Welcome to Under 2, an email series delivering short insights to empower your money life – in 2 minutes or less.
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Managing money successfully is about doing a lot of different things well; it can feel overwhelming if we see our money circumstance as full of problems and don’t know where to start.
Commitment, however, makes the state of the problems themselves irrelevant – because if you’re going to improve everything over time no matter what, it doesn’t matter too much where you start. This understanding makes it easier to break financial goals down into separate small targets, and just start laying the bricks one at a time to your improved financial foundation (or your support column to the next level). It won’t be all better, all at once, but better is still better.
In her book, Grit, Angela Duckworth describes both Interest and Purpose as two of the four elements of grit. Interest may be thought of as an inclination for a particular path or outcome, including an overarching life philosophy that’s something you simply can’t quit on. For example, if you’re inherently interested in protecting your children, you’re probably never going to quit making choices that are safer for your kids. It’s part of who you are.
The second, Purpose, adds another layer of commitment because intrinsic motivation is driven by feeling a part of something greater than yourself.
Greater focus on these elements (your broader Interest and Purpose) helps us have patience with ourselves to continue working on the smaller targets for better money management. Because the smaller efforts do lead in the right direction, even if their individual success is often a roller coaster experience.
So instead of feeling like you’re failing at doing something (e.g. sticking to a spending cap, getting your emergency savings built up more), remembering your commitment to the bigger intention helps you realize you haven’t failed at all. You’re just working on laying those individual bricks and any bricklayer will tell you patience is required. But that patience is worth it, because it’s still a faster path to your overarching goals than cycling between starting and quitting.
In a world geared for hurry, the capacity to resist the urge to hurry – to allow things to take the time they take – is a way to gain purchase on the world, to do the works that counts and to derive satisfaction from the doing itself.
Oliver Burkeman in Time Management for Mortals
The hare may be quick but the tortoise is determined.
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Under 2, an email series designed to share quick bites of wisdom to empower your financial journey.
All for now,
Lindsey