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5 Reasons Why You’ll Never Find the Motivation to Change Your Life

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The video above is taking the viral world by storm. It features motivational speaker and author Mel Robbins explaining why motivation is garbage. And after watching it, I couldn’t agree with her more.

We commonly resort to thinking people who don’t execute on their ideas simply aren’t motivated. They’re lazy. They lack self-confidence. They just don’t want to do it. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

You already know what you want to do in your personal life and in work. You already know why you want to do it. By all societal standards, this makes you “motivated.” But here’s the secret – knowing what to do, and why you want to do it will never be enough to make you do it. Motivation is garbage.

Nike Neglected to Tell the Whole Story

If the slogan for life was “Just do it,” we’d all be much happier. We’d all have everything we want.

But it’s not that simple. Think about all the things you want – why don’t you just do it? Because even though you know why you want to be an entrepreneur, you don’t feel like taking that risk. Because even though you know why your big idea has merit, you would feel hurt if it got shot down. So, you never open the doors. You never tell your boss. You never “just do it.” And nothing in your life changes.

That’s because when you put your feelings and thoughts in the ring to duke it out, your feelings will win every time. If you don’t “feel” like doing it, if you feel like it’s too risky, if you feel you could be ignored, then you’re not going to do it. Period. Not because you don’t know what to do and why, not because you’re not “motivated,” but because you can’t conquer your own feelings. Because you can’t outsmart your brain. Because you decided, all on your own, not to act.

Motivation is garbage.

5 Reasons Why You’ll Never Be Motivated to Change Your Life

Have you ever asked yourself why you can’t do the little things you know will change your life? To the point where they’re so simple, you almost start to wonder what the heck is wrong with you?

I have. Many times over. I could never figure it out – I couldn’t understand why doing the things that would change my life for the better were so hard to do. Even something as simple as finding 15 minutes a day to read a good book. But after listening to Robbins, what I couldn’t find reason in finally made sense. And I want to share what I’ve learned with you, in the hopes that you’re search will come to an end as well.

Here are the five reasons why you will never be motivated to change your life:

1. You hesitate. A new idea for a business, a product, a new paint color in the living room, whatever it may be, springs into your head, and then it happens – you hesitate. You start thinking about what you’re thinking about. This sends a stress signal to your brain, prompting it to wake up essentially. And herein lies the starting point for the whole problem. Your brain will recognize these hesitations as indicators that something is out of the ordinary, and will start to go into protection mode.

2. Your brain will stop you before you can start. Your brain is designed to protect you from things that are scary, uncomfortable, or difficult. But to change, to do the what you want, you have to do things that are scary, uncomfortable, or difficult. Enter protection mode – your brain will discourage you from doing these things even before you do them, every single time.

3. You’re only motivated to do the things that are easy. Change isn’t easy – it’s scary, uncomfortable, and difficult. Because of how your brain works, it will magnify the risks associated with change. It will discourage you from acting on new ideas, because your brain initially perceives them as problems. And it’s designed to protect you from them. This makes the problem even more complex – you’re never going to feel like doing the things you know you should do. So, you won’t. You’ll stick with what’s easy and familiar.

4. You keep waiting for motivation. Technically, you’re already motivated. You already know what to do and why you need to do it. So, why don’t you act? Because you keep waiting for that moment when you’ll feel ready. That moment when you’ll have just enough courage to do it. You keep waiting for motivation to find you, to spring you into action. Well, I have bad news – it’s never going to come. So, you’ll just keep thinking about it. You’ll never start doing, until you stop waiting for the motivation to do it.

5. You let the micro-moment pass you by. You have mere seconds between the formation of a new idea, and when your brain will kill it. This is the micro-moment in time when your idea has the potential to go from thought to reality. According to Robbins, you have five seconds, specifically, to physically act on a goal, or your brain will kill it. Most people will never be able to control their micro-moment – to act rather than remain passive.

Why Does It Matter to You?

At one point or another, you’ve thought to yourself, “I know what I need to do, I just need to find the motivation to do it.” This is a great way to set yourself up for failure – because motivation is garbage. You’ll never find the “motivation.”

Instead, start thinking “I know what I need to do, I just need to take the first step to actually do it.” You need to take control of the micro-moment. Robbins has been explaining this psychological shift for years, through her concept of the 5 Second Rule. Her TedX Talk on it has been viewed almost 10 million times.

