“If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money.”
Warren Buffett
“How did my emotions outsmart me so speedily?” The numerous lockdowns had given Ebude ample time to reflect on her life. What has been driving the decisions that she had been making for the past years? Has she even really been the one making the decisions or she had just been a channel of emotions through which society and social media manifested trends? Harnessing the power to say NO and most importantly to say NO to herself was Ebude’s next personal development plan. “Never again will I let myself develop insecurities because of trends” Ebude strongly confessed to herself in front of her mirror in a deep tone that caused even her own chest to vibrate violently as though it could understand the intentionality in her mind.
Ebude was bent on making the most out of her situation that she immediately unfollowed groups and pages that did not add value to her life while she started following some capacity-building and personal finance pages. She was beginning to identify external patterns and perceptions that influenced her decisions and she had to make sure that she was identifying with a healthy community both online and onsite; one that would donate life to her in any way rather than destroy her safeguards and poison what her true standards in life were.
Eposi was now her go-to girl and she had even given her the books that she was reading as well as directed her to some useful channels to gather knowledge and listen to the stories of others who had found themselves in worst situations yet broke out. Despite all that has happened, Ebude was preparing herself never to make such mistakes in her life again, she wasn’t waiting for when she would get a job rather she was arming herself and drawing the battle line before the battle even began.
Lesson:
We all have deep-rooted behaviors, emotions, habits, and relationships with money that widely differ and it is a result of a combination of factors like our environment, social influencers, beliefs. All these factors serve as inlets to either build our willpower or weaken our emotions. It is almost impossible to control your financial choices without identifying what role these factors play in your life, to what extent they play these roles, and gaining control of it.
