Mindset shift that changes perception

In Part 1, I’ve explored how financial complexity creates dependency and obscures your path to freedom. I showed you that your first shift is bringing everything into the light, creating a clear picture of your complete financial ecosystem.

But clarity alone doesn't create change. So what does?

Fundamental flaw in financial thinking

Most financial advice centers around a single question: "How do I get more money?" While this is indeed an important question, it's the wrong question. Focusing on increasing income is only one-dimensional solution. The question that will yield much more comprehensive feedback on what you do with whatever money you have is:  "Does this spending decision expand or limit my future freedom?"

This is the core of the mindset shift I want to share with you today: complementing the idea about accumulating wealth with engineering a life where your decisions consistently expand your options rather than restrict them. Let’s look at this through a practical example.

Several years ago, I was interviewing for a job. I wanted to make a move from a generalist track to a specialist one once I specialised and got certified in welded structures design. The role I applied for came with a certain pay increase, a bit more prestige, and what most people would consider career advancement. By conventional financial wisdom, accepting it was the obvious choice – more money means more security, more options, more success.

I intuitively question all my decisions and measure them by different parameters, but now I finally have a convenient name for it, “freedom calculation system”. In these terms, the promotion would require:

• Relocation to a different town = creating entire set of challenges with finding new accommodation in the tough market

• Mandatory physical presence in the office = limiting my time and location freedom

• Managing more demanding, specialised tasks in equally tight deadlines = increasing my stress and responsibility

• Learning new administrative skills outside my engineering expertise = diverting energy from my core strengths and growth I actually wanted

Additional money would have expanded one dimension of freedom (financial), but it would severely restrict several others (time, location, emotional, creative). When calculated holistically, the new job would have created a net loss of freedom in my life.

I declined the offer and instead made a lateral move that gave me more creative control over projects while maintaining my existing work-life balance. The conventional mindset would say I made an irrational financial decision. Even with this time distance, looking back through this freedom-centered lens, I have no regrets and I feel confident that my choice served me better.

So how do you start making decisions from this new perspective?

Engineering your very own freedom calculation system

It begins with redefining what freedom means to you personally. In my engineering work, we never start production of a construction without clearly defined specifications. Your freedom specifications are just as important. What I'm finding works for me is not necessarily going to yield the same outcome for you.

In developing your own freedom calculation system, start with defining your freedom pillars. Freedom doesn’t stand on just one leg, it needs more support so you need pillars instead. Those pillars can be anything that matters to you, money itself, time, overall health, creativity or something else. You need to ask yourself what that is for you. You are noticing that pillars are actually dimensions of your life.

Then it gets easier. You will use your pillars as lenses through which you are going to evaluate future financial decisions. Basically every financial decision becomes a freedom calculation. Before making any significant choice (financial or otherwise), ask:

• "How does this decision affect each pillar of my freedom?"

• "Does it create a net expansion or contraction of my overall freedom?"

• "Does it expand freedom in my highest-priority pillars?"

• "Is the freedom gained worth the freedom sacrificed?"

This approach reveals that many "financially sound" decisions are actually terrible freedom decisions. Your bargain purchase clutters your home and restricts your spatial freedom. Your high-paying job that leaves you exhausted expands financial freedom but decimates your time and health freedom. Your debt-financed upgrade to a bigger home might actually restrict your financial freedom for decades while providing minimal increases in other dimensions.

So once you have a system you feel comfortable with, you should also make sure that is ready for upgrades. Engineers know that good systems maintain flexibility for future adaptations. Your financial system should do the same, so make sure that you design for optionality. Each choice you make should preserve or increase your options, not eliminate them. This principle leads to counter-intuitive financial choices at times:

• Maintaining some liquid assets even when you could pay down debt faster

• Choosing to earn less money in exchange for learning a versatile skill

• Investing in relationships and networks that expand your future opportunities

• Living below your means to maintain freedom of movement and choice

Conventional financial mindset celebrates commitment and often pushes you to lock in decisions. Freedom calculation however, values optionality, the ability to adapt and pivot as circumstances and priorities change. 

How does this work in practice, you ask?

Freedom case study: Debt dilemma

Let's apply this thinking to a common financial question: "Should I pay off my debt as quickly as possible?"

Conventional financial advice mostly focuses on interest rates. If the debt's interest rate is higher than potential investment returns, pay it off; if lower, invest instead. But the freedom calculation looks at how the debt affects your overall freedom:

• Does the debt payment significantly restrict your monthly cash flow freedom?

• Does the debt cause psychological stress that limits your mental freedom?

• Does the debt keep you tied to a specific job, location, or lifestyle?

• Would accelerated payment restrict other freedom-expanding opportunities?

I've seen people drain emergency funds to pay off low-interest debt, only to face a crisis that forces them into high-interest credit card debt months later. They made what appeared to be the "correct" financial decision but failed to calculate its impact on their freedom optionality. In my case, I’m balancing between pushing additional payments to the car loan for faster repayment rate and investing in new skills and my personal development which will ultimately expand my earning potential and lifestyle options..

What can you do already today to start changing things?

Reprogramming your financial operating system

Such mindset shift doesn't happen overnight. We've all been programmed with financial thinking that prioritizes accumulation over freedom, security over optionality, and conventional success over personal alignment. Here are three practical ways to begin reprogramming your financial operating system:

1. The freedom audit: Take one week to evaluate every expenditure through the freedom lens. For each purchase or financial decision, ask: "Does this expand or contract my freedom in the dimensions that matter most to me?" Don't just focus on the obvious financial impact. Consider the maintenance costs, mental bandwidth, physical space, and future commitments each decision creates.

2. The alternative path exercise: When facing any significant financial decision, force yourself to generate three alternative paths — even if they seem unconventional. For each alternative, calculate the freedom impacts across all dimensions. This practice breaks the automatic thinking that often limits our perceived options. You might discover that the binary choice you thought you faced (buy or don't buy, invest or don't invest) actually has creative alternatives that better serve your freedom.

3. The five-year freedom projection: For major decisions, project how they will impact your freedom five years from now. Will this choice expand or restrict your options in the future? Does it create dependencies or independence? Does it move you toward or away from your ideal freedom state? This time horizon helps break the short-term thinking that often drives poor freedom decisions.

Shift is mental before it's financial

In engineering, the most elegant solutions often come from reframing the problem. The same is true for your financial freedom. NeatSHIFT isn't primarily about tracking your finances more effectively (though that's part of it). My intention is to help you to fundamentally change how you evaluate financial decisions, shifting from accumulation-based thinking to freedom-based thinking.

In Part 3 of this manifesto, I'll show you how to build practical systems that support this mindset shift, turning these principles into daily habits and tangible results. We'll move from shifting your mindset to growing the systems that make this approach sustainable.

Until then, remember: Financial decisions are freedom decisions. Choose wisely.

Simplify. Shift. Grow.