For a person struggling to survive, it becomes very easy to lose sight of the goal to succeed. The process of survival tends to narrow one’s field of vision by increasing the focus on the immediate challenges, while completely ignoring thoughts of the future. When you are hungry right now, your immediate concern is finding food and not what you will be doing a year from now.
As we move into 2009 with the recession in full force and the economy crumbling before us, more and more people will suffer from this restricted vision of the future. As employees lose jobs and businesses close their doors, people will shift their focus to the basic necessities-surviving on a daily basis. Planning for career growth and long-term financial stability becomes replaced by the most fundamental process of trying to pay bills, make ends meet, and most importantly, putting food on the table.
The process of survival and the process of success do not have to be mutually exclusive however. Even in a downturned economy and during a severe recession such as we are now faced with, it is possible to not only survive but to succeed with abundance. Many opportunities present themselves in a recession that can completely alter not only the present but the future as well. The challenge is in being able to spot these opportunities, to capitalize on them, and to take full advantage of their potential.
One of the basic tenets of survival training is that your most powerful tool is your ability to think. Survival schools typically teach that the first step in any critical situation is to rationalize and understand your problem and then to formulate a plan. Once the plan has been devised, the next step to successful survival is to take action. These same principles apply not only to the physical world but to the financial world as well.
If you find yourself in a financial survival situation, your first step should be to formulate a detailed financial plan that describes not only what you will do now, but also what you plan to do for the future. If you don’t understand now how to create such a plan, make it a point to obtain the information and education necessary to do so. Onced your plan is in place, immediately begin taking action. And don’t set your sights too low – your objective should be massive success, not simply daily survival.