This, you’ve been told, is the peak of the financial mountain top – you’ll be free once you get to the top, and no sooner. Before that, you’re in the ‘rat race’, a slave to the system.
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The problem with this version of financial freedom is it creates an underlying dissatisfaction with the only part of your life you can experience – the now, the present moment. It suggests that freedom is something you’ll experience in the future – when your bank balance permits you to.
Oh, and when you finally get there? You still won’t feel free. You’ll be worried about losing the freedom you worked so hard to attain. You won’t have trained your mental and emotional muscles to enjoy freedom, you’ll have trained them to optimise for financial growth.
So, the thing you’re missing is not a financial skill. You know how to save and invest. But the thing you might be missing is a broader definition of financial freedom; one that incorporates your mental and emotional freedom.
Financial freedom is more than just a number, it’s also a mental and emotional experience. You can have money, and still not feel free. So, while attaining financial freedom takes financial skills – enjoying it takes emotional skills.
Think about it this way. There is a level of financial freedom that is available to you, right now. How often do you savour the financial freedoms you already have? Maybe it’s the freedom from stressing about unpaid bills, the freedom to afford little luxuries with ease, the freedom to buy assets, save money, build wealth. There is so much freedom, right here, in the present moment.
The journey isn’t just something you have to suffer on the way to the top; it is an integral part of your experience to the top.
This is a different kind of freedom in itself because you no longer have to wait until some future point, some specific financial milestone, to give yourself permission to enjoy freedom. You can give yourself that permission now, with whatever you have available to you.
In doing so, you might find that you fast-track your financial progress as well. Why? Because you’re no longer climbing the mountain of financial freedom, constantly wondering “Am I there yet?” Instead, you’re savouring the views all the way up.
The journey isn’t just something you have to suffer on the way to the top; it is an integral part of your experience to the top. Financial freedom stops being an item to tick off your list, and starts being an experience you get to live.
When you pair the financial skills of building wealth, with the emotional skills to maintain and enjoy it – that’s when you get real financial freedom; the kind that doesn’t just give you a richer bank account, but also a richer experience of life.
Paridhi Jain is the founder of SkilledSmart, which helps adults learn to manage, save and invest money through financial education courses and classes.
- Advice given in this article is general in nature and not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.
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