This post was written by John Marks

All right, this time you really mean it. Give up smoking, cut down on drinking, start jogging, be a better person, become more reliable, sort your finances out, etc. etc. The problem is that paying a gym membership for a year and going only once is more common than going every week for the whole year.

Are we all that fickle? From my point of view, the determination to improve ourselves might come from the overindulging and excesses of the month before January, but as I get older, I find it easier to find a reason to delay or re-route my good intentions. Once delayed, it goes to the bottom of the “important” pile.

I’m also beginning to tell myself “be a realist,” when I already know that a “realist” is probably an optimist that has lived too long! So what is going to be different in 2013? I am; that’s what! How am I going to change my attitude? Using the following steps:

1. Tell everybody, and I mean everybody (especially people I don’t like or don’t like me) what I am going to do, and by when. This will kick in my ego, making the embarrassment of failure not an option.
2. Make every goal my complete responsibility. Other influences, situations, and people cannot be my excuse mechanism anymore. It is 100% my fault if I don’t achieve. This has to be the mindset.
3. Break down all goals to a daily basis, so each day can be monitored separately. I’m not saying this just in case I fall off the wagon for 24 hours, but to self-motivate and to allow for a pat on the back on a regular basis.

I believe these steps will greatly improve my chance of achieving what I set out to do. Now, if only I could find a committed guinea pig to try them for me first….

But on a serious note, I realised years ago that achieving success in anything has always been about knowledge and enjoyment. For example, most peoples’ favourite subject at school was also the one they seemed to excel at. Mine were economics and maths, and I realised early where my future should take me if I had the sense to compute the information.

I also came to the early conclusion that making a fortune is not as hard as keeping it. My own personal talent does not go much beyond making money; it’s just something that seems to have happened since I was young. I have learnt to pay people to do the jobs I think I can do but know I can’t do properly. Coming to terms with my own shortfalls has saved me numerous frustrations and fights with the wife based on DIY messes and botched jobs that I used to have a go at.

The truth about money is that it can give you the time, confidence, options, and choices that a lot of people don’t have, and yet most people spend nearly all their time making the money but hardly any time looking after it. To really succeed with your finances there should be steps in place to make sure you achieve your goals. After all my years in this business, I believe you cannot truly judge any result until the job is completed, but there are initial steps that will put you on the road to where you should be. Here are a few ideas:

1. Never trust what people say. Look, instead, at what they have promised, and then what they have done; “Don’t Expect, Inspect.”
2. Never be sold an investment, good or bad; they come and go. Buy into a service that is of long term bene.t; “Be a client, not a sale.”
3. Take your time to insist on a full education so you know everything you need to about risk and costs before investing. If you don’t bother to do this, it is as much your fault as anyone’s if things go wrong.
4. Become my guinea pig so I can realise my 2013 self-improvement promises. (Okay, I threw that one in just in case!) When all is said and done, we are masters of our own destiny, but we do .nd comfort in having someone else to blame if things go wrong rather than being diligent. Remember, most things in life can be achieved with the right team, a full education, and a little self-guided luck.

Here’s wishing a happy and prosperous new year to all my clients and friends!

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Source: The Expat January 2013

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