Lost Focus: Planning Your Finances
December 10, 2010Sometimes we just don’t want to look in the mirror and ask ourselves tough questions. I had one of those moments recently. I was going to a football game and the line outside of the stadium was incredibly long. It took 40 minutes to get inside the stadium when it usually takes 5-10. If we were going to get to our seats in time for kickoff, we were going to need to really hustle. Sitting in the upper deck, in a stadium without escalators, can be a challenge. I have seen a lot of people heading toward my section stop at a halfway point (it’s almost a legitimate cardio workout just getting up to our seats!) to catch their breath. I got to my section and realized that I was breathing heavily and felt very tired and out of shape. It was at that moment that I had to ask myself the question “Have I lost my focus?”
The answer was an obvious “YES,” but I had been too distracted to realize it! Not to make excuses, but I’ll make excuses. My family was hit with several significant health crises within the span of 2 weeks. During all of that, I moved into a new place and my significant other decided to move 5 hours away to be closer to her family. Somewhere along the way, I lost my focus. I normally try to eat well and get some exercise, but both of those habits went out the window. I try to stick to a reasonable budget, and in the chaos of life I lost track of that and spent far more than I normally do on restaurants, convenience items, library fines (forgot to take books back, too), and other items that are not a normal part of my routine. Why do I share all of this? Not to whine or look for sympathy, but because I know I’m not the only person who has life issues disrupt their otherwise well designed plans. Rather than adding to savings during this period, I dipped into it a few times. My long term financial future wasn’t completely at risk, but it certainly wasn’t being helped by my recent inattention.
Walking up the stadium stairs made me realize that I was falling short of my goals from a fitness perspective. Understanding why also made me see that it wasn’t just exercise that I needed. It was an overall level of focus that I needed to get back. That night I went into my calendar and made (yeah, this might sound a bit goofy but it works for me) a one hour appointment with myself to sit down and do a quick review of the areas of my life where I need to regain focus. I reviewed my financial goals, my fitness goals, and other life goals and got myself back on track after that appointment with myself.
I have seen far too many people have their financial plans derailed by life’s unexpected circumstances just like me, but many have never been able to get back on the right path. I can see how easily it happens. You can have goals, be diligent in working toward those goals only to have life intervene. If the lost focus lasts for more than a few weeks, it can become a new set of habits. I recall hearing that after 21 days of doing something, it becomes a habit. If you are in a period of lost focus (this happens a lot between Thanksgiving and the New Year), maybe you should consider setting a quick appointment with yourself to regain it and start making a plan to get back on track. It worked for me.