Last updated November 5, 2018 at 05:39 AM
To achieve great satisfaction with his financial situation, four stages emerge from studies in psychology, writes journalist Rhea Wessel in the Wall Street Journal
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1- Spend in accordance with your values
Understanding your values and ensuring that your expenses help to live them is a step towards financial satisfaction. These values may be spending more time with family or taking care of animals. You can also decide to take time to exercise sports every day, or to eat healthy.
According to psychologist Kathleen Gurney, author of “Your Money Personality What It Is and How You Can Profit From It”: “Happiness has less to do with how much money you have, but more to do with how we use it ". People who say they're happy with their financial situation, she says, constantly question their behaviors about money. In addition to resisting impulse buying, they pay attention to what they get per spend: “What do I do with what I earn? Does that make sense? ”.
2- Pursue intrinsic goals
According to psychologist Richard Ryan of the University of Rochester (New York), people who pursue extrinsic goals such as money, image and fame are less happy than those who focus on self-fulfilling goals. They define themselves, regardless of how society judges them what makes them happy. These people, he says, have dissociated their sense of personal worth from material goods and recognition.
3- Define a good life by non-material measures
It is about defining measures making our life satisfying without material possessions. Defining what makes you happy and what makes you feel fulfilled in your life allows you to make choices that promote overall satisfaction. Before any expense, ask yourself: What will this bring me? This question is not trivial because money is expensive in time and energy when these can be spent on other important aspects of our life.
4- Take control of your time and money
The journalist gives the example of two people whose paths over several years have led to considerably reducing their expenses in order to be able to better choose their work and the time they devote to it. They make, she sums up, more conscious choices about what to own because they have an understanding of the implicit costs that come with possessions. “If you waste your money, you are wasting your own time,” emphasizes one.
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner in economics for his work in behavioral economics advises:
“Try to control how you spend your time because clearly, in terms of emotional happiness, spending time with the people you love and in activities you love is key. The best practical advice is to organize your life so that you will get these sources of pleasure ”.
source: http://www.psychomedia.qc.ca