If you want to pay off your credit card debt, cut them up. Right now. Want to reach your full financial potential? Start at square one and write down your monthly savings goal. Ready to lose weight? Set an alarm that prompts you to go to the gym. Have an ideal life you want to live? Cut out the first picture for your vision board. Have a business you want to start? Write down the name of the first person you need to call. Whatever it is you want to do, take one action right now to help you achieve that goal. When you take action, you start to build new habits, and erase current ones.

But until you realize that motivation isn’t enough to make you act, your life will never change. When you keep waiting for that perfect moment in which motivation will find you, your life will never change. If you don’t stop hesitating, if you don’t take control of the micro-moment, your life will never change. Until you stop thinking and talking, and start doing, your life will never change. You’ll wake up 10 years from now and still be in exactly the same spot. How miserable does that sound?

Instead, make the decision to act in a way that changes your life. Changing your decisions changes everything.

These 15 Bad Habits Are Stopping You From Reaching Your Full Financial Potential

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Everyone wants to reach their full financial potential. After all, that’s why you work, why you invest, why you do it all – to live the life you want. But unfortunately, most people practice bad habits that limit their potential.

I’ve been there. I made those choices that seemed insignificant at the time, but that later compounded and became the heavy weights that held me down. That’s the tricky part – sometimes you don’t realize you have  bad habits until much later. I let myself get in my own head, I blamed others around me, and nothing changed much in my life.

Then I had my day of reckoning. I decided that if I wanted to radically change my life, if I wanted to create an environment that furthered my most important goals, rather than being a product of my environment, that was on ME. I had to make that happen.

And it all started with overcoming my bad habits.

Overcoming Your Inner Beach Bum

I would dare to say that no one is born doomed to fail – you weren’t. We’re all born with the same potential for success and failure. To reference Jeff Olson who said it best in his book The Slight Edge, “We all have the potential to be a beach bum and a millionaire within us.”

You see, something I’ve learned over the years is that secret to success is found in your daily routine. And you’ll never change your life, you’ll never reach your full financial potential, until you change what you do daily. Until you change your habits. I didn’t – until the day the secret to success hit me like a ton of bricks.

The secret to success is simple – successful people have good habits, and unsuccessful people have bad habits.

Now, I won’t lie to you and tell you that changing your habits is easy. It sure wasn’t an easy, overnight process for me. Heck, it’s much easier to be a beach bum than it is to be a millionaire. It took years of coaching seminars, reading books, and learning from my successful peers for my day of reckoning to occur. For the realization that my own bad habits were holding me back to take root and bloom. But once it did, my life changed for the better in every way possible.

15 Bad Habits Holding You Back from Reaching Your Full Financial Potential

You shouldn’t short-change yourself when it comes to your quest for personal development. I encourage you to take advantage of every resource you can get your hands on. And this quick list is the perfect one to get you started.

Here are 15 bad habits that are holding you back from reaching your full financial potential:

1. Sleeping in as late as possible. Not everyone is a morning person – then again, not everyone is financially successful. Every successful person I know starts their day before the sun comes up. This time should be used to focus on you – organize your day, enjoy a cup of coffee while you watch the news, exercise, prioritize your goals for the day. You get the point. Being an early riser can make you a much more productive person. And higher productivity means a higher likelihood of success.

2. Not paying yourself first. I’m about to share one of the easiest, most boring get-rich secrets with you – pay yourself first. This is one of THE most important ingredients in reaching your full financial potential. You should focus on saving 15%-20% of your income annually. If you can’t do this, everything else has to work that much harder to pick up the slack. You have no safety net, and it puts additional pressure on other areas of your financial life.

3. Neglecting your physical health. You may not think your physical health has anything to do with reaching your full financial potential, but it does. Again, successful people make their health a priority. When you’re unhealthy, you tend to be more tired and less productive. In fact, on days when I don’t work out, I can see a difference in my energy throughout the day. Exercise is one of the best, natural ways to boost energy, relieve stress, and sharpen your mental focus.

4. Neglecting your mental health. Be sure that you don’t overlook your mental health, either. This is just as important as your physical health. Every day, you should spend some quiet time inside your mind. You can use this time however it will most benefit you. Maybe it’s reflecting on the things you’re grateful for, or visualizing your day ahead and how you can make it successful.

