Just some friendly advice for everyone. ALWAYS review your situation on a regular basis to see if it can be improved. I have been making the best lemondade lately with Life's Lemons because I didn't follow this simple rule.
First of all, I was set to be laid off back in August, only to realize that my company actually had several jobs (even some promotions) available in my area and had for some time! I realized along with many of my coworkers that we had become so set in our routines we never bothered to look for something better, and it was there all along. I transferred out to a different dept and several of my colleagues were able to be transferred to different locations and retain their positions.
Second, my wife's car started having problems, and we eventually got a diagnosis on something which we really didn't want to be stuck paying to fix. We started looking into our trade-in options and actually got a newer car, fewer miles, with better payments!
Lastly, I snapped the timing belt in my car and was suddenly slapped with a buttload of repair costs. My wife and I looked into our finances and discoverred that with the improvement of our credit and homw much wehad paid down some of our debts, we could consolidate some for a lower payment and thus actually be able to afford the car repairs. We are now going to have the car fixed and a chunk of our debt consolidated with a much lower interest rate, at a lower payment amount, to be paid off sooner!
In each of these instances, it took Significant problems to open my eyes to the opportunites I had available to me and I came to the realization that in all aspects of life, I had easily been sucked into a routine that I rarely, if ever, reviewed for possible betterment. I have a better quality life and a better hold on my finances than I did 1 month ago, and only because I had been forced to take a look at my options.
so today's lesson: Take time regularly to review your life and see if you are missing out on opportunities to improve it!
Lesson Learned... the hard way
I loved this! And I feel like the security (although sometimes boring) of our routines can close our eyes to other possibilities around us. I like the idea of review but it does take time to sit down, think, identify the place where you aren't happy or could use improvement, and then look for other options/solutions. For me at my age, I keep myself so busy (possible techniques of avoidance), that this kind of time is hard to come by; nevermind the fact that (for me) I need another person to bounce things off who can also find the time and have enough interest in me and my choices to take the time to help.I find people just tend to be self centered and get annoyed at something they do on their own, but I seem to need more help with...
ReplyDeleteDo you feel like you can rely on your family for the bouncing of ideas?
ReplyDelete