Financial Well-Being Reset: Three Tools for Your Client’s New Normal

Timi Joy Jorgensen, PhD, the “Joyful Money Doctor” and Director of Financial Education & Wellbeing at The American College of Financial Services, has made it her life’s mission to help educate others on how to take charge of their financial journey. Here are Jorgensen’s three tools to empower your clients and communities to achieve long-term financial well-being.

Global Thinking

Take stock of an entire situation. There will always be moments of regret in life, with money or otherwise. When you regret a past decision, think through it entirely. What led to it? How was your emotional state when you made the decision? Was this decision made out of habit or was this a one time thing? There are many factors that go into a decision. Walk through them all. We can be unnecessarily hard on ourselves and regret alone won’t change future outcomes. If you want to change the behavior in the future, understand the whole situation and make a plan.

Give Yourself Grace

Be kind to yourself. Reality is that your past and future selves are you. We deal with non-stop external factors and have to make thousands of decisions a day. We’re not always going to make the best decision and it probably made sense in that moment. The new plan for your future self is to use global thinking and grace to move past financial pitfalls. Changing your expectations and making sustainable plans that are realistic for you will keep you feeling content and happy in your financial choices.

Gratitude as a Training Tool

Gratitude is a training tool toward financial well-being and can help you get into the habit of global thinking and grace. Behavior impacts our outcomes, and healthy thoughts and feelings around money are necessary for financial well-being. Practicing gratitude doesn’t mean you ignore the difficult financial obstacles you may face, but rather, that you intentionally seek out both financial and nonfinancial things to be grateful for. With global thinking, grace, and gratitude, you are on your way to a healthy and wealthy life.

“Gratitude builds financial satisfaction and confidence, improves financial behaviors, and reduces financial stress.”

— Timi Joy Jorgensen, PhD, Director of Financial Education & Wellbeing