5. Racking up bad debt carelessly. Bad debt is equivalent to short-term, high interest debt. Credit cards are a great example. I would recommend living by the following saying most of the time – if you can’t pay for it in cash, you probably can’t afford it. Now, of course there are special exceptions, but this is generally a good rule of thumb. Carelessly racking up credit card to live a lifestyle you can’t afford – and not saving your money – is a recipe for disaster. And a sure way to never reach your full financial potential.

6. Neglecting your own personal development. Successful people take the time to improve themselves. And one of the best ways to do this is by reading. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and the like all have one thing in common – they’re voracious readers. Expanding your knowledge pushes you to dream bigger – to never give up, even when you’ve reached one success milestone. Your bank account and your personal development are correlated. If your net worth doesn’t match your personal development, it will shrink back down to where your potential limits it. Spending just 15 minutes a day reading a good book can do wonders.

7. Overlooking your true cost of living. In other words, not paying attention to what the “small” things are really costing you. For example, say you buy a $5 coffee every morning. This means you’re spending $960 a year on coffee. But what it’s really costing you is what could have done with that money instead. What if you’d invested that money annually instead? Earning 8% growth, that would produce a gross value in 10 years of $15,020. Now, I’m not saying you have to sacrifice your morning Starbucks routine. But you do need to be aware of your true cost of living. You have to implement strategies to offset your lost opportunity costs.

8. Not accepting responsibility. A lot of people struggle with the concept of responsibility. Maybe that’s because we say it in ways that can sound negative – you know, “grow up and take responsibility for your actions.” But responsibility isn’t a form of blame or something you should avoid. Accepting responsibility means that you’re the cause of everything that happens in your life. It means that no one is responsible for your success or failure but yourself. Until this sinks in, you’ll struggle to find the motivation necessary to reach your full financial potential.

9. Speculating and gambling with your money. Or engaging in bad investor behavior period. Timing the market, stock picking, listening to market forecasters, and making emotionally charged investment decisions are all bad habits. Sure, there’s an opportunity for success if you engage in these behaviors. But there’s an even greater opportunity for failure. You get one shot at your financial journey – ONE. And failure is not an option.

10. Thinking with a scarcity mindset. Success starts with your mindset – your mindset creates your attitude, creates your behavior, creates your results, creates your life. A scarcity mindset traps you in thinking you can’t afford to practice good habits, your past dictates the future, and you’ll never have enough while others have plenty. It traps you in thinking “I can’t do that.” And you’ll settle for what is rather than breaking through to what could be – to living the life you want.

11. Hanging out with the wrong people. You’ve probably heard that you’re the average of your five closest friends. Well, it’s true. If you hang out with people who aren’t goal-oriented, striving for something better, challenging themselves, or working toward financial independence, you probably won’t either.

12. Not setting goals. You have to set financial goals for yourself. How else do you measure your progress? How else do you have something to look forward to? You need to write your goals down on paper, and monitor your progress regularly. But make sure that you’re capable of accomplishing them. Otherwise you’re setting yourself up for failure. A good way to do this is to make sure your goals are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-based.

13. Searching for the instant button. You’ll never reach your full financial potential if you’re always searching for the instant button. Success isn’t instant. You’re not going to see the results from your hard work in five days, five weeks, or even five months. It’s not until the summation of all those good habits overtime produce an end result that the drastic difference is realized.

14. Procrastination. “There’s always tomorrow.” This justification should not be part of your philosophy. What if you were to die today? what would your tombstone say? Would it be complete, or would there be much left unsaid? Now, if we could extend your life, what would you change? What more could you accomplish? What would be the culmination of your life that people would remember? It’s one thing to say you want to reach your full financial potential. It’s another thing to do it. But you have to stop talking and thinking, and start doing.

15. Neglecting to define your “why.” Before you can reach your full financial potential, you have to define your “why” for money. What is it that money truly enables you to do? What purpose does it serve in your life? What are your most important values? Are your financial behaviors furthering them? Only then can clearly define your “why” – the thing that drives everything you do. Until you define your why, you don’t have anything to fight for.

3 Reasons Why You Should Value Mind Over Money

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We live in a world full of information on how to find financial success, enough information that everyone should be able to reach their full financial potential. It’s the truth staring all of us in the face, but that only a few can clearly see. That’s because 95% of people are missing the crucial first ingredient in the recipe for success – cultivating the right mindset.

