Top 3 Financial Mistakes Young Professionals Make

By Credit.com

Entering the real world is exciting. For young professionals this often means getting your first career-track job, moving into your own place and taking full control of your finances.

While everyone wants to get started on the right foot, there are some common mistakes young professionals make that can have long-lasting impact.

Figuring It Out Later

This is a time in your life when you may find yourself making many big decisions in a small amount of time.

Don’t say yes and figure it out later. Before you sign a lease or mortgage, determine whether you can afford it.

The easiest way to do this is to create a budget.

You may think you need to wait a while until your expenses “normalize” since when you first move into a place, there can be one-time costs like furniture and security deposits.

But if you wait a few months, you may find yourself already in some serious debt.

Do some research and make a budget immediately.

Then adjust your budget when you see how much money you are bringing home and how much you are really spending.

It’s best to start out tracking your spending right away, instead of playing catch-up later.

Assuming You Will Make More

You may be disappointed by your first salary. You may work in an industry where big bonuses are normal.

Regardless, plan your finances around the salary you are guaranteed right now. This gives you the freedom to make choices in the future.

If you are living beyond your means now, that raise or bonus will only go to paying off debts.

If you budget for your current salary, you can use that raise or bonus to boost your emergency fund, increase your retirement savings, or treat yourself.

Don’t spend your future self into a corner.

Read the full article online... 

 

Should You Save or Pay Off Debt?

By Sandra Block, From Kiplinger's Personal Finance

Saving for long-term goals tends to take a back seat to expenses such as child care, groceries and health insurance. And if you’re also paying off debt, saving for retirement and college may get pushed to the curb. 

But putting off saving for retirement until you’re debt-free could cost you the most valuable asset you have: time. Thanks to the magic of compounding, even small contributions to a 401(k) or similar retirement plan will grow significantly, especially if your company matches contributions. If you can’t come up with enough money to hit the annual limits, or even close to them, “at least contribute enough to get the match,” says Sheryl Garrett, founder of the Garrett Planning Network.

Saving for college isn’t as pressing as saving for retirement or paying off credit card debt, says financial planner in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s nice if you’re able to save something for your children’s education, but the biggest priority should be taking care of your needs. You can’t borrow for retirement. You can for college.” As for getting rid of the credit card debt, “I think that trumps saving for education.”

Cheryl Sherrard, a certified

To free up more money for savings, pore over your expenses for ways to cut; look at how much you pay for your cell-phone plan, cable package and restaurant meals. Use the extra money to “really attack your debt. Go at it with guns blazing,” says Garrett.

Prioritize your debts. Start with credit card debt, which you should pay off as quickly as possible. Paying off a card with an 18% interest rate is the equivalent of earning an 18% return. Be wary of transferring your balance to a card carrying 0% interest, says Garrett. Ask yourself whether you’ll have the discipline or ability to pay off the balance before the rate goes up; if not, you’re back where you started. “The only way I’d advise people to switch to a 0% or teaser rate is if they have a plan to truly attack the debt and get it paid off by the end of that term.”

Read more at http://www.kiplinger.com/article/saving/T025-C011-S002-save-or-pay-off-debt.html#IeFhGBmhrcldQ18T.99

The Hard Truth About Procrastination

by Maria Molfino 

 

There are deep psychological reasons behind procrastination. It’s not about willpower and laziness. It’s about fear and resistance. In observing my own tendencies, coaching, meditating, and leading workshops on this topic, here’s what I’ve learned:

Indecision is really about fear

When we trace back the root of indecision, we see that indecision is a manifestation of fear. Fear of what? Fear of making the wrong decision.

If there is a right and wrong decision to make, the thoughts are “If I choose the wrong decision, I won’t advance as much, I won’t get closer to the results I want, I won’t obtain my goals…I will fail.

Indecision = fear of making mistake = perfectionism = fear of failure.

If you’re in a period of indecision and uncertainty, move into any form of action, no matter how small the step. You will learn and then course-correct as needed. You may lose time (which sucks in a culture obsessed with speed), but at the end of the day, you have gained peace of mind. Indecision and worry just drains your mental energy. Stay away!

Unlink your work from your worth

Especially as creatives, designers and writers, we tend to put a kind of heaviness around the work that we do. That’s because we see our work as an extension of ourselves. And our work is very much an extension of a very deep part of ourselves: our personality, experiences, desires, dreams, values and fears.

But there’s a trap!

 

The trap is linking our work to our sense of worth.

This association can often happen on a very subconscious level. We receive feedback on a piece of work and we feel bad because we believe we are bad or not good enough.

Linking our work to our worth puts an intensity around the work. The more intensity and pressure you put on the work, the more likely you will procrastinate it. Find ways to make your work light. Learn to unlink the association between you and what you create.

You are much more than your design, job or career. Aren’t you?

Create more pause because it gives you more choice

Distraction and procrastination are best friends forever. Some distractions are definitely self-induced–you are resisting the task and so you are allowing yourself to be distracted, or you are even seeking out distraction.

