How To Create Margin Step 1

Do you have financial margin in your family’s finances?  Are you currently following a plan to create margin in your life?  Creating financial margin is one of the wisest decisions any family or individual can make.  Beth and I did not have any margin when we started off married life, but quickly began following a plan to create financial margin and it has changed everything for our day to day lives.  Even if you are single without a family this is still one of the most important things you can do.  It has been my experience creating financial margin is incredibly simple to do.  It is not easy, but it is simple.  It is also extremely worth it.

Do You Have Margin?

Being a husband and father is tough.  It is definitely the hardest and most worth-while experience of my life.  I am willing to bet all spouses and parents would agree with this.  Leading our families requires very intentional thinking and actions to create the outcomes we desire.  We face so many challenges, but there is one challenge I see families faced with more and more every day that places a stranglehold on millions of families across America – finances.  Perhaps I should say lack of finances.  Early on this was a huge struggle for our family.  It was the number one stressor in our relationship and often the only thing Beth and I ever fought about.  I learned to create and focus on one simple word which has radically transformed our family life and completely removed this stress from our household.

An Apple A Day

Have you ever stopped to think about some of the expressions we hear over and over again through life?  Have you ever considered if they are even true?  Have you ever looked at the wisdom some of these timeless statements contain?

How Should I Focus?

There are few things I have found to be essential to my success and personal fulfillment in my life more important than focus.  Oddly enough when I took the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test, focus was one of my top five strengths yet I seem to daily struggle with it.  I addressed this challenge in Are you Distracted?  We live in a day and age where there are more distractions that ever fighting for our attention.  If focus is so important, but becoming increasingly harder to achieve, what can we do to improve our focus?

Are You Distracted?

Everyone has his or her formula for success.  I do not believe mine is revolutionary or ground breaking.  In fact it may be too simplistic.  It has been my observation that being successful in any endeavor can be broken into three simple steps: