If you feel that the financial crunch has cost you your job, your house, your car, or even all three, or if you feel that it has robbed you of your dignity, responsibility and productivity. Then I suggest you stop; there is never a crisis without a blessing, never a window that shuts without a door opening. So let's just stop right now and look at what blessings we have. As strange as it may sound, your thinking is more sound if you balance out your perceptions. If you don't, you will create emotionally impulsive reactions.
The first step towards regaining emotional and financial health is a lesson your parents may have tried to teach you as a child: the art of being grateful. You might feel so down and out that you feel you have nothing to be thankful about. But it is important at this point to stop your story of financial distress in order to get you out of the hole. Persist in defining your blessings: you still have your talents, your knowledge, you may be closer to your family as a result of your financial problems, you could be more determined and you may be less reliant on others.
Take the time to realize you have power that you are denying. Find out what you can do that fills a void, tackles a challenge, solves a problem, answers a question or - if you want to go really big - solves a mystery. In other words, cultivate the ability to adapt to a changing environment. Anybody who's stagnant and infatuated with the way it was will probably be more hard hit and stressed.
There is consistency in the existence of opportunity and challenge and the wise person embraces both. Warren Buffett says that "if you can't manage your emotions, don't expect to manage money". And I think there's some truth in that. When people get in the high mode, they start leveraging themselves with other people's money and gamble, and when they lose all that because they went beyond the regressed mean, then they go in the other direction and sell out, giving people their money. They lose money on both ends.
Whatever's highest on your value you'll always have money for, whatever's lowest you're going to run out of money for. So if you don't have a high value on saving money, investing money and building wealth, it's not going to happen. It's a fantasy. Many people think when they get extra money then they'll begin saving. That's not the way to do it. You've got to let piggy banks become 'biggy' banks, you've got to save something every day. If you don't link your goals to your value system, the probability of becoming financially independent is just going to torture you.
Here are some examples of perceived challenges, along with their compensatory blessings that may help you become aware of the other side:
Depressed about finances: If you or someone you love is having feelings of depression or suicide, know that when you take the time to see and count the blessings in your current situation, that you alleviate the tensions in your mind. If you look you will become aware of the blessings such as increased support, love and advice from family and friends. There are many more so take the time look. There is never a crisis without a blessing. When a door shuts a window opens. It is now time to count your blessings.
Losing a home: This could assist you to realign your expenditure to your income by renting at a level you can afford. Not having a house can actually bring you relief as you are released from your indebtedness to the bank and ongoing costly home maintenance and taxes. Possibly your children get to learn about the realities of life and discover that no matter the outer challenge, the family survives which assists them in the future when they face their own life's challenges. Instead of saying "why me," begin saying "try me."
Employer guilt over retrenchment: You may be setting someone free to fulfill their dream. By streamlining the company you give job security to those who remain behind and by doing so you have the most efficient team to help you ride the turning tide when the market increases thereby making it possible to hire more people down the line. You may help former employees become more prosperous in the long run since they can now become even more daring and begin their own companies.
Insolvency: If your company is declared insolvent, you are absolved of all business debt, released from all the pressure of figuring out how to pay it back. You get to start afresh but with all the business learnings from the past. And you get to discover that your friends and family still love you no matter your situation.
Hard financial times: It could mean streamlining your purchases to things you truly value, changing your financial management and increasing your portion of future savings. Ultimately this is the key to long-term financial success. Outside challenges often unite families to figure solutions towards a common goal. It can prevent your children from taking things for granted and initiate them into the realities of providing others great quality service and mastering fair exchange.
Additional challenges and benefits related to financial crisis.
Every event has two sides. The universe conserves this balance. So in these market crunch times, it is important for us to not lose sight of both sides of life's equation. It may seem to the populace of the world that the current situation is a loss without gain, destruction without construction, but this is not the whole truth, for ignorance blindly sees only one side.
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