Your daily habits define you

Cliche but true, you are what you eat, your thoughts dictate your reality and your daily habits define you.
The human body is a sophisticated bit of machinery in its ability to convert food into energy, fat and or waste so you don't become a banana after eating a banana. But as all of us know too well, the image staring back at us in the mirror is a frank reflection of consumption and exercise habits entrenched over time. 
Money isn't that much different.
Whether you're skinny, fat or somewhere in between, your PBMI (personal bank mass index) can't be blamed on bad genes only your accumulated patterns of behaviour.
The mistake so many people make when it comes to money is thinking that it is something foreign and separate from who they are and what they do.  
"I'm bad with money." "I don't get money." "I don't know where I go wrong."  I've heard all the excuses and what unites them tends to be a deflection of personal responsibility.
Money is closer than you think. It is an extension of you; all of you. Your thoughts, your behaviours and daily habits.
It's a scary realisation for some because they're forced to accept that they are personally responsible for their actions. Yes there are some occasions in life when you lose your wallet, you're robbed or make a bad investment decision because you didn't have all the information at your fingertips. But even then, we usually have some part to play in what led us there in the first place.
A more constructive approach to the realisation that you and only you are responsible for your financial health, is that you have the opportunity to do things differently and to effect better outcomes.
It starts with reflection. An examination of where you are now in time, and how you got to be there, and what resources you have to make improvements or changes.
No matter where you find yourself, there is always space and opportunity for improvement. Progress is seldom lightening speed. It starts with motivating goals and aspirations that are executed with slow, progressive, measured steps. No radical crash course diets, rather a gentle introduction of the financial equivalent of fruits and veggies. They may include things like:

• automated savings (if you don't already have them),
• higher contribution rates to your retirement savings,
• accelerated debt reduction plans,
•  reduced consumer spending.  

A combination of these well executed and the resulting confidence will get your PBMI to a healthy level.
Traps to avoid inlcude:

•  a reversion to old (bad) habits,
• self-sabotaging thoughts,
• over spending,  
• under-saving 
• general mindlessness when it comes to your connection to and control over your money. 

If you want to transform your financial life, you can't do it in isolation from the rest of it. 
All that you are, everything that you do, will either work for or against it, depending on your perception AND execution. 
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