A Tale of Two Minds

There are two general mindsets – scarcity and abundance. Not only is a scarcity mindset the most common one, but it’s also a common denominator among those who never reach their full financial potential. This mindset gives you the illusion that you never have enough. It leads you to believe you can’t afford to practice the good habits that inch you closer to financial success. You settle in thinking that you can’t achieve more than where you are, and accept that your dreams will never become a reality. It’s the curtain that hides that truth staring you in the face.

A scarcity mindset makes you think “I can’t do that.” An abundance mindset makes you think “How can I do that?” This pivotal phrase is the first step in pulling back the curtain. Unlike scarcity, an abundance mindset helps you view every situation you encounter as an opportunity for success. You understand that if you continue those good habits that foster success, you will eventually achieve your goals and then some. This is how you break through the glass ceiling between what is and what could be. It’s how you make your dreams a reality and live the life you want. It’s how you put yourself in a position of control over your destiny, and become the CEO of your financial life.

How to do Something Isn’t Doing it

You can easily find the answers for financial success. I educate my clients every day on how to reach their full financial potential, I give them the answers. But what many people lack is understanding that the answer is only the how to. And the how to is only information, it’s just the steps to follow for financial success. It isn’t applying that information to help you live the life you want.

This simple fact is the reason you will fail again and again, no matter how many books you read, talk shows you listen to or articles you collect. Knowing how to find financial success is only one piece of the puzzle, and not necessarily the most important one. The other, and more important, piece is applying those how tos in a way that inches you closer to success. In other words, how you do the how to is more important than the how to itself.

I’ll say it again – how you do the how to is more important than the how to itself.

3 Reasons Why You Should Value Mind Over Money

This leads us to my central message – reaching your full financial potential is impossible until you learn to value mind over money. Here are three reasons why:

1. Success starts with your mindset. The human psyche is linear – your attitude creates your actions, creates your results, creates your life. Therefore, you may think all you need is an attitude adjustment. But that’s still not enough. What creates your attitude? Your mindset – your mindset creates your philosophy, creates your attitude, creates your actions, creates your results, creates your life. A scarcity mindset means you will live and behave accordingly. An abundance mindset means you will live and behave accordingly.

2. Success means doing what others won’t. Financial success, or success in any area of your life, is simple – do the little things that breed good habits consistently. Even the little things that seem insignificant. What’s difficult is actually doing the things that push you closer to success. They’re easy to do, and just as easy not to do. So, you have to change your priorities, the way you go about your daily life in general. You have to change your mindset, the way you think about the decisions you make. Successful people are willing to do what others are not willing to do.

3. Success means mastering the mundane. Those who succeed understand the difference between success and failure lies in the choices you make every day. Simple, positive actions, repeated over and over, that push you toward success. Or simple errors in judgement, repeated over and over, dragging you down toward failure. And again, doing what it takes to be successful isn’t difficult – there’s nothing difficult about mastering the mundane. Saving an extra $100 a month isn’t going to make you rich overnight. But that positive action, compounded and growing over time, will. You must simply make the conscious effort to view your life through the lens of abundance, and be willing to consistently do the things that others are not.

Why Does it Matter to You?

Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” I would amend this to say, “An investment in your personal growth and development pays the best interest.”

If you were to ask me if I would rather have a million dollars in the bank or a million-dollar mindset, I would opt for the million-dollar mindset all day long. Sure, it would be great to have a million dollars, but it’s even better to be worth a million dollars. If you start your journey toward financial success with a million-dollar mindset, it won’t be long before you’ve reached your full financial potential. But if you don’t have the right mindset, all the money in the world can’t guarantee your ability to succeed. This is because how much money you have and your level of personal development share a symbiotic relationship. They are constantly working to balance each other out. If your net worth doesn’t match your personal development, it will shrink back down to where your development limits it. But, if you’re always challenging yourself to grow, working on your personal development, then your net worth will rise to catch up with it. You can either become as small as the balance in your bank account, or as big as your greatest dream.

As someone who has spent more than a decade educating, guiding, and counseling people to reach their full financial potential, I can tell you that not everyone is inherently wired to succeed. But that doesn’t mean you should be tossed to the side. Your future can still be a successful one, you can still live the life you want to live. You just need to cultivate the right mindset.

4 Reasons Why Market Timing Fails as a Money Maker

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Markets will easily rattle you. A couple hundred-point swing here. A doomsday headline there. But before you go and flee the market or try to strike it big through market timing, you have to stop and consider the consequences.

