Ever heard of Financial Fitness? Illustrious business consultant Neil Debenham shares his entrepreneur-friendly tips to become financially free in 2022.
1- ERADICATE THE NOISE
The world is a busy place and the wider your world gets, the noisier it gets. Opportunities and distractions present themselves all the time but it’s important to not be distracted and remain focused. An entrepreneur’s mindset is naturally inquisitive. You want to find out more and explore new opportunities, but the real skill is to eradicate the noise and focus on what’s important.
2- PRIORITIZE
This one is a key factor to being financially fit. Sometimes it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with the number of tasks we have to do, and this can lead to procrastination and rushing things at the last minute, but actually, this is easy to combat. First and foremost, don’t see all your individual tasks as one big task. Breakdown everything in terms of importance/ timescale and the time it will take for you to get each task completed. You may find that many of your tasks can be completed in a couple of hours, easing the pressure and helping you to focus on the more chunky and important stuff.
3- IGNORE THE HYPE
It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of motivational speakers and their so called ‘one-size-fits-all’ model for success, but these strategies rarely work. Everybody is different. A motivational speaker will tell you to read ten books a month, get up at 5 am every morning, that you only need four hours sleep and how this formula is followed by the most successful people in business. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon – recently valued at $1 trillion dollars, said that he never books a meeting before 10 am as he likes to get up, read the papers, and have breakfast with his family before starting his day, whereas Elon Musk spends time sleeping in his factory working every hour possible. Find what works for you and if you must follow somebody motivational, find somebody who doesn’t earn money from being ‘motivational’, rather someone who earns money from being motivated.
4- CREATE A BALANCE
What is the point of being financially fit if you don’t enjoy the fruits of your labour. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! It’s hard when entering a phase of growth to create a balance between home and work life. I’ve been in the situation where I feel guilty stepping away from my businesses to see my family or not responding to emails at Christmas, but over time I’ve learned how damaging and counter-productive this can be. Now, my best business ideas come to me when I’m walking my dog or on holiday with my family. I see more clearly and recognize more opportunities when I create distance from work.
5- SET GOALS
Set goals; set lots of goals. Short, medium, and long-term goals. Consistently ask yourself, ‘Where do I want to be?’ or ‘What do I want to achieve in a month, a year, five years?’ Goals create plans and plans enforce action. Don’t be afraid to adjust these goals based upon outcomes. Life throws us curveballs and we cannot predict the future. Sometimes goals are not achieved; so what? Don’t beat yourself up over it. Understand why you didn’t achieve it, learn from it, and attack the goal again with more knowledge but… never hit the reset button, just extend the timescale. I set a goal when I was 22 to achieve when I was 30. At the age of 30, I was further away from that goal than when I set it. I extended the timeline for another ten years and achieved it by the age of 37. Each journey is individual.
Neil Debenham is a renowned business trouble-shooter, consultant, and private equity specialist who has facilitated over £50 million worth of private equity and debt investment into scaling UK businesses.
Want more info about being financial fitness? Swat up on the same concept with a political theme courtesy of controversial business mogul, Jack Murphy and FINANCIAL FREEDOM AT IT’S FINEST