We react to our own resistance, but aren’t aware that’s what’s happening in the moment. In other words, distraction is a problem with awareness and reactivity.

Throughout the day, create more spaces and pauses. Notice, observe, and choose differently. Pause gives you choice.

How to create pause:

• Develop a meditation practice. This will decrease your arousal/stress and increase your awareness and focus throughout the day, so that you can become aware of your tendencies of resistance and distraction.

• Practice holding your phone and looking at it without touching anything!
  
  
• Whenever something is loading and you see the loading icon, pause and ask yourself: Do I really need to do this right now? The loading icon would serve as a mental trigger for you to pose the question. Pretty powerful!

Work for less time. Eight hours is a myth! You don’t need to work for eight hours. You can work for far less time. But here’s the trick: design your day for concentrated bursts of focused work.

We tend to work in a very diffused way over several hours, where our attention is divided and we aren’t clear about what really needs to get done. We’re at the mercy of distractions. We have little output to show for the amount of time we have actually spent. But if you have periods of time that you’re concentrated and producing high quality work, you’ll have more leisure time.

One great strategy for this is called the unschedule. Schedule everything but work into your calendar. If you were to imagine your healthiest, most amazing self, what would you schedule?

Exercise, meditation, cooking time, friends, fun, festivals, hobbies, etc. Schedule it all.

The remaining time is your concentrated work time.

Experiment with the unschedule for a week and see how it goes! You’ll be surprised.
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How to Immediately Improve Your Life (Hint: It Starts With Improving the Lives of Others)

by Arianna Huffington

Last week a few HuffPost editors and I were treated to a visit by Bill Drayton and Mary Gordon. Bill Drayton is the founder of Ashoka and a longtime champion of social entrepreneurship, a term that he coined and that has now spread across the world. Mary Gordon is a former kindergarten teacher who founded Roots of Empathy, an organization dedicated to teaching emotional literacy and promoting empathy in children. She was also one of the first Ashoka fellows. Our visit started with talk of the newborn recently welcomed by one of our editors, Gregory Beyer, whereupon Mary presented him with a onesie with "Empathy Teacher" emblazoned on the front. But as Mary -- a great empathy teacher herself -- told us, it's a two-way street, and empathy is best nurtured by example. "Love grows brains," she told us. "We need to show children a picture of love as we raise them."

And giving not only nurtures empathy; it's an outgrowth of our innate capacity for empathy. It's also one of the key components of HuffPost's Third Metric initiative to redefine success beyond the first two metrics of money and power to include well-being, wisdom, and our ability to wonder and to give -- all of which are boosted when we give our time and effort to something other than ourselves.

Philosophers have known this for centuries. "No one can live happily who has regard for himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility," wrote the first-century Stoic philosopher Seneca in his Moral Letters to Lucilius. And in practically every religious tradition and practice, giving of oneself is a key step on the path to spiritual fulfillment. Or, as Einstein put it, "only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

Since Einstein, scientists have been trying to come up with the "theory of everything," which would explain our entire physical world by reconciling general relativity with quantum physics. In the study of our emotional world, there's no analogous theory of everything, but if there were, empathy and giving would be at the center of it. And modern science has overwhelmingly confirmed the wisdom of those early philosophers and religious traditions.
Empathy, compassion, and giving -- which is simply empathy and compassion in action -- are the building blocks of our being. With them we flourish; without them we perish.

In his book The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Jonathan Haidt writes that "caring for others is often more beneficial than receiving help. We need to interact and intertwine with others; we need the give and take; we need to belong."

Read the full article online... 

How To Get Stuff Done And Avoid Lying Awake At 3am...

by Hollie Slade, Forbes Staff

Ever find yourself lying awake at night thinking simultaneously thinking about next week’s big pitch and remembering you forgot to buy cat food?

“Your head is for having ideas not holding ideas,” says David Allen author of bestselling, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Thinking ‘it’s all up here’ or ‘I’ll remember’ as you go from task to task inevitably means things will fall through the cracks and cortisol levels will rise.

Externalize your thoughts

“Most entrepreneurs have somewhere between 35 to 80 projects they’re working on,” says Allen. Unfortunately, “your head is a terrible office,” and so grabbing a pen and paper and writing everything down is the first step in externalizing all the competing buzzing thoughts.

“Capture everything that’s got your attention,” says Allen. “Get specific about exactly what you’ve got to do and define your outcomes and actions.”

“Identify the steps involved in the processes you go through on a regular basis so you can begin optimizing, automating, and outsourcing them. This goes for everything from paying bills to social media to meal preparation at home,” says Ari Meisel, a serial entrepreneur and productivity expert.

Realizing exactly what you’ve committed to do is a great first step in organizing your thoughts in a coherent form. “It’s creating an inventory,” says Allen. That way you’ll have a map of all the things you’re focused on.

Lying awake at 3 am happens because you’re not being strategic about what you are and aren’t doing, says Allen. “The only way to be comfortable about what you’re not doing is to know exactly what you’re not doing,” he says.

A simple task like this goes a long way in defining exactly what your work is and you’ll know what you might need to outsource straight away.

