How to improve your financial situation

December 11, 2008

Most of the economic or personal blogs that I follow talk about crisis on a regular basis. It is possible for
us to focus on this scarcity mindset but it is also possible to change the way we perceive our relationship
with money and the economy.

Money attracts money

If you have heard this phrase more than once, you maybe wondering why. One of the answers is "similar
things attract to each other.” Money is a concept that generates on us certain kind of emotion that trap us
in a financial tendency that maybe or may not be what we’d like to have. We get used to stay in a economic
comfort zone and we will be resonating with it unless we change its limits so to become comfortable with
new ones.

The only way to increase or improve our economic situation is to move our comfort zone up, that is, we
should feel comfortable handling larger and larger amounts of money. It only will require to go through a
small period of discomfort before we familiarize ourselves to the new experience.

Evaluate your financial comfort zone

The idea is that you answer the following questions in the most honest possible way:

● What income level is the correct one for me without feeling stressed because my salary is not enough
or without feeling excessively excited because I live in an abundance that my mindset can not handle?
What is the lower income level which I would be worried because it is not enough to cover my expenses?
What income level would I need to start feeling excited and happy about my great financial situation?

● What saving's level is the correct for me without worrying me about not having enough to pay for my
things? How much is the minimum I should have in my wallet/account to feel comfortable? How much
would I have to have in the bank to feel totally plethoric and in abundance?

Don't you worry about putting the exact numbers, it's only an exercise to identify the ranges in which you
financially move. Your answers define your current economic situation and it’s where you will normally
fall back when you leave it, at one end or the other, because this is where your comfort zone is. If your
income goes down, you probably get to work hard until you get to enter into your comfort zone again. If
your income goes considerably up, perhaps when you reach the upper limit, you will unconsciously stop
doing it to avoid exceeding it.

Define your new comfort zone

Once you have defined your current financial zone, realize that these numbers are totally arbitrary and they
are conditioned, in a certain way, by your environment, your friends probably earn the same money, your
expenses are almost the same of the people around you, you and your co workers probably earn a similar
amount of money for the same position, etc. It is a reality so arbitrary that, if you are surrounded by people
with a great economic abundance, it is very likely that your own economy will increase.

Mentally, these amounts of money are always under your control. Remember that we are talking about
COMFORT ZONE, so you are the one who defines what economic situation you want to feel comfortable
with. You have no more difficulties than simply define your new income ranges.

There is no a correct answer, but duplicate what you currently have is a good start. This is what I used to
do in my coaching sessions with those clients who set their goals with a modest ambition. If you want to
reach high, aim high.

Clarify and accept your new financial situation

Imagine how your life would be at this moment with a new economic level, no fantasy about it, but
introducing it into your real life. How would it affect your lifestyle? What consequences and effects can

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you imagine? Can you accept the consequences of suddenly having the double of the money you already
have?

One of the fears people have is to lose their old circle of friends. Would you have to make new friends
because your new economic situation allows you to do things that your old friends cannot do? How will
they react? Are you willing to deal with those reactions? It is not a bad situation by itself, but it is a better
process of personal evolution that not always goes in parallel with the evolutionary process of your circle
of friends.

It is important to visualize this new situation and lifestyle, imerse on it, to feel it as real. And even more
important, accept that we are going to move into another reality. Are you prepared to pay perhaps more
taxes, to change your job, to attract other kind of people, wealthy people or buying more expensive
products? Can you handle this new situation? As you can see, it is an inner deep work with ourselves before
our reality changes. If you do not accept the consequences, no matter what these consequences are, of your
possible new economic situation, it will be practically impossible to improve your current one.

Let's do it

Our next step is to break our comfort zone and build the supports that will help us to create a new situation.
A very effective way to escape from our current comfort zone is to change the scaffoldings that support it.
This requires simply a small impulse, an initial effort. If you see yourself having to suffer to do it every
day, you probably are not focusing into the right way. The most effective way to do those changes in your
environment, is to break with your old financial habits and create the new ones.

Is all about eliminating habits that do not resonate with our new comfort zone and start doing those things
that resonate with them, not to become extremists nor perfectionists. If your current job does not provide
you with the resources you need, you must consider to change it sooner or later. Eliminate those things that
do not help you to represent a new economic level in your real life. Start making new friendships that are
at a higher financial level. Let yourself surrounded by their economic vibrations. Go to places where you
can feel "the luxury" and the abundance you want to attract to you.

Implementing those small changes may help to start to build your new reality. Buy something of a better
quality than you normally buy when you can. That tells your subconscious that you are beginning to afford
a new level of life. Little by little, your external reality will reflect what your subconscious beliefs is about
your new economic reality.

Symbolic changes

If at the beginning you cannot make those changes, make symbolics ones. Put all those symbols that
represent abundance for you and affirm that your new reality will reflect what those symbols represent.
Accordingly, as you are working on these small changes, your old comfort zone will start to be less
comfortable, and you will begin to feel more comfortable with your new economic level even if you do not
see evidence of it.

Maybe your salary will remain the same, but it will seem extremely low for you. You will feel the pressure
to make changes to return to your comfort zone, but this time, it will be much higher. It will probably
provide new opportunities that will begin to manifest in your life. Once you take advantage of these
opportunities, changes can happen quickly and, from one week to the next one, you will find yourself at
your new level. Do not waste those opportunities.

Let’s enjoy the results

Whatever it takes to get to your new situation, enjoy the path and the small pleasures that begin to arrive
on their own as you get used to the idea of living in a new economic and financial level. The jump will
occur when your external situation fully reflects your inner reality, this means, to feel and to know that your
economic situation is now at least the double that it was before.

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