Big money gains start with small money moves

The reminder of the day. Big things tend to start small.

You might be hundreds or thousands of dollars away from that savings goal. Or that home purchase. Or that car purchase. Or that once in a lifetime vacation. Or even on a more basic level, you may be many dollars away from that feeling of being stable and financially secure.

That’s okay. You’re not alone.

But how do you relate to that reality? Does it make the thought of getting to that place too daunting? Does it feel like you’re so far away, that it doesn’t even make sense to start? Because what’s the point really, when the amount of change you’d need to achieve is far beyond your current grasp.

What if the biggest roadblock to your financial goals today isn’t just financial?

You can’t go on an expensive vacation today if you don’t have a way to pay for it. Maybe you can go later, if you’ve saved enough by that point. So what’s the first step in this equation?

You might say ‘making more’ or ‘saving’. But take it back further. The first step to reaching any money goal is to seriously think about it.

What exactly is the goal? What feels challenging about getting there? What does it require to eventually get there, in x time? And armed with that knowledge, what’s the thing I can start doing right away to increase the odds that I get there by then?

Now, that’s not to say that brain power alone makes change. It doesn’t. It needs to be followed with action: tangible steps that align with the vision and planning that comes from your brain.

And this also isn’t to say that positivity is a cure for financial strain or inequality. It’s not. There are global and systemic factors at play that make building wealth hard, especially for those of us who don’t come from it already. Not to mention the personal and emotional factors that can make our relationship to money – and therefore our effectiveness with it – highly complicated.

And I’m also not saying that hard work alone guarantees financial prosperity. It’s an important piece of the equation, but it doesn’t correlate in the way that many of us have been raised to believe. PLENTY of people work hard in this country and aren’t richer for it.

But at the end of the day, here’s what’s also true. If we don’t believe in our capacity to prosper and thrive, that guarantees that we won’t ever get there. And that makes for a difficult existence.