CCM #28 - WISDOM - HOW TO CHANGE

Happiness - Deciding for Financial Well-Being

A change process for healthy living and financial well-being

Unwise Decisions or Wise Decisions

+ Bitterness + Goodwill

+ Contention + Harmony

+ Anger + Calm

+ Hatred + Love

+ Abuse + Protect

+ Violence + Friendliness

+ Despair + Hope

The world is in trouble and is full of pain and heart ache. The world isn’t healthy, and many, like you, may wonder how to get out of the mess they’re in. You, like most everyone else, may judge your overall well-being by the well-being of your finances. So, as you re-evaluate your overall well-being generally, and your financial well-being specifically, take a look to see if there’s any connection between a healthy budget and those decisions that actually affect your happiness and financial well-being. Will you at least acknowledge that, when it comes to your well-being, financial and otherwise, unwise decisions will at least impact your happiness, if not your pocket book? Are you currently able and willing to choose to be prosperous by choosing wise decisions in your life that make a positive difference? Or, do you choose to do those things that are unwise? Of course, it makes some sense that your well-being is tied to the decisions you make, but how do you fix those unwise decisions that nobody really wants because they make life ugly, and only seem to get worse? How do you choose the ones that are wise and desirable? Is there a way to change things in your favor?

Living after the manner of being well and prosperous

Maybe you’re stuck, or maybe you’re fine, and you just know others who are struggling. Maybe you know people that seem to be quite happy and healthy, and wonder how they got there. There seems to be a manner of living that translates into genuine happiness, or well-being, which generally results in a healthy budget. Would you agree? If needed, would you like some of that too? You should be tired of the ‘fight’ and want some hope and relief by now. It’s time for a change.

What’s your understanding of happiness and well-being?

To start, what’s your definition of well-being and happiness? Is there such a thing? Are you happy and well? For real, are you happy? Or do you experience way too much of the unwise decisions in your life? Are you ‘sick and tired’ of it, and are you ready for a change? What can be done to get rid of the ugliness that leads to being unhealthy, not well, and certainly not financially where you might need to be? To be clear, is your well-being the ‘temporary fling’ sort of happiness, or based on ‘worldly pleasures’ because of some new stuff or experience? If you are not truly happy inside, and your budget is suffering, what’s the root cause? Your budget can be bad while still being happy, even with adversity in your life, but that’s different than the unwise decisions, right? Unlike adversity that will come your way from time to time, the unwise decisions are those that you get to choose. Adversities come to you without your choice; the unwise decisions are things that you choose and can change. Bottom line, if things are a mess, it is time for a change, because you actually can do something about this.

This may be the time for some change?

Your budget loves it when you choose to put the old life behind you and become a new person. Your overall and financial well-being generally starts to improve when you first acknowledge a change is in order, despite any adversities that may come your way. But if you are still ‘running for the fence’, and could care less about anything or anyone else except yourself, this may be the time where you really need to change something. It may be willful, intentional, even neglectful, and you’re convinced that you’re just stuck, it’s not your fault, and feel like nothing can be done about it. It’s impossible to fix you say. That said, Tunabudget disagrees, but believes in you instead. You can change, be very happy, and prosper even more.

This is not a race; you are the most important

Take a look at you from a different perspective. Could it be time to set aside some pride and not worry so much about what anyone else thinks about you, what they see about you, and for you to pay a little attention to yourself and your own well-being? How about humbly asking for some help - you will have to decide of whom you will ask for help. For example, when you fall down in a race, you may feel embarrassed and worry about what everyone else is thinking, and simply walk away and not finish the race; what’s the use, right? You’re not competitive, you’re not going to win, so why try? But, that’s not you. You now care more about yourself, and you carefully dust yourself off and you get back up and keep going. Why? When it comes right down to it, after you ‘embarrassingly’ hit rock bottom like that, you finally realize that the others in the race, the fans in the stands, none of that matters. You realize you are important too; you need to get back up and finish the race because of you, for yourself. You are worth it, every bit of it. Tunabudget believes there is no race here even if you see yourself having fallen down in the race of your life and making unwise decisions. Making wise decisions is real living. It doesn’t matter that you are not going to come in first place, what the neighbors will think, or even the rest of your family and friends and what they’ll think. What does matter is that you come to yourself, that you are most valuable and important, and precious. When you realize that, hope will emerge and things will start to change, including your financial well-being.

