Oftentimes, the first few steps in any process are the most difficult. The journey towards financial independence is no different. You are in your current position as a result of many factors, especially your past decisions. If you had made different choices, you would not be where you are now. There are certainly better places you could have ended up in. And there are certainly places that are far worse.
If you want to make a serious commitment to improving your financial wellbeing, you must accept responsibility for your current circumstances. That does not mean no one ever wronged you or things didn’t happen outside of your control. What it does mean is that the past is now behind you, no matter what it looked like. You now bear the consequences of your past, whether good or bad.
You may have debt that you’ve been struggling to pay off for years or possibly decades. And it might be for a loan that you now regret taking out. You might be working a job that makes you feel miserable, but it’s your only way of keeping the lights on now. You might have no savings because you blew all your money on gambling. If you look back and see that you’ve made mistakes with your money in the past, welcome to the human race. We have all made decisions that we didn’t realize were mistakes until it was too late. Sure, it might be enticing to think back on those moments and dream about how different your life would be now if things had gone differently. But this is futile. In fact, brooding endlessly is likely to only bring you more pain and resentment.
Freeing yourself from financial destitution begins with freeing your mind, as well as your conscience. You cannot go forward with a reliable plan for the future without accepting how you arrived at the present. Blaming others for where you are now, even if they truly are at fault, is a mindset that will keep you imprisoned until you set yourself free.
Learning to accept failure is not an easy thing. Nothing worthwhile in life ever is. There are several reasons why so many people never achieve financial independence, but this is often the greatest one. A bad mindset produces bad decisions. Bad decisions only continue to spin the cycle that you’re in right now. If you want to break that cycle, you must heal your mindset.
Here’s a strategy that can help, especially if your guilt is so strong that it paralyzes you from acting further. Take out a sheet of paper and write down every big mistake you can think of. These are not just financial mistakes, but every single one that you continue to obsess over. Make the list as long as it needs to be. If something else comes to mind, add to it. This exercise may take you awhile, perhaps over the course of several days. When you are finally done, there should be no more regrets in your mind that are not yet on the paper.
Once you are done, rip up the paper and throw the pieces in the trash can. Take the trash outside, where it’s out of sight. That is how you can move on from regret in a way that is meaningful. That is how you learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes and commit to trying again.
When you accept responsibility for your circumstances, without any resentment or anger left, you are ready to begin your journey.