The Dilemma

Market timing may be one of the most controversial topics around – many say it’s impossible, while the exact same number of people will claim they can do it perfectly every time.

It’s true that markets move in cycles and general predictions can be made about what to expect. But, this is exactly where investors get themselves in trouble. These facts do not mean that you can accurately and consistently get in and out of the market at the exact right moments.

Why, then, do investors continue to engage in this self-destructing behavior? Maybe it’s the same reason that we’re all pulled to the neon lights on the Las Vegas Strip – we all want to prove that we can win big and beat the game. Sometimes you do, and when you do, luck is almost a bigger factor than anything. But most of the time you don’t. When you don’t, it’s easy to keep pouring money into the machines to try and prevail. What usually happens is you fly home with your tail between your legs, in a deeper hole now than when you arrived.

4 Reasons Why Timing the Market Fails as a Money Maker

Here are four reasons why timing the market fails as a money maker:

1. It almost always hurts your performance over the long-term. A recent analysis of investor behavior from SigFig found that during the market correction in October 2014, roughly one in five investors reduced their exposure to equities, mutual funds and ETFs, with 0.6% selling 90% or more. While this may have seemed like a smart move to investors at the time, SigFig found that the more investors sold, the worse their investments performed. Investors who panicked the most had the worst 12-month trailing performance of all groups.

2. It can cost more than you will make. Market timing prompts investors to be active. While active investing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can be costly. And the more active you are, the more you will pay in costs. Every time you make a trade, you will incur fees associated with the cost of making that trade. Investment decisions also have tax consequences. If you try to time the market and make trades without regard for the tax impact, you can find any returns you may make quickly squashed by a tax bill.

3. You have to be right twice. Gambling is easy – you only have to be right once to make it big. Market timing is a different animal. You have to be right twice in order to win, because investing has two sides, buying and selling. To be a master at market timing, you have to be able to sell at the precise moment that the market has reached the top of its climb and can’t go any further. Then, you have to be able to buy at the precise moment the market bottoms out, before it rebounds. Do you have the guts to make that bet?

4. Your focus is on reward, not risk. Investors who time the market are in it to reap big rewards – no matter the risk. You’re chasing the high of making it big, of greed. When you don’t get that reward, you run into big problems. A focus on winning doesn’t prepare you for a loss. You have no exit strategy when things go south, and they often will. In case you’ve forgotten, higher risk doesn’t guarantee higher returns. It just means a higher chance of you losing your money. If you have a high probability of losing money, you better have something to catch you when you fall.

Why Does It Matter to You?

The truth is that investors who adhere to one extreme or the other – impossible or possible – regularly find themselves less successful than investors who try to find a happy medium.

Everyday market volatility can do enough harm to your returns, without you throwing in a little extra turbulence yourself from trying to time the market. In fact, volatility is what makes market timing difficult to do, because markets can rise and fall close together. Reaching your full financial potential depends on engaging in the right types of active investing, on a balancing act between your active and passive strategies. And this doesn’t include market timing. The only form of active investing proven to work is trend following. To take it a step further, indexing almost always outperforms active investing. This is why your main goal as an investor shouldn’t be to strike it rich from one big pop of luck. Rather, lower volatility and consistent returns – even if they’re lower returns – will increase your dollar growth, make for a smoother investment ride, and help you avoid bad investor behavior by keeping you disciplined.

Our investment strategies are built on these very principles. They move with the market, but can avoid the big declines. They limit investor exposure while still capturing upside potential. Remember, it’s not timing the market that drives your success, but time IN the market.

The 4 Rules of Financial Institutions

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Breaking news alert – the financial industry has an agenda for your money! Okay, no offense, but if this is breaking news to you, then you need to read this article more than most.

Yes, the financial industry has an agenda for your money. Everywhere you turn, almost every solution you’re offered has their best interest at heart, not yours. But, shouldn’t your financial actions support your most important goals? Shouldn’t the effort you’re putting in be working to further your best interests? Absolutely.

Whose Agenda Are You Furthering?

If you fail to acknowledge the simple fact that the institutions have designed things mostly to benefit themselves, you may find yourself never living the life you envisioned. Essentially, the game of finance is just that – a game. Successful players take the time to understand the rules and instead of admitting defeat, figure out how to make the rules work to their benefit instead.

