Money lessons from the Premier League

The start of June brings home the fact that the year is going by faster than we are ready for it to. I got to the office this morning and noticed that just like me, some people were in a bit of a frantic state.

Their voices were raised slightly higher than usual when speaking, their pace was just a little faster when they walked along the corridors and their patience ran a little too thin when speaking with people they thought were wasting their time.

As my brother and I would say, “They are doing ‘Robocop’ up and down the place.” They were uptight, frenzied and moving around the office with almost robotic gestures.

My boss asked to see me almost as soon as he got into the office. “Tunde, where are we with ‘this project’ and ‘that project’?”, he asked. “Do we have approval for ‘this product’ and ‘that scheme’?” Like me, and my colleagues, my boss must have woken up this morning and realized that half the year has gone by and there are still so many plans and ideas that we are behind on.

We all had grand ideas and made commitments way back in January when the excitement and prospects of a new year were fresh in our minds. We thought we had so much time then, only to find ourselves at this psychological watershed with so much left undone. In a nutshell, most people seemed to be panicking this morning because it’s already June!

Did the same thing happen to you today? Besides the work related issues, most people made a commitment with themselves at the start of this year (as we do every year) that they were going to change their financial situation.

Did you say to yourself that this year would be different from all others for you? You may have planned to start that business you’ve been nursing for years or get that other job you know you need or maybe apply for that professional exam.

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You started with high hopes only to see your enthusiasm wane as the weeks became months and nowadays, you barely remember what you planned for the year or why. If June 2017 goes by just as quickly as the previous 5 months, then it too will soon be confined to our past, never to return and we would have reached the halfway point in 2017.

If all this talk of outstanding plans and unfinished business is making you feel a lingering guilt somewhere in your chest, then that’s great. That feeling is actually one key ingredient that makes you get off your behind and get things done.

That feeling drives you — and pushes you even — to do things that you might otherwise not have the courage to do. Your decision making becomes sharper and more pragmatic. You are at a heightened state of performance and you actually make remarkable progress if you can sustain that feeling for hours or even days.

It’s called a sense of urgency and it’s a feeling that high performers have all the time. If we could feel Antonio Conte’s thoughts and emotions during a football match, that is probably how he feels whenever Chelsea FC players are on the pitch.

It’s probably the reason why he just can’t keep still. He is driven to win and sitting still is just incongruous to that feeling. It’s what winners are made of, if what champions are made of.

If you want to develop and sustain a sense of urgency, do the following: You have plans and aspirations for financial success, right?. If you are going to make them a reality, first of all, write down what your goals are.

Secondly, you need to write down a numbered list of tasks and actions you need to carry out. Next, set realistic time limits within which you must accomplish each one.

Once you do this, make sure that you look at your goals and your list every day (preferably in the morning) and more importantly, no matter how small the task or action, make sure you make progress every single day. Make this a habit.