In part one of this series, I talked about Habit 1 – Be Proactive, or The Habit of Choice. Before you can begin any endeavor, you have to understand that it’s your choices and not your circumstances that have lead you to where you are now. Once you understand that message, you’re ready to move on to the next habit.

Habit # 2 – Begin With the End in Mind or The Habit of Vision

“Would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where…” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

- From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

This particular habit works with the underlying principle that mental creation precedes physical creation. Let’s think about that. Mental creation precedes physical creation. That means what we think and believe must come before the actual product of our efforts. In order to be successful with our money and be financially prosperous, we must first believe that we can be. Makes sense, right?

Many people have the paradigm that we live by default, which goes hand in hand with being a product of circumstance. But this is an ineffective way of thinking. Instead, consider that you live by design. What this means is that you mentally create the plan, then you envision the outcome you desire, and finish with following through on the actions of your plans…just as you envisioned them. You control your own destiny.

Ok, so let’s look at this in terms of money.

Let’s say you have $50,000 in debt that you want to have paid off in 18 months. It’s a lofty goal, but you’ve looked at your budget and you believe it’s doable. So, the first step is to create a plan. How is this doable? Write it down. Visualize each phase of the plan and solidify it in your mind.

The second step in this process is to visualize the end result. Picture yourself paying off the $50,000 within the 18 months. Use all of your senses as you imagine this. What do you see? What can you hear? How do you feel? Are there any smells? Notate it all. Visualize the moment. Rinse and repeat.

There is a well known study conducted in Russia on the effect of creative visualization with athletes. The study was set up into four control groups.
Group one did nothing but physically train 100% of the time. Group two trained physically 75% of the time with the remaining 25% devoted to mental training. Group three was divided down the middle with 50/50. And group four physically trained 25% of the time and the remaining 75% was spent on mental training.

Group four, who spent 75% of their time training mentally, performed the best. According to the psychological theory, mental images act as a prelude to muscular impulses – essentially, the muscles “learned” the appropriate behavior from the visualization techniques, it was then only a matter of working them out.

Now, some of you may be thinking that visualization is nothing more than daydreaming and how is that ever going to help you achieve financial success? It’s a fair question. Visualization is different than daydreaming because you speak in first person, present tense. When you visualize reaching the goal of paying off that debt, you say “I have reached my goal! It’s been 18 months and a long battle, but I am done. I am debt free and it feels amazing…” Go from there to flesh out your visualization. Experts suggest that you write your visualizations down on paper and reread them several times a day to keep your focus on the goal and to remind you of your plan.

Financial Mission Statement

Highly effective people shape their own future instead of letting other people, their culture, or their circumstances determine it. So, instead of letting your circumstances and the people around you control what you believe about yourself and your financial situation, design it yourself. And you do that with a financial mission statement.

There are many benefits to actually taking the time to sit down and write out a financial mission statement.

• It clarifies what is most important to you

• Provides focus

• Guides your day-to-day decisions, etc.

Now, writing your financial mission statement is a highly personal effort and may not even make any sense to others. That’s ok. The point is to remind you of your goals and what you’re striving to do. Maybe your financial success is only a part of what you want to achieve, and maybe your mission statement runs into other areas of your life. That’s fine, too. Your financial mission statement should be like a constitution by which you make all of your financial choices. And be prepared for this exercise to take some time and thought. I highly encourage you to do this, though because it really puts things into perspective.

Be creative, too. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a strictly written document. If you’re better with pictures, draw it. Make a montage, gather poems that express your ideas. Whatever it is that captures what you want your financial mission statement to say, then do it. Remember, it’s just for you.

As an example, here’s what my financial mission statement looked like the first time I wrote it. Granted, it’s changed and I’ve refined things a bit, but here’s just a rough idea of what I’m talking about.

“My financial mission is to be debt free and retire with enough money to travel the world…at 35.In order to achieve this goal, I will make smart financial decisions and avoid wasting money on things I don’t need. I will rework the budget so that I can move more to savings and learn to live on less.”

You get the idea.

It doesn’t have to be savvy and business-like, either. It just has to make sense to you and relate to what you are doing. It must challenge and inspire you, address your responsibilities, and provide direction and purpose.

In order to write an effective financial mission statement, you have to be in tune with yourself. So, here’s some self-awareness questions to get you thinking about what’s most important to you financially and how that information would apply to your mission statement.

• When are you at your financial best?

• When are you at your financial worst?

• What do you really love to do with your money? Why?

• Your natural tendency with money is to…? Spend, save, hoard…?

• If you had unlimited time and resources, what would you do?

• What are your money goals?

• What do you consider to be your most important financial achievement? What do you consider to be your worst?

• How can you avoid financial problems in the future?

Recap

Habit 2 – Begin With the End in Mind or The Habit of Vision is about looking beyond the belief that we live by default. Instead, it focuses on the belief that we live by design. In order to do that, to control our own destinies, we must first learn to plan and visualize before we commit to action.

Creatively visualizing success is a common practice in the sports industry for helping athletes improve their performances, and psychologists have long believed this to be a key resource to highly successful people. They believe, therefore, they do. By visualizing our success repeatedly, we train our minds to act on impulses geared towards achieving our goals. In other words, taking the steps to complete our goals becomes second-nature. One of the best ways to solidify this creative visualization is to write it down and reread it several times throughout the day to keep your focus.

Along with creative visualization there is the financial mission statement. This is simply a statement that lays out your commitment to achieving your goals, and how you plan to do it. The mission statement is meant to provide clarity on what’s important, provide a sense of focus on goals, and inspire and challenge the creator along the way.

Financially speaking, the habit of vision can be an extremely useful tool. All too often we set goals for ourselves, but never realize our full potential. We let negative self-talk and our environment dictate what we do. The problem is that we believe these outside influences control us. We believe we’ll never have more money than we do now because of where we live or what we do. We believe we can’t save money because of the many responsibilities weighing us down.

The sooner we realize that we control our own financial destinies, the sooner we can get started on achieving our goals. Visualize paying off the debt, retiring early, or buying that dream house. Plan your course of action. Then, follow it up with the action itself.

In terms of the financial mission statement, I realize this idea may seem cheesy initially. But, the reality is that it narrows down what it is you want to focus on. You may say that you want to be wealthier, but how wealthy? What milestones will you use to determine when you’ve reached that goal? Having a thought out mission statement can clarify those for you. If your goal is to retire early, how early is early, and what is a comfortable level of income for you to retire with? All of these types of questions should be asked and formulated into the thoughts of your financial mission statement.

What are your thoughts on Habit 2? Have you tried visualizing your goals in their entirety? What happened? Would you consider writing a financial mission statement?

Related posts:

1. The Seven Habits to Financial Success – Part III
2. 7 Habits to Financial Success… Part VII
3. The Seven Habits to Financial Success – Part I
4. 7 Habits to Financial Success – Part V
5. The Seven Habits to Financial Success – Part IV