NASDAQ Financial Literacy: Personal Discipline, Confidence & Focus

Whether you’re 18 or 80, the key to achieving your goals and creating an effective financial plan is to be financially literate. In order to understand how to use money to create the life you want, there are two key steps that need to be followed. The first, is controlling your thoughts.  It is vital to understand that you can change your thinking and beliefs about yourself in order to serve your highest goal.  The second, is recognizing how your current behavior is or is not consistent with your values.

There are several tools we are born with that control our thoughts and create a positive emotional environment, called signature strengths.  These include:

• Our ability to change our mind
• Our ability to be inspired
• Determination
• Compassion
• Changing our perspective

Discipline, confidence, and focus are additional traits that may come to mind when thinking about someone who is financially successful. It is important to recognize that all of us are born with these very same signature strengths and in order to be successful, we need to actively use them.  Several steps you can take to help yourself master the fundamentals are to:

* Talk to someone you feel is financially responsible

*Read a news story about what’s happening in the economy

*Read an article about how to save

Training your mind to be successful takes control, confidence and consistency and the more active measures you take to learn and practice the basics, the closer you will become to achieving your life goals.