A process of changing from the inside

From a practical standpoint, here are some possible but simple steps you may wish to consider in order to bring about positive inside-yourself-change, and becoming that wonderful person whom you are. If you follow these steps, what effect do you think they might have on your personal and family finances? Probably a lot. If you choose not to do them, you probably won’t see much change and prosperity to your personal and/or family budget for the time being. Whether you desire to approach this from a religious perspective or some other way, it will be up to you to find the best way to turn the change process into reality. Only you can decide if a change is needed, and wanted.

Step #1 - Recognize, truly understand

Somehow, you need to find a way to get your regular self out of the way and really understand that you have a problem. What you need to do in order for this to be internalized is really important. Because, if you can’t really truly recognize there is a problem, then none of the other steps will matter. Are you willing to find a way to understand and recognize that something is wrong that needs to be fixed? If you’re ready, if you’re willing to ‘stop the madness’, and want to change, then somehow you will need to honestly and completely understand that changes are needed. The first step is to actually, internally, recognize that something isn’t the way you want it, and to fully understand that there needs to be a correction. If you find the other steps are not working, come back to this first step until you get it.

Step #2 - Feeling sorry

The next step, once you recognize there’s a problem that must be fixed or changed, is to feel an appropriate level of remorse or sorrow for the consequences of your unwise decisions. Seriously, how can you possibly change without feeling sorrow or remorse for your unwise choices? Surely, those choices have consequences that negatively impacted not only yourself, but others too. As you reflect on past choices and understand there’s a problem, the level of sorrow, remorse, grief, sadness, regret, and even lamenting will match up with the unwise decisions. Your burden may need to be carefully weighed and you give yourself plenty of time and space to work through this. This isn’t a fast-food drive-in experience; there is no race here, especially when it comes to you. Ponder through it as you will. Know that major life-changing changes can be made in a quiet evening, too.

Step #3 – Admitting the unwise choices

Owning up will also restore hope, and help relieve the burden of your unwise choices and their consequences. You will want to approach this change process with humility and with real intent. If you don’t really recognize or feel sorry for your unwise choices you won’t be able to experience an appropriate sense of remorse, so back-track to the prior steps, if necessary. You will eventually feel a sense of being absolved, because there has been a change of heart to where there is no longer even a desire to make the unwise decisions again.

Step #4 – Stop making unwise choices

As you recognize unwise decisions, feel sorrow and remorse, and own up to them, this is where the burden starts to become lifted and hope restored. You will begin to know that change is happening from the inside/out, and you will strongly want to abandon those unwise choices once and for all. For example, if you’ve been lying or cheating, and thereby causing contention, you’ll stop doing that. There are many things that are unwise and injure your financial well-being. Root causes for unwise decisions specifically include pornography, gambling, using addictive drugs (i.e., alcohol, nicotine, etc.), things that will not only destroy your budget, but yourself too. How about adultery? That’s over too. The unwise decisions that lead to unhappiness and busted finances are over. You are making wise choices day in and day out.

Step #5 – Restoring the damage

Fixing or restoring any damage as a result of your unwise decisions is evidence of the change taking place. To fix horrible situations where you can’t possibly restore what you’re responsible for, you must simply do your very best through this change process. You will also do as much as you can to restore or make good on the fixing the consequences of your unwise decisions. If you’ve stolen something, you give it back. If you lied, you need to go back, apologize, and tell the truth, etc. It’s entirely reasonable that as you’ve completed the prior steps, to also go back and fix the wrongs insofar as is possible. You can’t get this far in the process and not correct any past mistakes that can be fixed. Listen to your heart and do what needs to be done. Do your best and repair and restore what you can. You should be experiencing real hope inside, and the outlook for your well-being becoming strengthened.

Step #6 – Forgive and Forget

To complete the change process, and open the door to more wise decisions and prosperity, there needs to be a spirit of forgiveness and forgetting. You forgive yourself and others who may have offended you too. There can’t be any harboring of bad feelings or contention between anyone. Actually, if you’ve properly experienced the prior steps, it is simply natural to do the forgive and forget step. Saying ‘sorry’ goes a long way. Going through the change process will enable you to ‘forget’ about the past and all the ugliness. You’ll always remember your unwise decisions, but the sting, pain, weight and ugliness will go away as if it had been forgotten. You will be able to move-on and enjoy wise decisions, and prosperity. Your financial well-being will multiply.

CANDID QUESTIONS

• How will you go about making internal changes to improve your overall well-being and financial well-being in particular?

• Is it time for making some changes?

• How much change are you really capable of making, even if you don’t feel like it right now?