7 Habits I’ve Developed On My Financial Journey6 min read

The estimated reading time for this post is 6 minutes. This post may contain affiliate links.

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So, I got to thinking the other day and started reflecting on some habits that I’ve developed along the way while working through my financial journey. I thought by sharing them, I would hopefully get you to reflect on your goals and things to focus on while you are on your financial journey.

1. Long Term Vision

Long term vision is important because we have to look beyond today and realize that we need to be responsible for how we use our resources so that we have some for tomorrow. By creating goals and having a plan to get there, you are casting vision. For me, my long term vision would be that my family would be financially independent in that we have the freedom to work from where we want, when we want, how we want. To be able to do this, we had to get out of debt, build up savings, and start investing. On top of that, I knew that I would need to start a business where I could work any hours I wanted doing something I love.
For me, that is this blog. I hope to start coaching and helping you along in your financial journey. I hope to help you start a business that can help free you from your 9-5 as well, if that’s what you want! I want to leave a legacy that is all about helping other people better themselves, not how much of XYZ did I sell.
If I can continue to provide incredible value and create relationships with more of you, I will be very happy. By doing this, I hope to continue investing and building wealth to provide more and more options for my family to experience freedom to pursue our dreams.

2. Strong Values

Your value system is going to be magnified as you go through your financial journey. What’s the old saying, “Show me your checkbook and your calendar, and I’ll tell you what’s most important to you“. Focus on your values and let your finances compliment them and you will be on your way to success.
For me, these values include:
  • time with my family
  • being able to handle money well
  • giving to those in need
  • freedom to pursue opportunity
  • doing work that matters.

Without these things, life is just not worth living. Set some values today and find a way to reflect on them often when you are feeling down or wanting to quit. These values are going to be what carries you on as you progress through your financial journey.

3. Internal Drive To Accomplish

Having an internal drive to accomplish things has been huge for me because I am a doer. Before we started our journey, I was trying to accomplish everything at once. But, once I started focusing on thing at a time, I found that I was able to get a much better result. This internal drive to accomplish each baby step to move on to the next has been a lot of what motivates me to keep going.

Any time you start something, you are going to have times when you are going to get knocked down and want to quit. If you don’t have a big enough reason “why” you are doing what you are doing, you won’t keep going. I think this goes hand in hand with this internal drive to accomplish this financial journey and get to baby step 7.

4. Constant Need To Learn

This habit has been huge for me. Because I am big into DIY things, I’m constantly forcing myself to learn. As I’m learning, I’m figuring out how to do things more carefully, stronger, more efficient, etc. By learning how to pay off debt by creating a budget and keeping my spending in check, we learned how to get out of debt and start building savings. My next hurdle is going to be learning more about investing as we get started with that.

One of the biggest problems that I hear is people complain that they are too busy to learn or can’t make the time. I made it a point to develop a habit of learning instead of consuming. Instead of watching a movie, I would read a blog or a book. Instead of playing video games, I am creating content and interacting with other people on personal finance forums, Facebook and other blogs.

Find something that you want to do better and start reading about it. Start experimenting and start to learn more about it. Experience is the best teacher in most cases.

5. Courage To Be Different

This one was a big one for my family. We had to say no to things that our peers were saying yes to. We had to cut back on how much we went out to eat and start eating in more often. We stopped taking as many vacations. We started checking in with each other before making purchasing decisions. These were all things that were new and different from the norm to us.

I would challenge you to have the courage to be different then your peers that aren’t successful or at the level that you want to be. I would challenge you to start standing out like a sore thumb in how you manage your money and be bold in how you handle debt and learn to build wealth as you get control of your spending with your budget.

6. Ability To Handle The Fear Of The Unknown

For us, there were points when we didn’t know how we were going to get through a few situations. We sometimes felt like we were spinning our wheels and just throwing money at our debt and it felt like we were never going to get out of debt. The reality was that we were paying off our debt very quickly,  but, we wanted out so bad that it didn’t feel fast enough for us.

Even now, I know that I struggle with the future and how we are going to get to 15% of our income saved to go into investing on top of giving 10% and living on our expenses. And then on top of that, we are supposed to find money to put into kid’s college funding and then start working to pay down the house even faster. I know that it will happen as we make it a priority, but right now it just feels like an unknown and we have so much to learn.

7. Persistence

Persistence is perhaps one of the biggest things that has paid off for us in our financial journey so far. If we hadn’t kept going, we wouldn’t be where we are now. I would highly recommend if you are in a tight spot where you are thinking about giving up with this whole “pay off debt thing”, that you will revisit why you decided to get rid of your debt in the first place. You were unsatisfied with something in your life and wanted to be somewhere else. Make sure you keep that fire alive and fight to keep moving towards your goals. It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it!


So, what would I ask you to do today? I would ask you to sit down and look at your finances in a new light. I’ve created this checklist for you to print out and use to kick your finances in high gear! This checklist will give you a simple guide of things you can start implementing this week to better your finances!

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Steven Goodwin

Owner/Blogger/Consultant at MyFamilyOnABudget
Steve Goodwin, a stay-at-home dad of two girls is passionate about finances and is helping others just like you get out of debt and build wealth handling money God's way. His goal is to inspire people like you to gain control of their finances by destroying debt and building wealth using their cash flow.
Posted in Budgeting, Career, Emergency Fund, Entrepreneurship, Finances.