Now, the point of this isn’t to paint the traditional financial industry as the enemy. Besides, making them the enemy doesn’t do you or I any good, we still have to deal with them every day. But there are in fact rules that the financial industry adheres to. Rules that you need to be aware of, as they can limit your financial success. You can’t change their agenda or the rules they stipulate for the game. But, you can define the way that we live and work within them, and bend them to your advantage.

The 4 Rules of Financial Institutions

The traditional financial industry has four core rules that they live by:

1. They want your money. This simple rule is what starts it all. You want to save for retirement? Here’s an IRA. Oh, you want your employer to help you save for retirement? Here’s a 401(k). When you’re ready to save for your child’s college education, pick from our selection of 529 plans. And the list goes on. The institutions have designed solutions for your biggest needs simply because of rule number one – they want your money.

2. They want your money systematically. Once you give the institutions your money, they want to make sure that you keep giving it to them, on the same day, every moth, year after year. Think about 401(k) contributions – these often come straight out of your paycheck. People often make IRA contributions on a schedule as well. Many times, we operate in ways that are convenient for us, hence paycheck deductions. Yes, the institutions do a good job of tricking us with convenience.

3. They want to hold onto your money for a long time. All of that money you’re putting into your 401(k) is locked away until you’re 59 ½. And just in case you get antsy before that, you’ll find yourself slapped with taxes and penalties galore should you try to pull it out. Isn’t it funny how you have to pay to get your own money back? For all of those responsible people who want to keep saving into their IRA past this same age, don’t worry – they’ll hold onto it for you until your 70 ½ .

4. When the time comes, they want to give back as little as possible. Money that you take out of your 401(k) goes in pre-tax. That means when you go to take it out, you’ll be paying taxes on it. The same goes for an IRA. This is different than a Roth IRA, where you put in post-tax money. Concerning IRAs, they also don’t want you to let those sit and grow for too long. They’ll keep it until you’re 70 ½ , but then you must start taking distributions from it. This lowers the principle, which lowers the return.

Why Does It Matter to You?

Yes, you can’t change the rules of the financial institutions. But you can change how you live within them. And I’m not trying to trash 401(k)s, IRAs or any of the other things we’ve mentioned here. These aren’t “bad” things to do – in fact, they can be essential tools to help you succeed financially.

What is important for you to take away is that part of winning the game of finance is mastering a balancing act. Financial success depends on a healthy balance of money that is under your control, and money that is out of your control. Based on these rules, all of your money shouldn’t be tied up in long-term savings accounts. Life happens, that’s a fact. When it does, you need to be able to access your money when you need it. For instances where your money is tied up, you need to know what role these strategies are playing and exactly how they fit into your complete financial life.

You don’t lump all of your goals into one end all, be all goal. You have multiple goals, multiple things you’re working toward. Money is the same way. You have to dedicate different buckets of money to different goals. And it’s not just about having a lot of buckets – it’s about having the right ones that are best suited to the purpose that money is serving.

Let me put it this way – one of my cardinal rules for reaching your full financial potential is to never have more money out of your control than in your control. Remember this, and you can go far.

Memories from a Millennial: 7 Simple Ways to Teach Your Kids About Money at Every Age

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As important as money is to our everyday lives, it’s always baffled me what little is done in the education system to teach your kids about money.

I guess I can’t say they didn’t try though. When I was in elementary school, we took a field trip to a place called Exchange City. It was a mock town set-up in a children’s learning center. In the town, everyone had a job that they were paid for, and could then go spend their money in the stores. And I guess I did leave high school knowing that an IRA was used to save for retirement.

They’re Always Watching

Much of what I learned about money came from my parents. I still remember when my parents made me open my first savings account at a bank when I was teenager. I watched how my parents spent money, listened to how they talked about it my entire life. While I never wanted to for anything growing up, I understood the importance of not living above your means. I understood the importance of saving, and that your wallet should never be full of credit cards.

However, I graduated college never having paid a bill in my life. My parents made my brother and I the promise that if we went to college, worked hard and graduated in good standing, they would take care of housing expenses. And guess what my dad made me do when I signed my first lease in the “real” world? He made me pay the deposit, first month’s rent, and moving costs all by myself. To go from never paying a bill in my life to dropping a few grand – not to mention the cost of living I would incur moving forward – knocked the wind out of me. While I’m forever grateful for the opportunities my parents gave me, that was one of my biggest reality shocks to date.

Now at age 26, I’m actually very proud of the financial progress I’ve made. That savings account my parents made me open over 10 years ago I still have – and it has a very healthy balance in it. I’ve started saving for long-term goals. But all of this is because of what my parents taught me about money. I didn’t learn my good habits from school – I learned them from my parents.

