Firstly you need to take a hard look at yourself and your situation.
Sometimes you are your own problem, sometimes the people you surround yourself with are the problem and sometimes the problem is not yours at all. You need to figure out which of those situations you are in first.
You need to assess where your problems with money lie or why you have a need to earn extra money. You need to take an objective view of yourself. If you struggle with that then ask a friend or family member that you trust to help you out.
I learnt so much about myself and my finances by looking at the last ten years of my life. I had a good idea why I was in my situation but it was not going to be an easy situation to turn around. Why? Because I was trying to get control of my finances and there was so much that I could not control, or at least control straight away.
I couldn't magically increase my income and I couldn't pay off any of my larger debts any time soon.
But you have to start somewhere, every journey begins with a single step. If you can take a good hard look at what your life and your finances look like and then outline where you'd like to be, and by when, then you can make plan.
When I took a hard look at myself I figured out who I was.
What I did know was that I was unafraid of hard work. However, I was exhausted from working hard for so many years.
The biggest thing I learnt was that I didn't want to bust my ass working at a computer for 18 hours a day to end up getting nowhere fast! Sitting at a computer all day was creating health problems for me and besides, the long hours were killing me!
You can't do that, you hit this nasty little wall called burnout and boy did I hit that wall!
All work and no play makes for a dull boy.
That's so very true. You can't expect to work that hard and not take stock once in a while without it affecting your physical and mental health. Burn out causes you to be unproductive. Stop once in a while to smell the roses, realise why you are working so hard in the first place.
Besides, taking a break, and I mean a real break such as a holiday or a weekend away to truly recharge your batteries. If you can learn to switch off you'll notice the difference.
I also learnt that my behavior wasn't the root cause of the situation I was in. I mean, I was, I accepted and allowed the behaviour of others putting me in this situation, so in every respect, yes it was me. But I had changed that.
Looking at who I was as a person, I knew that I could live a simple life. I knew I could save, I knew that I could be thrifty and not spend on things that I didn't need.
Getting control of my finances was my problem.
You have to make some hard decisions about whether you cut out or change the bad spending habits or indeed ask the people in your life with bad spending habits to change in order to move forward.
