Are you still getting out of bed in pursuit of your financial goals?

TUNDE OYEDOYIN

Tunde Oyedoyin is a London-based personal finance coach and founder of Money Intelligence Coaching Academy, a specialist academy of personal finance. He can be reached as follows: +447846089587 (WhatsApponly); E-mail: tu5oyed@gmail.com

Believe it or not, a question my dad asked me over 50 years ago came to mind while thinking of this piece on Friday. Let’s keep rolling for now.

London-born supermodel, Ms Naomi Campbell, once famously said that it takes a particular amount of money to get her out of bed and head for the runaway. Now, we know. So, if you see her in Lagos again doing the walk for ThisDay Fashion Week, know that it took a certain amount of bucks to move her needle. That’s just the way it goes.

Let’s face it, setting financial goals is as easy as ABC. Anyone could have done that when the adrenaline was flowing all over everyone’s body on the first day of this year. But six weeks later, are you still up for the challenge? When push comes to shove, are you still jumping out of bed in order to ensure you’re putting food on the family table? Are you still showing up at work so as to earn money towards enrolling on that course that will improve your skills? Whatever the financial goals you’ve set to achieve this year, are you actually serious about them ?

Let’s assume I am a driver or a primary school teacher and that spending Christmas at the Eko Hotel or Lagos Airport Hotel – or anywhere for that matter – is part of my financial goals for this year. Let’s also assume I’ve budgeted putting twenty thousand naira away towards it each and every month so as to make booking the amazing Christmas happen, whether I like my job or not, yours truly will be showing up at work every morning in order to achieve this particular goal. If that goal isn’t important, I’ll probably have reasons to not fancy the job and perhaps even turn in my resignation. However, if that goal is important, I’ll be getting out of bed five days a week.

Back to the question my father asked me over fifty years ago. It was the opening day of starting primary school and for whatever reason, yours truly wasn’t excited to get out of bed when my parents tapped me. I remember till tomorrow that my dad then asked if I was still interested in starting primary school. I remember shaking away the sleep and was soon having my bath.

Why my father asked that question I wouldn’t know, but it got me out of bed in order to put myself in line to achieve my goal of starting primary school.

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