A vast majority of human beings will never attain the sweet bliss of financial freedom during the course of their lifetimes, and this even includes high earning professionals and business owners.
Apart from financial illiteracy, and the lack of opportunities, what holds people back from achieving their financial goals, is often their own pride, and the excesses that come with constantly having to feed it.
Pride has long been the most puzzling of the seven deadly sins, often because it takes a bit of pride to achieve pretty much anything in life. While pride can very well cause the downfall of individuals, it is also the force that compels change and action.
In this article, we cover the various ways in which pride keeps you broke, and how you can consciously overcome the same to pursue your financial goals.
1. Refusing To Seek Help
Being independent and self-sufficient is a wonderful trait, so long as it's not fueled by our pride, and to such an extent that we refuse to ever seek help. Millions across the world refuse to seek the guidance and advice of professionals, which is absolutely critical for personal finance and investment planning.
The globalized economy and financial systems offer a wide range of new opportunities for investors who can seek them out and make the most of them. This, however, requires the help and guidance of qualified professionals, and poses substantial risks for amateurs who don’t know what they are doing.
2. Keeping Up Appearances
Pride leads us astray in more ways than one, and one of its most detrimental manifestations comes in the form of projecting and keeping up appearances.
A significant chunk of our expenses off-late are rather frivolous, often made to impress others, prove a point, or signal a new found status that doesn’t do much in favor of our long-term financial wellbeing and goals.
Exotic supercars, luxury housing, designer furniture, and the latest gadgets often happen to be high-margin cash cows for their creators. This is mainly because their intrinsic value is rather thin, and doesn't deliver much in the way of utility beyond just signaling wealth and status.
3. Refusing To Admit Mistakes
Pride often keeps us broke by not allowing us to admit our mistakes and taking responsibility for them, in fact, most people only ever blame external factors for their financial predicaments, admitting no blame for their own mistakes and bad decisions.
Even if you are in your mid-forties, there is still plenty of time to course correct and alter the course of your finances.
With convenient, and innovative solutions in this regard, such as the SoFi retirement account, or any of the other new age fintech solutions, getting your life in order is fairly straightforward, but it starts with a solemn admission of mistakes that were made in the past.
4. Not Making Sacrifices
Attaining our desired financial goal requires sacrifices, often in the form of cutting back on expenses, taking up a second job, or a side hustle, along with downsizing of your current lifestyle or living situation.
None of these are easy on our pride, and for most people such options are far from even being worth considering, as we’d rather keep up our appearances for the present, than lead a stress-free life during our golden age.
For a vast majority of people the blueprint for financial success remains the same, live below your means, save and invest, and watch the wonder of compounding, and cost-averaging deliver outsized returns for you in the long-run. This, ofcourse, requires sacrifices.
5. Being Risk Averse
While greed and envy might compel us to be reckless when it comes to risk, pride is on the other end of the spectrum, making us too risk averse.
Pride essentially keeps us anchored to our comfort zones, not allowing for anything that might even minimally harm our status or current position.
From smart investment opportunities, to new business and job offers, an individual can miss out on everything as they get hung up on risk aversion fueled by pride.
Being cautious when it comes to risk-taking is definitely a good trait, but swearing off risks altogether leads you nowhere.
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