Step 16 of The Financial Fitness Bootcamp Course

Well, we are just over halfway through boot camp. I hope you are not tired of financial fitness challenges! But in case you need a little breather and a bit of motivation, today we are going to do an exercise to help you finish strong.

Karen writes,

Challenge #16 – Grab a pen and paper right now and write down at least ten things that you are grateful for. They can be big things or small things and they don’t have to be in any particular order. Just make sure you really feel sincerely thankful for these things and you know that your life is better because of them.

Don’t read on yet. I am going to give some examples below but I want you to come up with your own list before reading the examples so

stop now and write.

Here are a few examples of what would be on my list:

My husband, my children, my freedom, my health, my home, my relationship with God, my education, sunsets, food on the table, heat and A/C, my neighbors, clean air to breathe, rain, exercise, forgiveness.

Now, look at your list and see how many of the things you listed were obtained because of money. Don’t feel bad if some of them were. Money can do much good in the world and that is what we are going to talk about today.

My family is able to have a home, heat our home, put food on the table, and take care of our children because we have money. I was able to get a degree because of the money I worked and saved for. Money can be used to help others and therefore is a great tool to have.

However, I doubt anybody wrote the word money on their list because most people usually are not emotionally attached to money. That is a good thing. The Bible teaches us that the love of money is the root of all evil. (1 Tim 6:10) So money is great for doing many wonderful things and can provide financial peace, but the all-consuming love of money destroys the ability of it being used for good in our lives.

In order to stay motivated to be disciplined and wise with money, you should be emotionally attached to worthwhile goals. So now, look at your list and find some worthwhile goals that you really feel that having money could help you achieve.

For instance, I want my children to go to college. That is a worthwhile goal that I am emotionally attached to and will be a motivating force for me to save money for that purpose.

When I am contemplating the choice of putting $50 away in a college savings fund for my children or to spend it at the mall, most of the time the college savings fund is going to win out because of my emotional attachment to that goal.

At the beginning of boot camp, you wrote down three financial goals. Please take a minute to re-read them. Are you emotionally attached to those goals? If not, rework them or write a few more worthwhile goals that you will be truly motivated to achieve!”

We hope you have been learning a lot and making financial fitness strides. If so, we’d like to ask you to take a minute and share our “31 Day Financial Fitness Boot Camp” with your friends, family, and even your social media contacts. Click this link here and you can share it via Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word!