When my youngest daughter was four years old, she sucked her thumb so profusely that her skin began to crack and it became infected. Friends and family tried every trick in the book to get her to stop sucking her thumb, to no avail so we ended up in the doctor’s office. Once her pediatrician saw how bad her finger was bruised, he looked my little girl full in her face, held her sore finger up to her eyes so that she could see her damaged flesh and said, “Enough is enough!” This visit to the doctor’s office marked the very last day that she ever put a finger in her mouth. The comfort that she experienced from sucking her finger was now replaced with a painful experience and an unpleasant memory.
The problem wasn’t that she had too many fingers, she just used one of them inappropriately for too long and therefore she suffered a consequence. The pursuit of money parallels with the icky thumb. Too often money is used as a scapegoat. Money itself is never the issue; how we handle our money is the issue. So what is a woman to do to avoid the pitfalls, stereotypes, and even guilt associated with developing a successful and financially rewarding career?
Follow the doctor’s advice and know when enough is enough for you:
• Turn off the outside noise and follow your heart.
• Align every financial decision that you will ever make with your most deeply held values.
• Turn your dreams into a vision by setting deadlines and allocating resources.
• Convert your vision into your reality by taking action.
• Benchmark your financial progress against your personal financial goals, not market indices, or any other factor that is not relevant to your specific circumstance.
A notion of having too much money is a misnomer and might even be considered judgmental. Can anyone ever have too much money? Perhaps, the answer to this question is the same as the response to many of life’s questions. It depends. Money has been said to be everything from the root of all evil to the gateway to freedom and success. In actuality money is idle and serves only as a means to an end. Money is without limits or boundaries and can be pursued without limitation. Only when we fulfill our purpose can we truly say enough is enough!
