In this episode of Money Talk with Tiff, Tiffany Grant continues her insightful breakdown of "32 Ways to Make Progress." In this continuation from the previous episode, Tiffany covers the remaining strategies, such as tracking finances, building a personal brand, embracing failure as a means of growth, and the importance of interaction and lifelong learning.

She also delves into the significance of investing in oneself, the value of meditation, and the impact of having a mentor. Tiffany empowers listeners to think big, be productive, and spend wisely, emphasizing the importance of education and ambition. Finally, she urges everyone to take action and "just start now."

This comprehensive list encapsulates how Tiffany herself lives and breathes progress in every aspect of her life. Tune in for practical advice and inspiration on your journey towards financial and personal success.

Go back to listen to Tiffany’s Take: 32 Ways To Make Progress – Part 1

To submit your question or comment, visit https://moneytalkwitht.com/asktiffany

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Timestamps

[00:00] Tiffany's Take podcast: Answering questions, making progress.

[05:31] Invest in yourself, others, and progress. Journaling.

[08:26] Get a mentor, it's super helpful.

[12:12] Maximize productivity by doing 1% extra daily.

[13:09] "Spending wisely by aligning with personal goals."

[16:47] "Strive for progress in daily self-improvement."

Additional Links & Resources

• YNAB
• Building A Successful Brand With Jasmine Beard | Ep. 95
• Boost Your Career With Personal Branding: What You Need To Know! | Ep. 241
• Building Your Brand With Tracy Lamourie | Ep. 142
• Coursera
• Acorns Investing
• Increase Your Corporate IQ With Tangil Johnson | Ep. 269

Support this Podcast

Copyright 2024 Tiffany Grant

You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your

money nerd and financial coach. Now, tighten those purse

strings and open those ears. It's the money talk with TIFF

podcast. Hey, hey, and

welcome to another episode of Tiffany's Take, where I answer your

questions right here on the podcast. So if you would like your question answered or

you want to suggest a topic, go to dotmoneytalkwitht

comaxtiffany. So this is actually

a continuation from last Tuesday where I started going over

the list of 32 ways to make progress that I found on social media.

I did the first 16 in that episode, so if you didn't

catch that, definitely go back and listen. So this

episode, I'll go over the last 16 ways

to make progress to quickly recap. Number one was

wake up early. Two, read daily. Three, eat well.

Four, love yourself. Five, judge less. Six, be

yourself. Seven, set goals. Eight, plan your day.

Nine, positive attitude. Ten, have purpose. Eleven,

find inspiration. Twelve, help others. 13, build

network. 14, save money. 15, automate.

16, delegate. Now, in the last episode, I added

some color to each of those where I talked about different tools and tricks

that I use in order to stick to a lot of those. So definitely check

out that episode. I'll link it in the show notes, but let's go ahead and

continue our conversation. So number 17, track

your finances. Now, you all know this speaks directly

to my audience and to me. Make sure that you are

tracking your finances, because that is the only way to make progress with your

money in whatever way you would like to, whether it's saving more,

investing more, spending more, whatever it is you need

to track what's going on. So I use ynab for this.

You need a budget. I'll make sure I'll have a link in the show notes

for that. But that is my go to budgeting app at the moment.

I have also used every dollar. I have also used

a myriad of different things. Spreadsheets, pen and paper,

the envelope method, whatever. Just make sure that you're

tracking your finances. Number 18, build a

brand. Now, for those listening, you're probably like, but I don't

have a business, and I don't want a business. But I'm not even talking about

business per se. Building your personal brand is

super important. And so how would you do that?

Think about who you associate with. Think about what's out

there on the Internet, about you. So Google

yourself. See what brand you have already out there. Another

thing that I do is I'll ask people that have known me for a while.

How do you see me? What would you say are

my top three qualities or whatever? Then you can kind of see

what your brand is. Number 19, fail fast. You

all know I talk about failing all the time. I don't look at it as

failing. I look at it at it as learning

lessons that could then propel me to go forward.

So fail early and fail often is one of the mottos that I live

by. If you want to do something, go ahead and do

it. Don't sit there and go into analysis paralysis about, oh, what

if this doesn't come out well? What if this have what if people don't want

what if? Blah, blah, blah. What if, what if, what if you'll. What if yourself

to death? And so make sure you fail fast, fail

early, fail often. Get it out there, and then you can tweak as you go.

20. Interact. Make sure you're interacting with people

and introverts. I understand you don't really like interacting with

people. It fills your cup to the brim really

quickly. But just make sure you're having some interaction

with people. It can really help you make progress. Because sometimes

you never know. If you have just a conversation with someone,

they're like, oh, I know how to help you with that. Or, oh, I know

someone that can help you. Whatever. You don't know unless you interact.

And interaction could be just sending a quick text message

saying hey. Or a quick phone call. Dm,

whatever. Just try to interact with people every so

often. 21. Learn skills.

