I’m a huge Tony Robbins fan. If you haven’t read Awaken the Giant Within, I urge you to make it a priority to read that book. If you’re familiar with Tony’s teachings you know and understand that more often than not we are our biggest obstacle.
Tony gives the example of people who are unlucky enough to be born into terrible environments and yet still manage to rise up and succeed, while so many others spend their lives blaming those environments for their lack of success. His point being that if our environment, whatever that is comprised of, is what determines whether or not we succeed, we wouldn’t be able to find examples of those who have overcome great challenges.
This serves as proof that it isn’t anything external to us that determines how far we get in life. The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t can be found within. It is what we decide that a challenge means, and how we react to that challenge that determines whether or not we will succeed. Like Henry Ford said, “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.”
We can apply many concepts from Tony’s teachings to how much money we currently have in our bank account. You see, I believe we all have a certain amount of money in our mind that we are comfortable with having in our savings. If we fall below this number, we may get nervous and work on getting our savings back up.
But what you may not realize is that this also works the other way. When we find ourselves with more money than we are comfortable with, we will undoubtedly find ways to spend the “excess” money to bring our account balance back down to that comfortable level.
Our savings balance starts looking like a stock chart with resistance and support levels set by our own mind.
If you think $20,000 is a lot of money to have saved up, chances are you will never be in possession of much more than $20,000. But if you believe that what you absolutely need is to have $80,000 saved up, you will not allow yourself to be comfortable until you have reached that level. This is true for anything in life.
No budgeting or money management tool can help you increase your savings until you decide to raise that resistance level in your head.
Here are the words that can change your bank account, and anything else in your life…
Raise. Your. Standards.
This is one of the first things Tony covers in Awaken the Giant Within, because it is the foundation for everything else that he teaches. You cannot improve anything in your life until you have truly decided that your current state is unacceptable.
If you would like to triple your savings your first step is to make it a “must” and not just a “should” because when you must do something, you get it done.
So first you must convince yourself that what you thought was a lot, really isn’t. Take some time to really think about how much money you need to do what you want.
Find some reasons to triple your savings.
Associate pain with your current level and pleasure to tripling it. If you’ve always wanted a bigger house, visualize that dream house. Make yourself really desire it and realize you will never be able to get it unless you triple, or quadruple your savings.
If what you’ve wanted is to send your kids to private school, really think about that and realize that the current state of your account is not acceptable.
Don’t let yourself be comfortable, or you will never have a reason to move from where you are.
