Skills and Qualities That Will Help You Reach Your Financial Goals

Setting and reaching financial goals actually involves a diverse skill set and most of those skills have nothing to do with math or financial literacy, though those kinds of skills can certainly help.

Want to improve your finances over time, and have a better life overall? Focus on these transferrable skills and important qualities — they’ll really help you in you quest for financial stability.

Self-Awareness

Knowing who you are, how you spend, and what your financial triggers are is key to controlling your finances, improving your money mindset, and even to setting the right goals to work towards. We all have a money personality that dictates how we view – and manage – our finances. Work out what yours is and then work with it to improve your finances.

What influences you to spend? Is it your environment, your mood, or the people you hang out with? And what motivates you to save? Is it a goal, a vision board, or a reward? Being acutely self-aware helps you to design a life where your financial priorities are built-in.

Self-Esteem

As Ben Le Fort has pointed out, being frugal is linked to self-confidence, or more precisely self-esteem. Healthy self-esteem can mean you don’t feel the need to follow the crowd, buy the latest designer goods, or fill your Instagram feed with pictures of you in expensive restaurants drinking over-priced cocktails.

Self-esteem can also be the key to trusting yourself when it comes to making investment decisions, asking for a pay rise, or negotiating a credit agreement. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Discipline

Developing discipline is a key skill for many different types of people. Whether you’re a high-flying day trader working with a considerable amount of capital, or a broke student deciding how hard to party this semester. A healthy dose of self-discipline will help you make the right decisions for you and your financial future.

Adaptability

There’s an old saying that suggests you should ‘cut your coat according to your cloth’. It simply means you should adapt to the resources you’re currently working with, and adjust the expected outcome based on that.

There are times when we all have to adapt to new or changing financial circumstances. It could be something drastic like a divorce or a bereavement, or something smaller like a rent increase or a change of interest rate.

The ability to constantly assess your financial situation and adapt is vital. You might adapt by spending less, saving more, tweaking your budget, changing your living circumstances, starting a side hustle, taking on a loan or paying one off. Monitor your finances, adapt to changes, re-assess and re-adapt if needed

Organization

Knowing how much money you have, where it is, what your income and expenditure is and other key figures is essential to healthy finances, but many people are so disorganized they literally have no idea what shape their finances are in. You can’t improve what you don’t acknowledge and you can’t acknowledge things you’re truly in the dark about.

Get organized. Simplify your finances. Consider a financial journal to track what’s going on with your spending and saving habits. Talk to a professional about how to stay organized and keep on top of things going forwards.

Creative Problem-solving

Every problem has a solution. Probably several. But with finances those solutions are often not as straightforward as we’d like. Getting creative in the face of financial difficulties mean you consider all your options and are able to weigh the pros and cons of all of them.

Is cutting spending really the solution to your financial issues, or do you need to earn more? Do you need to spend a fortune renting a vacation villa, or could you house swap? Do you need a huge student loan to fund your degree, or are there other options? Do you need a college degree at all to have a good career? Learn to think through all the options, and get creative, when making big financial decisions.

Negotiation

There are various scenarios in which you might need to negotiate: A promotion or pay rise, the purchase or sale of a house, car or other asset, a finance arrangement, or a creditor who wants you to pay back money you don’t currently have. These are very different situations but the core skill needed is a transferrable one.

Learn to negotiate. It starts with knowing exactly what you want when you go into any one of the above situations, and having a solid but flexible plan of what to say in order to get there. Anyone can get out-negotiated, but knowing what you’re doing will mean it’s less likely to be you, and you’re more likely to come out with a slightly better outcome than you might otherwise have had even if it is.

The Ability to Compartmentalize

Financial problems are stressful, and that stress can bleed into every area of your life, causing a downward spiral. Sometimes we’re so worried about our debt we can’t focus on our work, and our income goes down. Or our finances affect our relationship, adding extra stress to the mix.

The ability to compartmentalize basically means you can ‘stick a pin’ in things that are bothering you and focus on other things that may be equally important, and that may even be part of the solution.

Ultimately, it’s great to have skills and qualities that directly impact your finances. If you can easily calculate compound interest, make an effective household budget, or analyze an investment opportunity, you’re better off than those who can’t. But spend a little time developing the skills and qualities above too. They’ll pay off over time.

Karen Banes is a freelance writer specializing in entrepreneurship, parenting and lifestyle. She writes articles, website content, ebooks and the occasional award winning short story. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and off, including The Washington Post, Life Info Magazine, Transitions Abroad, Brave New Traveler, Natural Parenting Group, and Copia Magazine. Learn More About Karen