What is Financial Health?

WHAT IS FINANCIAL HEALTH?
Are There Degrees of Financial Health?
Is there such a thing as Optimal Financial Health?

FINANCIAL HEALTH IS BOTH A STATE AND A PROCESS THAT CAN BE DEFINED AND ACHIEVED BY ALL FAMILIES, INCLUDING THOSE WITH MODEST INCOME. What is financial health?

We need to "borrow" an analogy from physical health to create a frame of reference for financial health!

What happens when we visit a medical health practitioner?

When a Doctor examines a patient that is not feeling healthy, certain standard attributes of physical health are referenced against those attributes observed during the examination. You are the one being observed, but you are being compared to the historical records of thousands of other patients!

Standard "healthy" guidelines regarding pulse, temperature, eyes, throat, blood pressure and on and on are all compared to the patient's current health state. The Doctor looks in our eyes, our ears, our throats, and makes other observations.

On occasion, something observed calls for further testing or examination. Why? Something is slightly askew of "normal" health references.

Though the "practice" of medicine is not an exact science, this method has worked remarkably well for generations in the process of diagnosis and subsequent prescribed treatment.

We trust this process because we are able to easily compare ourselves and our symptoms to a standard of health demonstrated by people that do not share our symptoms. The Doctor will then utilize the demonstrated variables with the established "norm" to begin the process of recommending treatment.

Financial Health Can Be Defined, and Obtained.
Many years ago the people that worked in our consulting practice followed this type of discipline to help us quickly identify and treat financial maladies. When people are not getting the result they desire financially, ie, not demonstrating financial health, it is important to identify the causes, and wisely treat those causes.

As in the practice of medicine, it is important to establish your "standard metrics" of financial health.

* How do we know if a person is financially healthy?
* Is there a difference in the picture of financial health for a twenty five year old and a sixty year old?
* Does the annual income make a difference?
* What about the number of children a family rears?
* What if it is a two income household?

As we worked through the process of establishing the financial health standard metrics, we determined that there are degrees of financial health, in much the same way a person will demonstrate differing states of physical health.

Returning to our illustration of physical health metrics, we know by experience that most people are in one of three states of physical health:

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Sick or diseased: The body is sick, or suffering from an infection, virus, injury, or some other significant health malady. The body is in need of an immediate health treatment intervention of some type to stop the decent into impaired health, and to begin to rally the natural defenses or the healing mechanisms in the body.

Not Well, But Not Sick: The body is on the edge of sickness or vulnerability. It is on the edge of improving health. It is not sick. It is not well. It is maintaining at the edge. In this state, we normally say the body is susceptible to germs, infections, breakdown, etc, and we could also say the body is close to "turning the corner" in the healing of its maladies. The key in treatment is to stem the downward motion to sickness, and to encourage the improvement of health.

Normal healthy functioning of people in optimum health is not possible by the person in this state of health, but if they improve their state of health, they may begin activities that may accelerate their good state of health. Ie. Running or extended walking is known to drastically improve a person's state of health, but a person in this state may not have the internal reserves to exercise intensively, without making themselves more susceptible to other health impairments.

Optimum Health: A person in a state of optimum health is able to move, exercise, eat broader menu items, and maintain a vitality of health that is envied by others. They are able to be in the presence of people that are sick and somewhat contagious, and not suffer sickness as a result of this environment. Their habits tend to reinforce their good health attributes.

When you think of financial health, you realize that a person may have the attributes of being financially ill, of financially average health, or of optimum financial health. In order to actually classify a person, in order to know what to prescribe for optimizing their financial health, we must have a financial health metric or measure.

Next Article: The Attributes of Financial Health

Adapted from I MUST PROSPER Tutorial
Donald Clark, Chrysalis Companies, Inc.

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