Vickie's Viewpoint

Not only is our economy changing at record speed, so is our way of thinking.  As the world alters around us, out of necessity, so do our desires and the way we go about achieving them.  As most everyone knows, the last few months have seen profound shifts in every aspect of our society from politics to finances and careers to technological advances.  Because of this, our thought trends have taken off in a new direction.

Here are some of the most recent trends:

What’s HOT…

• Discounts
• Trying to live within your means
• Talking about money issues
• Doing your part to end global warming
• Not paying inflated prices for anything
• Conserving

What’s NOT…

• Greed
• Trying to keep up with the Jones’s
• Getting self-esteem from how much you earn
• Waste
• Consuming

Contact Vickie Champion for a complimentary coaching and consulting session.

I just heard last week that confidence in the economy is at the lowest level it has ever been.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed an underlying fear that seems to be growing. We are being bombarded by the media, hearing the reports of lay offs, banks failing and stores going out of business (not to mention the entire auto-maker industry), streets with less consumer traffic, and retailers just aren’t as busy as they should be this time of year.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” in his 1933 inaugural speech, right in the middle of The Great Depression. Part of his message was that it is easy to get caught up in thinking that “what’s happening” is the problem, but the real problem is the growing FEAR.

One of the ways to get out of the FEAR is to make a plan and take action. Sounds too simple, right? But, if we have a plan and focus our attention and energy on it instead of “what’s happening” we work our way out of the fear and get a whole lot better results.

I had a coaching client who was terrified of being laid off. I got him to start a budget, save for a job change, start exploring other options, and take classes to make him more employable. Soon he was able to shake off the mental and emotional paralysis of his fear with remarkable results. Instead of getting another job, a few months later he started his own business!

Remember the FEAR is the real problem. Whether it’s a daily to do list or a project that takes months, make a plan and start doing something. You’ll start seeing the difference quickly.

To find out more ways to get out of the FEAR, check out the Avoid the Money Madness- 5 Ways to Take the Scare Out of Your Financial Situation CD.

Contact Vickie Champion for a complimentary coaching and consulting session.

For decades, we Americans have focused on the basic belief that MORE = HAPPINESS. People everywhere say, “If we could only get more, we’d be so much happier. A bigger house, closets of designer clothes, dining out every night, and giving our kids everything we didn’t have. All these things would make life better, right? We’ll have the American dream!”

It didn’t work. The more we got, the more we wanted. We started buying based on the assumption that in the future, everything goes up. Real estate values grow, our incomes rise, the stock market steadily climbs, and we have an endless ability to get more credit when ever we want it.

What we didn’t realize is with every purchase we were hurting ourselves far more than helping. We added more stress, stretched too thin, sold ourselves out. We lied to ourselves and everyone else that we could afford these things. We convinced ourselves not only that we deserved these things, but that we needed them. All the while, we kept adding more and more unbearable unhappiness.

Thank goodness that’s ending in this current economic crisis. We get a chance to get ourselves back, to become self-dependent and really be happy. This is our chance to become better people, enjoy simple things, and learn how to appreciate what we have instead of stressing about our inability to get even more.

Contact Vickie Champion for a complimentary coaching and consulting session.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day drama of the current American economy and start pointing the finger. For instance, we could blame the media for inciting so much fear, or we could blame the banks and other financial institutions for making so many bad credit loans.  We could blame the bleeding-heart liberal democrats, or the ultra-conservative republicans, or whatever part of the federal government we are angry with!  Better yet, we could blame President Bush for single handedly causing everything in every market everywhere in the world to collapse.

No matter who or what we blame, here are some of the advantages of doing so:

• We have a subject of conversation that we can talk about with almost everyone
• We can get quite an adrenalin high off of the fear
• We are saved the work of actually making any decisions by staying in the “wait and see” mode indefinitely
• We could get that much needed exercise by tossing and turning in bed at night, and of course the “lift and point and lift and point” of the index finger as we assign blame
• We don’t have to take responsibility for our lives and our financial situation because, of course, it’s someone else’s fault

For the record, and for those of you who may miss the point, I am writing this with a touch of humor, but I mean every word of it quite seriously.  It is a part of the human condition to want to look around for the nearest scapegoat when things go wrong.  But that doesn’t actually solve any problems, does it?

As with everything, where there are pros there are cons.  Check back soon for my next blog to find out about the 5 Disadvantages of Blaming…

You can also contact Vickie Champion for a complimentary coaching and consulting session.