I am a lifelong learner. I love learning,

and that is one thing that

I feel has helped me in both my

career and now as a business owner. I love learning new

skills. I was even thinking the other day, and y'all don't laugh at

me, but I was like, oh, I would love to go

back to school. I know you probably think again, Tiffany, but to

learn a like, I would love to learn.

For instance, my daughter's dad is currently in school going for

plumbing. And when he's talking to me about the different things that he's learned in

class, I'm like, oh, that actually sounds interesting. So just

doing something completely different than what I'm used to,

but learning that new skill, will I use it later on? Who

knows? Will it be worth it? Who knows? But just

adding different skill sets to my tool belt is extremely

helpful. Not too long ago, I took up violin lessons. Something

completely different. Never picked up a string instrument a day in my life. But

I said, you know what? Let me try to learn the violin. Now

I realize it is not my thing, but I wouldn't have

realized that if I didn't try it. So always try new things and learn

new skills. 22. Invest. And not just

invest your money, which of course you need to do as well. But invest in

yourself, invest in others. Like, invest can

mean so many different things, but make sure that you're

investing in all of those things because that will

help you make progress towards whatever goals you

have. 23 journal now this is something

that I've been doing on and off for a long, long time.

And I just posted a social media post a couple

of weeks ago, or last week, whenever, with a journal entry

that I had from last year. Right? And one

way that I like to journal is I'll just take a notebook,

I'll google a prompt, write down the prompt,

and then I'll give myself a couple of minutes. I put on a

timer to respond to that prompt, and I do that

because that allows me to write down what is top of mind, not to

overthink what I'm writing down, and therefore it comes out more

authentic. And so I highly recommend that technique.

Also with the Apple update, if you have

an iPhone, they have a new journal app. Highly recommend

checking that out. It's super cool. It actually pays

attention to what pictures you take and where

you are and things like that. And then it'll give you prompts based on those

things, which is a little creepy when you think about it, but it's so cool

when you're wanting to journal. So it'll say, oh, you had a conversation with this

person. Do you want to write about that? Do you want to write about how

you feel or what you talked about? Whatever. And so it's really

helpful with those journal prompts because I usually struggle with what do I

write about and then get stuck on that and then never do it. So with

that journal app, it really helps. Number 24, meditate.

Now, this is something that I have scheduled on my calendar every single

morning. So we talked about making sure you're planning out your

day in the last episode. But meditation

is super helpful, and meditation can look like many different

things. I usually use the peloton app to

do those meditations, but you can also

reading your Bible or reading whatever religious

belief you have, reading that book, Quran, whatever it

is. That can be a form of meditation. Praying could be a

form of meditation. There's so many different ways you can meditate, just sitting

still and calming your mind. Is this form of meditation?

You don't have to have a formal someone

telling you, oh, breathe in and breathe out. You don't need that.

If you can just sit and say, okay, I'm going to be still for

just five minutes. That is a form of meditation,

so don't overthink what meditation is.

Just do. And it is super helpful with

clearing your mind and making you have a productive day. I usually do

it in the morning. Sometimes I'll do it in the evening if I feel myself

getting overwhelmed as well. So just play it by ear.

Number 25, get a mentor, y'all. I've talked about

mentors on this podcast a few times, but

mentorship is super helpful for you

at whatever stage you are in your life. I

have been utilizing mentors since I have first graduated

from college and it has been super helpful.

So highly recommend getting a mentor and only you can

determine what that mentor, who that mentor is or what that mentor looks

like to you. It could be someone to mentor you in

life, to mentor you in relationship, to mentor you

in career, in business, whatever it is. But I

highly suggest having a mentor, at least one, you can always have

multiple, but at least one mentor in your life that can help

you. Number 26, think big.

Now, this is one thing that I do struggle with at times.

Sometimes I'm like, tiffany, you think way too small. You need to think

bigger. So thinking

big is super helpful because you

have this big, huge goal that you're trying to work

towards. And at the moment it may seem like, oh, I'll never get

this or, oh, this is something that won't come anytime

soon. But you'll be surprised once you write that thing down, how

fast you can get to it, because then you are living your life

intentionally. You are working towards that goal at

all times. And once you do that, it's going to be really

hard not to get there. Imagine working on something

every day for years. It's going to be really hard not to get

to whatever that thing is. When I first started the podcast,

I was like, oh, as long as one or two people listen and there's

been episodes where nobody listened when they first came out,

right. But I never would have thought that it would get

to the point where it is now, where I'm getting thousands and

thousands of downloads every month and

each episode is getting hundreds of listens. I would have

never thought that it would get that far. But when I started, I

said, you know what, I just want to have this podcast.

And as I continued in it, I started thinking bigger

and bigger and bigger, and lo and behold, it started

happening. So always think big. About whatever it is you have

going on. 27, be productive. Now,

being productive is relative because it depends on whatever your

goals are. So I'm not going to say, oh, don't scroll social

and all that stuff, because what if, like, for instance, in my case, social is

part of my business, and so scrolling social is actually being

productive at times. Now, I'm not going to lie. There are times

where it's not productive and I'm doing a little too much scrolling.

