Pay Yourself First!
Good Intentions/Bad Results?
In the 1920’s, George S. Clason used a parable to teach his readers an important lesson in his pamphlets on financial success. Eventually compiled into a book published under the title “The Richest Man in Babylon”, Clason’s key principle was the advice to save at least 10% off the top of your earnings before spending a penny, including spending on your bills and other financial obligations.
Eighty or so years later, Pamela Yellen published her book “Bank on Yourself” which offered her readers an alternative approach to saving and investments. Her strategy of using dividend paying whole life insurance was designed to help folks “get off the grid”, so to speak, from the ups and downs of the stock market and return more monetary control to the investor. Also, in the 1990’s, Tony Robbins introduced his hour of power concept in the best-selling audio program “Get the Edge”, in which Mr. Robbins suggested taking the first hour of the day for a specific ritual of gratitude, physical exercise and incantations (repetitive self-talk designed to “re-program” our feelings about our ourselves and our lives).
Besides the great ideas of these and many other fine thinkers, what I realized from studying literally thousands of businesspeople in my years as a consultant, trainer, educator and marketing executive was that almost everybody has the best intentions about what they want to accomplish professionally each and every day, but these good intentions rarely, if ever, translate in consistent, forward movement towards their goals.
What happens to derail these “best laid plans”?
Circa 1785, Scottish poet Robert Burns described the dilemma of plans derailed in his now-famous “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough”, which inspired authors John Steinbeck, Sidney Shelton and others. This poem gave us the oft-quoted saying about the “best laid plans of mice and men going awry”. So the challenge, then, becomes not to make the plans, because most of our lives are chock fill of “to do” lists, and it is safe to assume, I think, that writing out one’s new year’s resolutions is a futile ritual for countless millions.
The greatest challenge from my 40 plus years as a professional, and a bit more years than that of personal experience, is simply that procrastination is more powerful than doing. We want to do this and that, but life itself just jumps in the way as one seeming emergency after another diverts our attention away from our coveted goals, and our dreams get way-laid in little bits and pieces, one day at a time, until a year, or a decade, or any entire lifetime go by, and we still never get to what we really want to accomplish in life.
Okay, enough with the depressing thoughts. Is there anything we can do about it?
Thankfully, the answer is YES!
Actually the way to solve the problem is so simple, at least on the surface, that some may discount its power. Yet, most powerful it certainly is.
You must do what George S. Clason, Pamela Yellen and Tony Robbins all recommended in their own particular way. You must, in my way of describing it, Pay Yourself First.
Pay Yourself First
The payment I am advising you here is not in money but in time, or really in attention. You must pay attention first to your over-arching goals and find a way to make even a baby step worth of progress every day of your life, or at some reasonable interval that gradually but systematically moves you in the direction of your objective.
To ensure that this happens, you must add whatever discipline is required to schedule some time to attend to the object of your desire, preferably BEFORE you jump into the daily grind and all the ensuing distractions that inevitably occur. (Stay tuned for more on this topic...your comments are always welcome-ITL)