Abe Lincoln on Mistakes… Learning from Legends

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Abraham Lincoln in this quote shares an important lesson on learning from our mistakes. He said:

“My old father used to have a saying: If you make a bad bargain, hug it all the tighter.”

Honest Abe had a great point here; if we make mistakes we need to own them and learn from them. This is true in life in general but especially when it comes to personal finance.

It is easy to blame others for our mistakes. It was the bad financial advisor who told me to buy internet stocks, it was the bad mortgage broker or bank who told me I could borrow money, it was the bad credit card company that kept increasing my credit limit, and on and on. This type of mindset is destructive, it will leave you with a negative net worth and very likely at some point bankrupt.

We need to hold ourselves personally responsible for the decisions we make, both good and bad, and today more than ever we have to take ownership in every decision we make.

You must become your own expert or hire people that you trust implicitly to help you with personal finances. When mistakes are made we must be brutally honest about what occurred, why it occurred and take the lessons with us. Blaming others will get us nowhere and it will not make it any more likely that we achieve any of our financial goals.

If you haven’t recently reviewed your financial plan you should contact your CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Practitioner.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]