And so that's why I say, use your discretion when I say be

productive, because it could look like different things for different people.

But you know what your productivity looks like, and you know the

areas where you can be a little more productive. So just

make an effort to be a little more productive. Let's say

if social media or if Netflix is one of

the things that throws you off from your goals, then set a

timer, set a limit, and even if you

cut down, like, let's say, 30 minutes, an hour or whatever, that's 30

minutes to an hour that you can put towards something a little more productive.

So be creative in the different ways you do that. But number

27 was be productive. 28, do more.

So that kind of falls in line with be productive. Because if

you're being productive, then you're cutting out the unproductive

task and you're doing more. So do

more. And even just, I tell my clients and colleagues

all the time, just 1% extra every day and you'll

get to that goal. So even if right now you're

only saving, let's say, 1% of your income,

then if you add an extra 1%, you're at two.

If you add another 1%, you're at three, so on and so forth until

you get to maybe a 10% savings goal or whatever,

but you can always just do a little bit more. This

morning, I decided I wanted to record

podcast episodes, and at first I was only going to do one, but then I

ended up doing, like, three or four. So there's

always little instances throughout the day where you can do more. So be

cognizant of when those times are, and then just do a little

extra. 29. Spend wisely. Now, you all hear

me say this on the podcast all the time. My intro and outro guy says

it, spend wisely by spending less than you make,

okay? So make sure that whatever it is you're

spending on contributes to a goal, contributes to

your well being, contributes to something, in my

opinion, that is spending wisely. So it doesn't necessarily

mean, oh, I need to spend less on clothes or I

need to cut out this thing that I really, really enjoy. No, it just

means, okay, if we're going to spend money on clothes,

what goal is that getting us to? Is it a self care

goal? Is it a love yourself goal? Make

yourself feel better goal. And if it's out of control,

then don't just cut it out completely. Maybe just cut it

back some so that way you can still get

towards whatever the goal is. Because you have to realize

financial goals are only one type of goal. There

are many other goals that you also need in your life as well.

So you have to find that balance of where can my

financial goals, my personal goals, my health goals, my

spiritual goals, all of these different goals can

all live in unison. And that is

when you are the most happy. Number 30,

educate yourself. So I kind of discussed this a little

earlier and learned skills, but educating yourself is

so important. And that's why you're here on the podcast, right? You're educating

yourself every time I release an episode, you're educating yourself.

Every time you have a conversation about money with someone

else. You're educating yourself. Every time you

read a blog post, you're educating yourself every time you go to

Google something, right? You're educating yourself. So continuously

do that and you'll learn things that you've never learned before and then

also be able to teach other people. 31.

Have ambition. Now that is very relative.

Everybody is ambitious about different things.

But I will say, if you have

some motivation, either whether it be

intrinsic or extrinsic, and when I say intrinsic, that means

motivation that comes from within. When I say extrinsic, that means

motivation that comes from outside sources. Regardless

of what it is, make sure you know what that

motivation is. Make sure you know what you're ambitious

about. And then make sure that you keep

that ambition going by dialing into what

those motivations are. So does that make sense? Your

motivations lead your ambition.

And so if you ever get low on ambition, you can always

fall back on, okay, what is that motivation that's keeping me

ambitious? So I hope that made sense. I hope that didn't go over your

head, but I tried to break it down

as simply as possible. And then the last but not

least, number 32, just start

now. You know that is a rule that I live by.

Just do it. Y'all act like Nike. Just do it. Just

start now. Whatever it is you're trying to accomplish, just start now.

After I finish this episode, remember I talked about in the last episode,

eating well, I'm going to go see what I can whip up healthy after

this episode. I'm going to go do some workout little body

movement after this episode because I just need to start

now. So I'm not only talking to you, talking to myself

as well. These 32 ways to make progress I feel

like it's a really comprehensive list and

it is mostly how I live my life and I am

always making progress on a daily basis. I tell people even when

I'm taking a nap, even when I'm practicing self care, I am

making progress you all because that goes towards a

goal. Whether it's a goal for self care, whether it's a

goal of getting more sleep. I actually have a sleep

tracker where I keep track of my sleep debt as well. Everything

I do is working towards a goal. So keep that in

mind and hopefully this list of 32 ways to

make progress was helpful for you. So if you enjoyed this

content, let me know that you enjoyed it and then I'll make more like it.

So go to www. Dot moneytalkwitht

comaxtiffany and I will be more than

happy to oblige. But until next

time, make sure you're rating, reviewing and subscribing

wherever you're listening. It helps other people find us

and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. Bye.

Thank you for listening, joining and being a part of the Money talk with TIFF

podcast this week. You can check TifF out every Thursday for a new

Money talk podcast, but if you just can't wait until next week, you

can listen to previous podcast

episodes@moneytalkwitht.com

or follow tiff on all social media platforms. Us at money

talk with t until next time, spend wise by

spending less than you make a word to the money wise is always

sufficient.