If you’ve ever wanted to win at anything, you know that you have to work a plan and you have to believe that you can do it. According to Anatole France, French poet and successful novelist, “to accomplish great things we must not only act but also dream; not only plan but also believe.”
In other words, accomplishing our life goals alomst never happens by accident. This is true for fitness goals, marriage goals, relationship goals, career goals etc. Sometimes in order to do hard things, we have to do hard things. The same is true for reaching financial freedom and building wealth.
One morning, before work, I was working out with BeachBody’s Insanity program when I noticed the words: Decide. Commit. Succeed. scroll across the middle of the screen. If you are familiar with this workout platform then you have seen these too. Those words are there every morning that I choose to workout in my basement but for some reason I really meditated on them this particular morning.
Why hadn’t I thought about them before? Maybe I was just too tired. 🙂 Three simple words that really outline the steps needed to win, at practically anything!
1.Decide
The most important and initial step to our debt-free journey was the very decision to be more intentional with our money habits. We may have wondered into this mess, but as Dave Ramsey states you can’t simply wander out. The same is true for many aspects of life. In order to succeed in these areas of life we have to DECIDE to intentionally change our trajectory and we have to BELIEVE that we can actually do it.
That’s just it: decide to do it and believe that you actually can! Your mind is incredibly powerful, if you can change the way you are thinking, you can do most anything!
Whether you believe that you can do a thing or not, you are right.
-Henry Ford
2. Commit
Once we decided to be more intentional and responsible for our spending we had to commit to a plan. We are talking hard core sticking to a plan, even when it was really hard. There were plenty of times that we were tempted to overspend on our monthly budget because something really cool went on sale… but we started saying no and stuck to our plan.
We chose to follow Dave Ramsey’s 7 baby steps because the plan has helped nearly 5 million people get out of debt and build wealth. The plan is extremely straightforward, simple and allowed us to see victory along the way using the debt snowball. It is a proven plan that helped us pay off $57,000 in 7 months.
3. Succeed
This is by far the most fun aspect of our journey so far! The sense of accomplishment and confidence that is gained after completing a goal is incredibly rewarding! And the peace and freedom that comes in knowing that you don’t have anymore debt payments is too cool!
You know what though, we would not have reached this point as quickly had we not decided to focus on our debt free goal and commit to following a solid plan. In addition, we had a lot of family and friends walking with us and cheering us on during this time. We can’t thank you enough for your encouragement!
As you walk through this journey, it’s important to surround yourself with people who will encourage you. Tell people about your aspirations to be debt free and the steps you are taking to achieve them. Some people with think your weird but others will applaud your efforts. Some people won’t understand your reasons for wanting to be debt-free and that’s okay.
Keep your chin up, you can do this! 🙂
