Every day we make decisions for our future. Whether or not we are aware of the moments in which we make decisions; the decisions we make now produce long-term effects.

How do we make decisions?

The emotional sphere is also involved in decision-making. Decisions are made emotionally and are rationally argued.

I was saying that every day we make decisions that have an impact on our financial future. Buying a pair of shoes today is a decision with a long-term impact. If you have 20 pairs of shoes left, and this pair costs 5% or 10% of your income, your financial future is affected because this amount is spent and can no longer represent a brick in the sustainable construction of the building of financial independence. Making the decision to buy a pair of shoes is an emotional one: “How beautiful they are!”. Shoes are bought like this. After they are bought, a doubt inevitably arises: “Should I have bought them?”, and reason finds reasons to support the emotional: “I needed a red clothing item for the Christmas party. Yes, it’s a good thing I bought them, then I won’t have to look for something red!”

But how to make the right decisions in the long term?

The Final Result Method

The method I propose to you is called: “The Final Result Method”. Using this method, the result of the right decision is obtained in 3 minutes. The method determines the right choice by changing the way we make decisions and implicitly the action between which we make the choice. The method is not based on the emotions of the current choice, but on the emotions of the results that we will cause.

Let’s take an example of a situation in which we have to make a right decision, for us, in the long term. If we have a choice between eating a cake or not eating it, taking into account the diet we are on, it will be difficult for us to fight the emotional part of our brain and choose not to eat the cake and thus stick to the diet. The cake satisfies our immediate pleasure. If we reformulate the choices, the right decision will triumph. Instead of eating or not eating the cake, we give the brain the following situation: the choice between staying fat or having a beautiful and attractive body in 6 months. What decision will be made? The beautiful and attractive body, obviously! A correct decision, by the way, for the financial future.

Only by making the choice between two final outcomes, we determine the emotional brain to choose the basis of feelings but with a healthy effect in the long term.

The choice with the pair of shoes is between having the 21st pair of shoes or having money to put another brick in the construction of financial independence.

What would you choose?

The Consequences of Our Financial Decisions

For the “emotional brain” it doesn’t seem tempting to save. Immediate pleasure comes only through spending. If it’s a choice between then and now, between waiting for the reward and receiving it now, or spending, then by far the latter is chosen. If the situation is between being poor and having to ask for help later from the bank or from your children and being prosperous, the choice is clearly emotional, but with benefits in the future.

Nobody likes to be dependent on someone. Nobody likes to depend on a job to support themselves in retirement. Spending your whole life, enjoying that acquired good for the moment, leads to a dependency in this way in the future. Nobody likes to get there, but haven’t you seen retirees who work precisely because they are in the position stated above?!

If you are an active person, who never sees yourself stopping, this is another aspect. You have the opportunity to work only because you have the money to support yourself; you work because otherwise you feel useless. But, we are talking about choices again. You do not work because you have to, but because you want to. The important thing is to have the opportunity to choose. But if you do not have the opportunity to choose and you work because you cannot afford to support yourself, then you are not only free, but you are a slave to your own decisions; decisions that over time have brought you to this point: the point of being a slave to your own weaknesses.

Success in becoming aware of (decisions and) money!

*”the emotional brain” (source: ”Emotional Intelligence” – Daniel Goleman)