“People hold on to things in their psyche,” says Allen. “But your psyche doesn’t think strategically and tactically. You can’t do anything about it lying in bed.”

“Create an external brain where you write down every idea you have regardless of whether or not you think it’s good,” says Meisel. “Clear your mind. My favorite tool? Evernote,” he adds.

The Two Minute Rule
If you can do anything within two minutes you should do it then and there, says Allen. Otherwise you’ll just spend more time organizing it into another work flow.

If you can’t do it in two minutes consider outsourcing it to someone else but keep track of what you’ve handed over to other people.

Don’t wait to “follow up when it blows up,” says Allen.

“Get a virtual assistant,” says Miesel. “Use fancyhands or Zirtual to hire a virtual assistant. It’s an educational process for you in terms of how to effectively delegate and communicate a task.”

Maintenance
From there the next step is to keep the backlog low, making sure you’re ready for surprise and change. Making time each week to reflect is critical, says Allen. Close the door and step back, this is forest management not tree hugging, he says.

“This not a have a walk around the rose garden navel gazing kind of thing,” says Allen. It’s making sure you’re focusing your energy where it needs to be. “If you’re unwilling or unable to do this, the symptoms are that either the loudest thing emotionally or the nearest thing is going to capture your attention,” says Allen.

Read the full article and others from Forbes online.

10 Lessons For Entrepreneurs From Coach John Wooden

Lewis Howes, Contributor, Forbes

 

Coach John Wooden, a.k.a. the “Wizard of Westwood,” is best known for his 27-year legacy at UCLA, where he led the Bruins to 10 NCAA national championships, and for coaching basketball legends such as Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

But his words and practices about what it takes to win don’t just apply to the basketball court; they apply to all areas of life – especially entrepreneurship.

Even though Coach Wooden was known for his simple and old school approach to practice and playing, the results speak for themselves.

This man knew how to win.

Below are 10 quotes from John Wooden.  I believe his words still have as much relevance in our digital world today as they did when he first spoke them.

Words Of Wisdom From John Wooden

1.  “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
There’s always going to be something “extra” that can enhance your business or potentially boost sales.

Maybe it’s a new technology platform or a social media strategy.  Whatever it is, I think Coach Wooden would encourage us to strive for those things, but don’t let them become an excuse for not doing our best with what we already have.


2.  “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.  I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”

I think one of the biggest reasons why seasoned entrepreneurs stop innovating and taking risks is because they’re afraid of ruining a “winning streak.”

Nothing is for certain in the world of innovation.  You’ve got to remember that out of every failed innovation comes unexpected knowledge that sends us in a new direction or reveals something we would have never known.

3.  “It’s the little details that are vital.  Little things make big things happen.”

Once you realize the truth behind, “Little things make big things happen,” you’ll never again view the details of your business as boring or insignificant – especially when it comes to marketing.

Consumers don’t become loyal brand buyers by accident.  It takes strategic planning and execution to cut through the estimated 3,000 marketing messages the average American sees each day.

Every picture, every image and every email within your marketing has a job to do.

Read the full article online.

In Debt…Again? How to Break the Borrowing Cycle

By Credit.com

You hate debt.

You got out of debt once and vowed you’d never let it happen again. But here you are – stuck in debt again.

It’s not fair! How did it happen so quickly?

And what can you do to create a permanent debt solution so that you never repeat the pattern again?

The Permanent Debt Solution

Defining the source of your debt problem is critical to solving it.

You believe your debt is a financial problem, but it’s actually a personal problem masquerading as a financial one. That’s why a permanent debt solution eludes you.

Treating debt as if it were a financial problem is similar to trying to cure the flu by blowing your nose. You relieve an obvious symptom but don’t address the underlying cause.

When you don’t address the cause, you don’t get better.

In other words, debt is often just a symptom of a much larger problem: an addiction to an unsupportable self-image and lifestyle that results in overspending.

Until you address the real problem, the symptom will recur, which may explain why you are in debt again.

What that means is debt’s real cause is often personal life habits and attitudes that result in overspending.

The rule is simple – you must spend less than you earn. There’s no way around it.

However, teaching a chronic debtor to spend less and earn more is like telling an overweight person to lose weight by eating less and exercising more.

Everyone already knows what to do. The difficult part is actually getting it done.

How to Slay the Debt Monster

Sure, you want to get out of debt as fast as possible, but superficial financial solutions result in repeat offenders.

Using debt consolidation, or transferring balances to a HELOC or a 0% credit card, or selling assets such as a house, boat or car does not address the root cause of the problem.
You are trying to relieve the symptom by looking only at financial issues.

Instead, what you must first do is figure out what is causing your debt.

What are all the ways you spend more than you earn? But there are ways to identify these habits and change them.

The permanent cure is to plug all the habitual ways you leak money so that you never go into debt again. This isn’t sexy, but it permanently solves the problem.


You must persist in plugging these leaks until you are spending less than you earn.

It may take you months (or years) to achieve this objective.

That’s OK.

Read the full article online.