This Money Secret Guarantees Success With Your New Year’s Financial Resolutions

With 2021 beckoning at our doors, many people are now contemplating their financial new year's resolutions. According to new research commissioned by Slickdeals, a social platform for shopping, 73% of Americans say they have a New Year's resolution this year that centers around being smarter with money. According to the results, 47% of respondents indicated that 2020 was a difficult year for them financially, and 53% of Americans highlight the pandemic as the cause. 

Twenty-three percent of those polled were laid off or furloughed, while 34% say they had some other type of sudden income loss. Nearly half (49%) say they were paying more bills in 2020, and 42% had some medical expenses for which to account. In addition, 59% indicated that they "went overboard on spending due to the sheer amount of boredom the lockdown brought them."

Each year millions of people make new year's financial resolutions that fail. Through my work at the Keisha Blair Institute on Holistic Wealth, I developed the Personal Financial Identities Framework based on reader demand from my book Holistic Wealth: 32 Life Lessons To Help You Find Purpose, Prosperity and Happiness.

This money secret guarantees success with your new year's resolutions – because it forms the basis of your personal financial identity and allows you to be confident in your money decisions. When we don't know our personal financial identity, we risk making the same money mistakes as others. 

After my book was published, readers were coming forward to ask me what the financial identities were because they wanted to delve deeper and identify their personal financial identities. I developed a free quick quiz for everyone to be able to identify their own financial identity. 

Once you have identified your own personal financial identity, knowledge and wisdom gained from the Financial Identities Framework can help you be successful with your new year's financial resolutions, make better financial decisions, understand your money motivations, embrace your financial strengths, use your time more productively and suffer less stress.

According to the survey, here are some ways Americans plan on improving their finances in 2021:

Getting out of debt                                   38%

Removing unnecessary bills                33%

Seek out more deals/coupons            33%

Spending money more wisely             33%

Using a savings app                                   30%

Identify your own personal financial identity: Take the free Quiz to identify your personal financial identity, and to delve deeper to harness the strengths of your personal identity, take the short Personal Financial Identity Framework Video Course. 

Conduct Your Annual Holistic Wealth Review: After you have identified your own personal financial identity, conduct your annual holistic wealth review, of which your annual money review should be part of. This holistic wealth review includes looking back at your mental, physical, financial, and spiritual goals and looks at gaps and areas for improvement. Your Holistic Wealth Portfolio or Blueprint should include your personal financial identity and your holistic wealth review, and your financial new year's resolutions – so it all aligns. When you become a member of the Institute on Holistic Wealth, there are tracking tools and worksheets to help guide you, including coaching.

Incorporate critical elements of your personal financial identity and goals (any financial new year's resolutions) – so you have a full systems-wide perspective. Our goals should not be made in isolation but as part of an entire portfolio or blueprint.