Archive for July 30th, 2008
Keeping The Cheetah At Bay
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Keeping the cheetah at bay is how we win financially!
Question: How do you keep your Gazelle intensity for the long haul ? Furthermore, how do you stay ahead of that Cheetah nipping at your butt ?
Its easy to be like the Gazelle those first few months when your knocking off the small debts that place your debt snowball into motion. But, to get out of debt to the place where you can live like no one else is a very long process. According to Dave the average time to go from baby step one to baby step three is 18 to 24 months. So after the first few small debts are paid off the time frame shifts to a slower pace as the remaining debts are bigger in amounts. You must be prepared with lots of tools to keep you gazelle focused.
Complacency is what the cheetah is hoping for!
Fortunately for us there are many tools out there to utilize. Dave himself describes how he and his wife used their net worth balance sheet to track their progress. Then there is the example of the woman who took her debt snowball list, enlarged it, laminated it and plastered it on her fridge. Every time she would walk by it she would say “Your going down, baby!”. There is also many ways to use charts to show progress along your get out of debt journey. You can either chart your savings going up, or your debt going down, and maybe you choose to do both. Using small increments of what ever your tracking will show bigger results in your charts. That way, even small progress will show up in your charts, which is what you want to see, right? Lists and charts are tools that respond to our visual sense. Its not just numbers on a page but something we can see happening. The more senses we can involve with our fight to stay gazelle intense the better.
Another tool we can use is emotional triggers. What do I mean by that you ask ? Well, I’m sure you have imagined lots of great things you could be doing with your money if only you didn’t have debt. You can use those images to spur you on in your journey. For example, do you have as a goal to be able to give like no one else once you are debt free ? Of course you do, as do I. I can’t wait till the day my income is freed up to the point where I can give to some of these worthy causes I see day in and day out. Yes it can be frustrating in the near term knowing I can’t give right now. Yet rather than beat myself up for past mistakes that put me in this spot, I use that feeling to motivate myself to continue Dave’s way. Knowing someday I will reach my goal and be able to give when and to whom I want without sacrifice. I’m sure you all have worthy causes that you wish you just had the money to give to. Instead of regret think positively of those images of how its going to feel to give to your cause someday. I think positive emotions like this will help in the long run.
Although we all may be fighting the same battle of removing debt from our lives, we all have different needs and differences in what stirs us. We must all find tools that will work for each of us in our fight to stay like the gazelle. The tools are plentiful out there. Mix and match them. Combine the different types. Do what ever you have to do to keep gazelle focused. Failure is not an option.
Remember the Cheetah is out there!
What was that? Over there in the grass….
CHEEEEETTAAAAHH!!!!!!