7 Simple Ways to Teach Your Kids About Money at Every Age

Giving your children this foundation is essential. I don’t know where I would be today if my parents hadn’t done it for me. And it’s easier than you may think.

Pulling from my own childhood memory bank, here are seven simple ways to teach your kids about money at every age:

1. Waiting to buy something you want. I was in the store the other day, and in front of me walking down the aisle a boy was bugging his mom for a toy. When she said they didn’t have money for that right now, he fired back with “Just put it on your credit card.” Kids are smart. If you’re constantly whipping out your credit card to buy whatever you – or they – want on the spot, they learn they can buy anything, any time. Rather, teach them the importance of saving their money to make a purchase. This is a hard concept for even most adults to grasp, but the positive effects that come from mastering it are invaluable.

2. Designate money for saving and spending. I remember that I always had “spending” money and “saving” money. In fact, I still do as an adult – you probably do too, even if you don’t consciously call it that. Kids need to understand that you can’t spend everything you make. A portion of their money should be put into savings every time they earn it. Then, the other portion can be used for their spending money. This starts to form the good habit of “paying yourself first” at a young age – something I’m very grateful that my parents taught me.

3. Congratulate them on saving their money. Saving money is boring. It’s way more fun to spend it. And your kids will quickly realize this once you start giving them money. Tell them this upfront, be direct with them. But, stress the importance of this “boring” habit. And make it fun – when they’re younger, track their savings progress and make a big deal about how much they’ve saved. Show them how much they could have if they keep saving, talk through it with them and tell them how much they need to reach their goal and when they’ll reach it.

4. Show them how to spend money wisely. This is probably the second most important lesson. Kids need to understand that money is finite – once you spend it, it’s gone until you can earn more. Be firm, and don’t let them dip into their savings. That money is only for emergencies or unexpected costs. If they buy that video game, they can’t buy that toy. When they’re older, involve them in some of your financial decisions to show them your reasoning. This helps them weigh decisions and understand those decisions have consequences.

4. Don’t hand out money for free. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is giving your kids money for no reason. This can teach them that they don’t have to work for money. My brother and I had to do chores in exchange for an allowance when we were younger. If we worked hard and got good grades, we got $5 for every A and $50 for straight As. Do I need to say how hard I worked to get straight As in high school? If I was in sports, I still had to do chores for an allowance, even though my parents did help fill in here and there. If I wasn’t in sports and was old enough to have a job, that was my only option. Mom and dad weren’t handing it out for free.

5. Make your kids get a job. As annoying as it was at the time, I’m so glad that my parents made me get a job when I was teenager. Not only does it teach your kids responsibility, but it opens their eyes to many things about money, like taxes. They’ll also take pride in earning their “own” money, not money from mom and dad. This isn’t only applicable to teenagers either – when your kids are younger, treat chores like their job.

6. Compound interest is powerful. Even young kids can grasp the basics of this concept. Give them a certain amount of extra money every month – say 50 cents or a dollar. Tell them this is the interest that their money earned, and talk through it with them. Explain to them that money can make money. Once they’re teenagers, a good idea is to have them open up a bank account. While interest on savings accounts can be low, it still teaches them the foundation for how it works. This can help them understand the importance of saving even more, and how it can help them when they start investing for long-term goals as an adult.

7. Explain the concept of “credit.” A crucial lesson to teach your children is that using a credit card means you’re using borrowed money. I remember seeing my parents put things on their credit cards when I was younger, but not grasping how credit worked until they actually explained it to me. Teach your kids that purchasing items with credit cards is essentially making a purchase with borrowed money. You have to pay that money back every month, and if you don’t, you’ll pay extremely high interest. This is a great plug for telling them you should never charge more on your credit cards than you can afford to pay off in a month.

Why Does it Matter to You?

Parents, knowing how to teach your kids about money is crucial. Of all of the lessons you will teach them, lessons in money are some of the most important ones they’ll get. It will shape their view on money for their entire life. It lays the foundation for whether they will fail or succeed financially. Think back to what your parents taught you about money, about the things they did with money or how they spoke about it. Chances are, you still think and talk about money in a similar way. Your kids will be thinking and talking similarly when they look back 20 years from now. And guess what? What you teach your kids about money, they will teach theirs. Give them the tools to succeed.