March 16, 2013

STOP BLAMING YOUR PARENTS

don't blame your parentsIt's easy to blame your parents for how you turned out. It's also unfair. Mistakes get made but we can learn from them and change.

We’ll focus on your financial life.

That Was Then

Maybe your folks weren't good at saving or paying off credit card balances. Maybe they bought on impulse. Perhaps the fine print fooled them. Maybe they were too trusting of salespeople who didn’t have their best interests at heart. Perhaps they didn’t budget or have a financial plan. Maybe they believed the myth of financial freedom at age 55.

Now

Yesterday is history. Yesteryear is ancient history. You're living today. You can do better. Extract lessons and let the past go. Make a better future: where there’s willpower, there’s a way.

Maybe

Your parents may not have made the right decisions but they probably had noble intentions. That makes them much like us. We tend to judge others by their visible actions and ourselves by our invisible intentions. That's inconsistent.

The Cake Boss' family (click to read)Parents also do wonderful things. They raise us and protect us. We see good news in the case of Leslie Bibb and Lamar Odom. In contrast, Buddy Valastro, the Cake Boss got tragic news but learned to do better.

Dwell on the negatives or mistakes and you'll mess up your life.
Earl Nightingale said, “We become what we think about” and Brian Tracy later said, "We become what we think about most of the time."

What are you thinking about? Positivity and optimism are much better fuels than negativity and pessimism.

Is Our Future Written?

We cannot predict what will happen — bad or good.
Counter-examples
There are often convincing arguments for doing the opposite of what we think is "right".
Should parents pay for your university education? If the family pays, the student has less financial stress but may not value the investment or study hard. If the student pays, the financial stress may reduce grades, create resentment towards the parents … or build character.
Successful
The successful people don't have a specific background. They can easily come from broken homes, lack higher education and have no money (in the beginning). Yet they are often optimistic, risk taking, passionate and driven.

Blaming Others

You can't blame your teachers (learn on your own), friends (replace them), a bad economy (some segments thrive at any given time), the government (the people voted for them ... except for the ones who abstained) or disasters like Superstorm Sandy (prepare for next time).

We can blame ourselves, but that’s not productive either. Let’s learn and change.

Links

Podcast 211


direct download | Internet Archive page | iTunes

PS If you’re not already, you might be a parent one day too …

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