by Tricia
A reader sent me a link to the following article by Liz Pulliam Weston on MSN, ” Money Trouble? It’s Your Own Fault.” The overall tone of the piece is on the negative side, and reminded me of someone giving “tough love.” I thought it was noteworthy to discuss some portions of the article.
“Here’s the thing, though: Reasons have expiration dates. Rely on them too long and they harden into excuses.”
I think probably a lot of us can give reasons as to why our debt is so high. For us,
– We live in an area where are very few good paying jobs.
– We could not find employment that utilizes our college degrees.
– We weren’t making enough money.
– Etc, etc, etc.
See how many negatives are up there? We did not…we weren’t…very few. Being negative seems to attract more negativity. Once I stopped giving reasons for our debt and started concentrating on the solutions things started to happen. I switched that negative energy into positive energy.
Now I am saying things like
– We are going to get a good paying jobs that have benefits.
– We are going to make it financially with where we live now.
– We are going to make enough money.
The debt is still there, but instead I am trying to focus on the positive things that will assist us with reducing our debt. If you noticed, I said I am “trying to” focus. I have my down days where I start thinking negative thoughts. But once I catch myself in that mood I try to turn things around as soon as I can.
“There’s certainly plenty of blame to go around. But if that’s as far as you get, you’ll never get ahead.”
Again, blaming something on someone will not get you very far. It’s all negative energy that you should be placing on rectifying the problem. I can easily blame the college for allowing credit card application booths on campus. If I didn’t get that candy bar for signing up for a credit card, I may not have been so far in debt today. But if I hold anger and blame for the college, I’m not doing anything productive towards reducing our debt.
The last section of the article has an exercise that you can work through. If you are having a hard time handling your money problems emotionally, I would recommend going through the exercise. Face your emotions head-on, then move on.
