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Don’t Be Afraid To Win

Written by nevegroup on . Posted in Blog.

2021 has been an extremely strange year, and with every passing day, there’s no end of just how odd things seem to be these days.  

…But that’s not an excuse. 

In fact, it’s a great opportunity for you.  

No matter what you do – your job, your career, your family situation – you have the chance to make 2021 a great year.  After all, what’s holding you back?  

You might be deeply in debt, or out of work (or the newest employee on the job), or struggling to make enough right now, but from what I’ve personally observed?  

Companies (and people) are willing to work with others like never before.  

Let me give you a few examples:

  • Debt forgiveness and forbearance – It’s no secret that COVID has changed the economy, and even though some areas are opening up (and, for that matter, some are closing), the creditors you have are going through some of the same challenges.  If you are struggling to make a payment, pick up the phone and speak to them.  Explain where you’re at and why you’re having the financial challenges and ask what you both can do to work through it together.  I promise, they’ve heard this before, and guess what?  In many cases, they have some solutions that can help.  Will it be perfect?  No.  But imagine if the bank that held your home mortgage allowed you to not pay the mortgage for two months?  Would that help?  Absolutely!  More importantly, I’ve seen solutions like this being used in many cases in the last year.  
  • Asking for a raise or more hours – For a lot of employees, any chance of a raise at work is “supposed” to be annually.  New employees or those who have continued to be able to work through the pandemic might be reluctant to ask for a raise, but I’ll tell you this – if you’ve continued to soldier on through thick and thin, or you walked away from the unemployment line and the government checks to get a job, you are special.  Even if you’re “the new guy/girl,” if the job is bigger than you thought in the interview, I’m telling you, take the time to ask your boss about a raise.  It might be as simple as, “Hey, when we discussed the job in the interview, I understood there would be four people on each team.  With us being so short, I’m handling the production of several people and would like to revisit the pay scale/hours/schedule a bit.”  
  • Take ALL the vacation time and benefits – Paid time off, benefits, paid holidays, vacations, and so on are all options for many people, and in my experience, too many employees are reluctant to use all of them each year.  Let me tell you – they’re yours to use, so don’t let anyone bully you into thinking you shouldn’t take all the time you’re allotted.  The same thing can be said for your company 401(k) – and even though I’ve gone on record many times about the superiority of the Roth retirement systems, if your company is giving you “free money” in terms of matching a percentage of your 401(k), you need to be capturing it ALL.  

Now, obviously, there are a lot of other ways you can expand your finances in 2021, but just these three could be worth a lot to you within the job and career you have now.  

No matter what, though, this is true – YOU decide, every day, whether that day will be a failure or a success.  Nobody can do it for you.  The same is true for the week, the month, and yes, even the year.