In reality, our recent financial injection may be only temporary, a one-off event, especially if it is allowed to pass without careful consideration. It is extremely important to thoroughly analyse each situation, to clearly determine the cause of our increase in funds.
When thinking about our recently welcomed boost in income, the first rule we need to instil in ourselves, and those around us, is; REFUSE TO SPEND. We simply have to say “NO!” to; extraneous, extravagant, unproductive spending actions, ideas and desires!
No one likes to be told this, but until our feelings have calmed down again, and we have worked out what we did right, there is absolutely no other course to take, if you are serious about creating sustained, personal wealth for you. This is the right strategy, until we have worked out what our rational response should really be. So take a pause, catch your breath, but don’t spend anything, or allow anyone else to.
Success is not luck – it’s planned - and it favours those who take consistent actions on their plans. Therefore, it’s important to check where we are, where we have came from, and where we still want to go. This is the time to re-frame, and strengthen, the context for our continued successful operations, to ensure that it does, in fact, carry us into our dreamed-of-future.
It’s critical, at this time, to rigorously stick with our business, and accurately attribute this “up-stat” to our diligent planning, and hard work. We need to focus on “how” this is a “measure” of the way the market is responding, and rewarding, us for our right actions.
Therefore, our attention should re-focus on the “source” of our newly found success, so we can appropriately acknowledge the actions leading to this fine result, and organise many more repeat performances.
The other important part of this process is; take care of our current legitimate situational demands – the ones that keep our operation running, in a healthy way - especially our operating expenses, debts and other existing and impending costs of doing business successfully.
In summary, there is a correct process to follow, when we experience an increased upswing in our performance metrics. Follow these four steps when affluence comes your way:
1. Economise, without adding any future commitments
2. Pay every bill under the sun
3. Discover what actions caused the increase, and strengthen it
4. Invest in future infrastructure, and service functions, that make more possible
When we take these actions, we can be confident we are doing the right thing, to assure our increased success with our business, we are currently building, so we don't get foolishly derailed from achieving our dreams.
If you have difficulty exercising self-restraint on your spending, then we can help you with that, using our very powerful Life Map concept. It can be easily traced to an unconscious decision that compels you to take unwanted actions, when you are confronted with affluence or abundance. Please call for an appointment if you have ever sabotaged your success, because when it goes unchecked you may never be successful until this glitch, or deep emotional twist, in your belief structure is changed.
John Laurenson is CEO and Head Business Coach, Goals Projects Systems. He helps small business owners secure their business future, double their business profit, using less of their own time.
