Silas, my 13-month-old, is in the process of learning to walk. If you’ve ever been around any young toddler, you likely know what this entails. For a few months, he just pulled up on furniture and stood there. Then he slowly started scooting around furniture.
After that, he got brave and started letting go and standing without holding onto anything. Soon, he would let go and take a few tentative steps. Now, he’s trusting his footing enough to take up to seven steps at a time.
Along the way, there have been lots of tumbles and spills. Sometimes, he will altogether give up and refuse to even try. Other days, he wants to keep trying again and again and is very excited about his accomplishments.
As I’ve been watching him, I’ve thought a lot of how a toddler learning to walk correlates with financial success. If you’re deep in debt, you usually don’t just wake up one day to a completely transformed financial situation. Instead, it’s usually very much a slow process. And it often involves babysteps.
You have to believe that you can stand on your own two feet and live in financial freedom. You have to stop sitting in your financial mess or crawling around in circles and borrowing money.
You have to make positive changes that help propel forward. You have to make sacrifices, cut your expenses, get on a budget and maybe even find creative ways to earn extra money on the side.
It takes work, practice, sweat and effort. There are often bumps and bruises along the way. Just as a baby will never learn how to walk if he gives up halfway through the process, so you will never realize financial success if you are a quitter.
But if you keep at it, keep going, keep on taking those babysteps, and keep getting back up when you fall, over time, you’ll start to see some significant progress. And soon, you might find that you’re freely running and dancing instead of just barely taking babysteps!