Grab 2017 by the horns: Courageously alter how you set your improvement goals; dream big, in small chunks and accomplish more!
It’s New Year’s Day 2017, so Happy New Year!
Right now we all have a clean slate on our calendar. The accretion of griefs, woes, deaths, disasters and disappointments has NOT yet had enough time to mess up our blank, brand new year, which still holds immense promise of love, joy and delight; births and promotions; gifts and holidays.
This clean slate also means we yet again make resolutions, and it is important we do so. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German poet, writer and statesman, observed:
“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.”
For those who don’t know me — since my column has migrated from the main paper to this new Sunday Vibes section of the New Sunday Times — my name is Rajen Devadason.
I am a Securities Commission-licensed financial planner who crafts and manages long-term retirement funding solutions for my clients.
They are English-proficient Malaysians in Malaysia, Malaysians working abroad but who retain significant economic interests in our country, and expatriates who have been stationed here and have understandably fallen in love with our beautiful land. (As with every other country in our fabulous, fractured world there are things that work well here and aspects of living in our nation that can — and must — be improved!)
Incidentally, I also speak on financial planning and retirement planning for companies in Malaysia and abroad, and have written or co-written 10 books.
The writing — from which I have derived a little money, a modicum of insight, and a lot of pleasure — has taught me that adults who live happiest and accomplish the most are those who focus more on improving themselves than on grumbling about others.
In Stephen R. Covey’s perennial bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he explains we all share myriad concerns that include “...our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war.” All those considerations plus several more unique to you fall inside what Covey describes as your Circle of Concern.
He writes:
“As we look at those things within our Circle of Concern, it becomes apparent that there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about. We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them within a smaller Circle of Influence.”
The first of Covey’s seven famous ha-bits is to be proactive, which boils down to choosing to be less reactive toward the nonsense and garbage our world sometimes hurls at us, and instead pausing to consider how we might act to bring about good. Covey elaborates:
“Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase.”
So, in the weeks ahead I plan to write on aspects of personal finance that might help you and your loved ones prosper through proactive action by better understanding the concept of financial freedom; growing your active income; curbing your operational expenses; optimizing and paying down your portfolio of debt; building your EBF or Emergency Buffer Fund; starting and nurturing your portfolio of wealth; and expanding your passive income flow into your bank account.
Confession: I do not teach from a position of strength stemming from innate financial genius. No! I write, speak and consult from a pool of knowledge and experience that has grown slowly from woeful weakness and downright stupidity.
We all want to improve. Sadly, traditional New Year Resolutions do not often stick because we aren’t diligent and strong enough to maintain our resolve over 12 long months.
Therefore, I suggest you scrutinise your presumably long current list of resolutions. Pick 12. Prioritise them in order of importance.
Then start a written journal to set and stick to only one resolution each month. Ensure your journal is handwritten. Keep it where you may quickly lay your hands on it every day.
Write January 2017 on the top of your first two-page spread, February 2017 on the top of the second spread, and so on all the way to December 2017.
Below each title write, IN CAPS, your one resolution for the 28, 30 or 31 days of the relevant month.
I suspect you will be focusing on losing weight, exercising more, saving harder, investing smarter, studying better, being kinder, working smarter, and eating healthier. But you will also have life-specific resolutions I know nothing about.
Your resolutions are your own, no one else’s! So focus solely on becoming better through your single, proactively self-
selected Monthly Resolution, starting on the first of each new month of 2017.
Try it!
A year from now, you will be astounded at your results. Oh, and do enjoy your process of personal reengineering. See you next Sunday.
Rajen Devadason, CFP, is a Securities Commission-licensed financial planner, professional speaker and author. Read his free articles at www.FreeCoolArticles.com. Connect on rajen@rajendevadason.com, www.linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason and Twitter @RajenDevadason.