“To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them”

Picabo Street

“My main goal is to be financially secured. I want to have no money worries and a nice nest egg set aside,” said Jodie.
“Yeah but she does everything possible to sabotage herself,” interrupted her husband Jon, shaking his head side to side.
Jodie grew up poor. She watched her family go from one financial crisis to another, living paycheck to paycheck, never able to save. Her main goal in life is to do better than her parents. Yet, despite going to college and getting a professional degree, Jodie is unable to realize her dream of financial freedom.
“She says one thing and does something completely different,” says her husband Jon, “it’s like she doesn’t really know what she wants.”

What do you really want?

What does your actions say about your desires? What does what you do, say about what you really want?
According to researchers and scientists, there are six basic human needs. Maslow is credited for the first five basic needs; Tony Robbins expanded on it.
According to Maslow, our most basic need is survival; being alive. But what is survival? For most people, survival is what is most important at the time. It seems if we don’t get the girl, the job, the promotion or the house, life is over; we’re going to die.
Survival is different from existing. To exist, we need air, water and food. To survive and thrive, we must have purpose.

What you do reveals your true desires

If you want to know what really matters to you, look at your actions. Specifically, take a look at how you spend your resources; study how you spend your time, money and energy.
Jodie said she wanted to be financially free. Yet, according to her partner, her actions were contrary to what she said she wanted. Although Jodie is a highly-trained professional with a high-income potential, she has not been able to make her dream a reality.
As it turned out, there was something more important to Jodie than anything else, even financial security. When she was given the opportunity to make money, Jodie would do exactly the opposite, believing she possibly knew a better way.

Trying something new and different, though not wrong, would take time and effort and since her ideas were not financially sound, they would ultimately fail. This caused her to waste time, money and energy, leading her away from her stated goal.

Though her husband saw it as contrary, Jodie was doing what was most important to her. After analyzing how she spent her time, money and energy, Jodie realized although she wanted financial security, her main desire was to achieve it her way. Self-expression, feeling free to be herself was her “basic need.” To reach financial freedom, Jodie must find ways to make money that won’t take away her need for self-expression.

If you have a goal you can’t seem to reach, study how you spend your time, money and energy. Ask yourself: what is more important to me than that goal? Find a way to reconcile the two and you can make your dreams a reality.