Financial Planning - November 2012

practice consultant

lead to disappointment, obsessions, stressful relationships and a colorless life.

What you should control, rather, are your mind and your emotions. It takes tremendous effort to manage the most powerful driver of all, your mind. I did this by focusing on specific goals and cutting out the negative stimuli around me — being sure to finish an important project before going to a weekend party, for instance.

Personal coaches express this as a critical need to focus on goals and cut the “noise.” There are now even more insidious distractions — Internet gossip, trash talk radio and (as always) toxic acquaintances or co-workers.

NE W CHALLENGES, NEW SOLU TIONS

Here’s another driver: Look at every problem as a challenge in need of a solution. As my financial situation slipped, I refused to recognize the base problem I was dealing with. And after I hit the wall, I began to see the world as it really is: tough, full of obstacles and unforgiving.

Look at every problem as a challenge
in need of a solution.

Now, however, I know I can overcome almost anything, through my faith and the help of my friends and colleagues.

Don’t think this is an unrealistic assessment of my abilities;
some tasks will take extreme effort. But this is the embodiment of
what Winston Churchill said during an address at his old school,
Harrow: “Never give in!”
When I was able to look squarely at my issues, overcome them
and finally reach higher levels of success and challenge, work
became more interesting and fun.

Yet from time to time, feelings of fulfillment waned and a kind of mental “itchiness” set in. What I learned: My mind is programmed to explore new ideas and settings, and to seek new challenges over and over.

YES, YOU CAN

Many financial industry professionals seek out the motivation and engagement that comes from working on challenging projects that require both creativity and collaboration. Burchard refers to this pursuit as “controlling for new.” That was one of the driving forces behind my firm’s recent combination with Savant Capital Management: We wanted to face new and quite different challenges.

testing yourself, and determining whether you feel mentally prepared to master them.

For me, it was all about feelings of competence (or incompetence). I found that when my belief in my competence was high, I adjusted more rapidly, contributed faster and learned more quickly from my mistakes. My feelings about my levels of ability and competence have driven my goals for years.

Many decades ago, I heard the Rev. Robert Schuller ask this question: “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” Think about it.

CHOOSE YOUR THOUGH TS CAREFULL Y

In his book As a Man Thinketh, published
more than a century ago, James Allen put it
this way: “A particular train of thought per-
sisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to
produce its results on the character and cir-
cumstances. A man cannot directly choose
his circumstances, but he can choose his
thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape
his circumstances.”
Early on, my lack of mental control pro-
duced a train wreck in my life. It was only
after a deep personal crisis that I began to
understand and use mental and emotional
control, focus and goal setting to regain my
financial and career footing.

As my wins started to outpace my losses, I strengthened my resolve, looked for problems to solve and challenges to overcome. Still, I came to realize if my belief in my ability and competence wasn’t strong, I might waver.

Mental control is a continuous work in progress. And your attitude shapes the way you think about how to get things done — so if things aren’t going quite as you desire, you might want to think about your attitude. FP