Is your car a filthy mess?
Is your car sloppy? What about your home? Your office? Your yard? I’m a little embarrassed to admit my answers were, “yes, yes, yes, and yes.” Embarrassed because I realized sloppiness impacted every area of my life, including my finances.
Now, I am happy to say that was the old me. But before I acknowledged my sloppiness, I justified it by telling myself I was hyper and needed to stay busy. Although my space appeared untidy, there was “order” in my sloppiness. I had a general idea of where things were. If they weren’t there, I kept looking until I found what I was looking for.
But then I noticed something…
My thinking changed when I intentionally made the decision to give every physical thing a purpose. When I made better decisions about my personal space, I started making better decisions about my time and my finances. Sloppiness no longer reigned in my life or my finances.
Making a decision to give every physical thing a purpose is not quite right. What really happened is I had to re-train my mind to give a purpose to things. When I assigned a purpose to things, sloppiness decreased in my life and finances.
The floor of my car is not a trashcan. That’s not its purpose. Its purpose is to stabilize the car, keep me from falling through, hold the seats in place, etc. No longer do I put garbage on the floor of my car. If I must store garbage in my car, I place it in a bag whose purpose is to hold garbage.
You might think that organization and cleanliness are irrelevant to credit or financial problems. I disagree.
If your physical space is sloppy, your life will most likely be sloppy. This sloppiness will extend into your finances also. Re-training your mind to give everything its purpose and place allows you to make better financial and spending decisions.
If your mind is not trained to examine everything, decide its purpose, and then put it in the right place, you will make purchases that do not honor your long-term goals. This leads to impulsive buying—not buying with a purpose to further your goals.
Giving things a purpose, and then placing them where they belong, gives you control over your life. It allows you to eliminate dead weight and garbage.It also gives you the opportunity to accept things that will improve your life.
Imagine the impact of training your brain to put things in its place. You can immediately eliminate expenses unrelated to your goals. Ideas to help you become more frugal will appeal to you. Frugality will eliminate sloppiness in your finances.
When making purchases with a purpose, sloppiness loses its hold on your life and your finances.
What do you think? Am I crazy? Spot on? Let me know your thoughts below!
