Hope Helps Set the Stage for Long-Term Financial Behavioral Change

When it comes to helping your clients achieve long-term financial behavioral change, it is important that you understand the vital role hope plays in that change. In fact, one of the first things you learn during your Financial Social Work certification is that hope and change are the underpinnings of Financial Social Work. Hope opens the door to change while hopelessness closes the door.

Finding the Right Focus for Financial Change

You might be wondering why such a focus on hope instead of focusing on sharing information on financial skills and tools to help your clients achieve financial wellbeing. Simply put, until a behavior changes, nothing changes. Your clients may have high-paying jobs and an understanding of the importance of saving and investing, but still may be overwhelmed by credit card debt due to emotional shopping binges. As you see, the knowledge was there, but the behavior undermined that knowledge.

So, if you are going to truly empower and engage your clients in financial behavioral change, you must start with helping them see that is always hope to change their financial situation. And once they feel the power of that hope, they will also begin to see that they can take control of their money and their lives by changing behaviors that are detrimental to financial wellbeing.

Overcome Hopelessness

Unfortunately, many of your clients will come to you in a state of hopelessness when it comes to their financial wellbeing. Take a look at the following definition of the term “hopeless” from the FSW Certification. Reflect on how this definition represents the feeling of those clients who may feel overwhelmed by financial stress and unable to gain back control of their lives.

Hopeless – Overwhelmed by debt and/or lack of financial and emotional support or resources; feeling vulnerable and unable to change your financial situation due to the lack of financial knowledge and/or the absence of hope.

Empowered by Self-Belief

How can you help your clients move from hopelessness towards hope and create a healthy financial future? You must start by helping your clients to begin believing in themselves. Remember this important statement: Self-belief is the essence of self-empowerment.

When you clients believe in themselves, they will begin to become more hopeful. Hope connects your clients to all the possibilities that await them. Hope enables your clients to set goals for themselves and move in the direction of those goals. Hope enables your clients to re-learn how to trust themselves and practice the self-discipline required to become more money-wise.

So, now you understand how hope sets the stage for long-term behavioral change. If you would like more information and tools on how you can help you clients achieve that long-term behavioral change, make sure to check out our Financial Education Support Group Kit and FSW Certification course.

The post Hope Helps Set the Stage for Long-Term Financial Behavioral Change appeared first on Center for Financial Social Work.

Written By Reeta Wolfsohn, CMSW

Hope Helps Set the Stage for Long-Term Financial Behavioral Change was originally published @ Center for Financial Social Work and has been syndicated with permission.