Ever feel stuck with your finances? A financial comfort zone is often a place where we can become static without even realizing it. You may ambitiously set numerous financial goals, but it is also possible to be the one getting in the way of achieving them, becoming your own roadblock to financial growth and fulfillment.
A financial comfort zone can be referred to as a range of decisions and habits around finances that make us feel comfortable and at ease. It is what is familiar. Sometimes it can also be the way you think about money, how you were raised, or even the language you use when talking about money. This zone can also be referred to as The Upper Limit Problem.
In The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, he describes the Upper Limit Problem as the subconscious barriers we place on ourselves, which prevent us from achieving our full potential. People often have an upper limit problem around money. How much they can make, how much they can afford, and how much they deserve would all fall into this category. In other words, these are barriers pertaining to your safety zone.
Reframing Your Mindset for Financial Growth
Staying in your financial comfort zone can be compared to traveling in your own city, or going somewhere you have been multiple times before. Your comfort zone provides a sense of certainty and safety, making your feel secure and validated. You know what to expect, you know where to go, and you can let your guard down a bit. However, staying in one’s comfort zone can also leave us feeling stuck and hold us back from growth. As a result, we often continue doing the same familiar things, even though we know we are capable of achieving more.
The opposite of traveling in your comfort zone is going somewhere you have not been before where you have no idea what to expect. Such an endeavor requires more planning and education, familiarizing yourself with potential barriers and challenges, and reframing your mindset in order to achieve new goals. Pursuing our aspirations can introduce uncertainty and provoke anxiety. We worry about making mistakes, facing failure, facing the unknown or not knowing what to do when we reach our objectives. These ‘what if’ questions can overwhelm us. When we step out of our comfort zone, what we are truly doing is taking a risk.
In this blog, we will examine your current financial situation and discuss risk management strategies, identifying which ones may be most effective in helping you achieve your financial ambitions.
Let’s get started.
Assess Your Current Financial Situation
OK, let’s take a look at your current financial situation. We need to know where you are in order to develop a plan to move forward. There are 5 major areas that we need to look at when it comes to finances. Your income, expenses, savings, investments and debts. Each of these build on one another. Let’s define each one.
- INCOME: Any money that you earn by trading your time for money, or selling any goods or services. This includes all your cash flow that is incoming to you.
- EXPENSES: Any money that goes out of your pocket, the money you spend. This would be the cash flow that is outgoing.
- SAVINGS: Money you have kept and you have the intention of not spending at the current moment, like an emergency savings account or rainy-day fund. Everyone, regardless of income level, should consider to have savings for planned and unplanned expenses. Once you have your savings account fully funded, continuing to add to it can actually hurt rather than help. Money that sits in savings accounts for long periods of time can only make so much and can even lose value. Once you have at least 6 to 12 months covered in savings, it is wise to put any additional money you may have into the next finance area, investments.
- INVESTMENTS: Is money you have and are using outside your savings to increase the present value in the future.
- DEBTS: Are legal agreements, such as loans or credit, that have allowed you to make purchases when you don’t have all the money upfront. A financial institution, like a bank, provides the necessary capital to complete the purchase. Examples include car loans or credit cards.
I would suggest creating a list of where you are financially in each area. The list can be very simple to start. For example, under the area income you can put the areas where you are receiving your income and an estimate of how much. You can even go into the details of where the money goes and the frequency.
Once you know where you are financially in each area, you can then define your goals using the CREATE method. CREATE goals are like SMART goals with a Create Joy twist. For our purpose today, we can just start to brainstorm some of our financial goals in each area. We will go through goals in detail in a future blog.
Develop a Risk Management Strategy
Now that we have an idea of where we are financially and have an idea on where we want to go, we can now create a roadmap and evaluate if we are staying within our financial comfort zone or not. Here we want to take a look at what risks we are comfortable with taking and what our risk management strategy can be.
There are two general types of risk: healthy and reckless. Healthy risk involves understanding your finances and taking steps to move forward responsibly. Reckless risk is the opposite, where taking on too much risk can be harmful. This should be avoided as it can push you back into your financial comfort zone and reinforce habits that do not support your goals. Conversely, being too risk-averse can result in inaction.
Try to void an all-or-nothing approach to finances that swings from comfort to recklessness. Instead, aim to take risks that are appropriate for your financial situation. Focus on healthy risks. Some strategies for managing healthy risk and assessing your needs include:
Education
Gaining more education on a topic can often alleviate confusion and doubt. When you are more knowledgeable, you feel more confident and willing to take necessary steps. This might include seeking outside resources or additional support in specific areas. Determine if a deep dive into the topic is needed to make well-informed decisions. Depending on the situation, you may also need to adjust your approach and methods.
Mindset
How do you think about money? Consider the Upper Limit Problem and how it is relevant to your situation and mindset? What are your thoughts around money that may be limiting you and keeping you back? What are your thoughts about what you can and can’t afford? How much can you make?
Timing
They say timing is everything. When it comes to finances, it really is. Time is money. What this means is that you need to look at the timing of what is ideal and what is possible. Money can grow with time depending on how you are investing, strategizing or planning with it.
Evaluation
Assess whether a deep dive into this area is necessary to make well-informed decisions for your financial future. Depending on the specifics, you may need to adjust your approach and methods.
By evaluating each area and identifying the risk management strategies you are comfortable with, you can effectively manage your risk and clarify the actions you need to take. This process may reveal potential challenges you were unaware of, making it crucial to continually assess your financial situation.
Below are some examples of what might impact your approach to risk management:
- Not making enough income to support the other areas of your life.
- Having too many expenses and not enough income.
- Having too much debt can place you at higher financial risk, especially if you do not have enough income and your expenses are high. It is also important to note that just focusing on paying off debt (and, paying off too much, too soon) without working on the other financial areas, can complicate your goals, as can using credit cards to make ends meet.
- Having trouble saving and not having enough for when the unexpected happens, like medical emergencies or losing one’s source of income. Sometimes having too much in savings can also be something to watch out for.
- Not having a strong or focused investment strategy.
How to find the right level of financial risk for you is highly personal. It will all depend on where you are and what your financial situation is, what risk you are willing to take and which areas you will need to focus on. Understanding and managing risk is about being informed, prepared, and confident in making decisions that align with your values and aspirations. It’s about weighing the potential benefits against the possible downsides and deciding what’s best for you. By embracing risk, you can unlock new opportunities, overcome fears, and find fulfillment in new forms and experiences. Remember, every successful journey starts with a single step toward the unknown.
Embrace the Long Game and Celebrate Small Wins
Patience and gratitude are also tools you may also want to bring on your financial journey. The financial areas of income, expenses, debt, savings and investment can ebb and flow depending on where you are in the process and how willing you are stepping outside of your financial comfort zone. Understand that there will be risks that you need to take and there are times and places when those risks are necessary for growth. Since finances can often become overwhelming, I would suggest going through your finance areas and prioritize the areas you want to tackle first.
Keep evaluating your financial needs, referring to your roadmap often. Celebrate when you can and acknowledge the progress you make along the way. There is something that happens when you reach out of your typical situation and actually see the numbers and behaviors shift. Congratulations, that is when you have mastered stepping outside of your financial comfort zone, and you can only keep growing from there. Embrace the challenges with the lessons, and keep moving forward!
Ready to step out of your financial comfort zone? Join our community for additional support and conversation, workshops and comprehensive guides regarding financial literary, and opportunities for personalized financial counseling related to your personal growth and development goals.