A Strategy for Your Wallet: How to Think and Act to Work Less and Earn More
Why does someone work from morning till night and make no progress, while someone else earns more with less effort? It's not just about the numbers, but also about our mindset, emotions, and the courage to act.
Yelena Shepel, an expert in corporate and personal finance and a financial literacy mentor, spoke exclusively to LIGA.net about how to overcome financial fears and start valuing your time and knowledge. Because money comes to those who can count and are not afraid of change.
"Some clients confess during their first consultation that the words 'financial accounting' or 'Excel spreadsheet' make their palms sweat. That is, when it comes to financial matters, people worry so much that even their bodies react! It will be difficult for an entrepreneur to achieve financial success with such 'settings,' because working with money requires not only material but also energetic effort," explains the expert.
How to get rid of financial fears and reach a new level of income
– As a financial mindset mentor, I perceive each person as a system of three points. It's like a triangle. Only it doesn't stand like a pyramid, but lies on a plane with three points simultaneously. What are these points? The first is our thinking, our brain. The second is our feelings and emotions. The third is our body, which is responsible for specific actions. These points are interconnected.
Whether or not you can become rich depends entirely on your mindset. In practice, this can be explained by a situation where you work hard but your income doesn't increase. This means you lack a strategy and your mindset isn't sufficiently engaged. At the same time, you can make plans every day, come up with startups and various projects, but without your desire and concrete actions, they will never be realized. In conclusion: all three points must work simultaneously.
First point: pump your brain
According to statistics, one-third of new businesses in Ukraine close down in their first year of operation. The most common reason for failure is the lack of a business plan and strategy, says the expert:
– Indeed, many entrepreneurs launch their businesses, as they say, "on the fly": without studying the market, without knowing their competitors, and without even keeping basic financial records. Such businesses are built on only two points – emotions and actions.
When a business starts to grow, entrepreneurs realize that they can't do without the knowledge that will help them correctly calculate and analyze the numbers. Then, in a panic, they try to quickly master financial accounting. I'll say that it's much harder to do this during the course of work, rather than at the beginning. So, while your business hasn't started plummeting into a financial abyss – upgrade your brainpower.
Start learning the rules and laws of economics. Begin with small steps: read economics books, watch lectures on YouTube, and use the services of experts. Another piece of advice, for which you will be immensely grateful in the future, is to start keeping financial records in an Excel spreadsheet.
No more notebooks, notepads, or smartphone notes! In a year, you won't understand anything in those notes. Just open a document and start recording all your monthly income and expenses. This will help you understand the numbers. With this information, you can draw the right conclusions and set realistic financial goals.
Second point: emotions under control
Our attitude towards money is formed in childhood and depends on the emotional experience we had with our parents. It's not surprising that sometimes you may feel fear of money or believe that financial success isn't for you, because big money is bad. That's what our parents taught us. Such feelings block your true potential, explains Yelena Shepel:
– First, it's necessary to get to the root cause of a person's financial fears. There are three basic fears: fear of loneliness, fear of loss of control, and fear of death. It's important to identify one of these fears and work through it. Here, the help of not only a financial consultant but also a psychologist may be needed, because it's necessary to address the cause, not just the symptoms.
Don't trust coaches who advise meditating daily to make money flow to you like a river. It's all esoteric nonsense. If you're one of those people who make financial decisions based on impulsive emotions – learn to manage your emotions better.
Use different methods. For example, the 24-hour rule can be helpful. It involves waiting a day before making an important decision. Perhaps during that time you will reconsider things and change your attitude. If you don't control your emotions and fears, they can become the main cause of your financial problems.
Third point: time to act!
Money isn't just about numbers or plans. To earn more, simply thinking or dreaming isn't enough – concrete actions are needed. You need to analyze your time, correctly assess your services or goods, and make bold decisions. Only then will your income truly start to grow.
– To explain how this works, I'll give a specific example. Once, a client who worked as a consultant came to me for financial support. We started by calculating the real cost of an hour of her consultation, which at that time was $100. I asked her how many hours she spent preparing for a consultation. It turned out to be at least three hours.
And there were also correspondence with the client, clarifications, and follow-up after the consultation. In the end, we billed 6 hours of work for a client who needed only one consultation. The client was surprised to find that her hourly rate wasn't $100, but only $16. When she heard that figure, she was shocked. Logically, the client understood that she needed to raise her prices, but emotionally she wasn't ready.
First, she was afraid that clients would disappear. Second, she felt ashamed to raise the price. We worked with her fears and moved to action: she created a new price list. What happened next? A few months after raising prices, the client asked in surprise: "How does this work?! I started working half as much, but I earn more!". She said that some of her social media followers didn't want to book a consultation for $100, but after she tripled the price, they immediately signed up.
The thing is, it's better to refuse three clients who are willing to pay $100 each and find one who is willing to pay $300. It's better to concentrate your time, energy, and effort on them and do your job well.
Therefore, it's worth not only dreaming about money or worrying about it, but also calculating, analyzing, studying financial rules, and most importantly – taking action. This is the path to financial success.