How many of you just sang along to the tune of Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”? If you didn’t … you will now! Yes, I’m well aware that this is probably going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day and that is actually a good thing. Every time it pops in your head it gives you a chance to think about the concept that I’m about to lay down.
Halloween has come and gone, November is here and the holiday consumer season is about to be upon us in full force.
Halloween has come and gone, November is here and the holiday consumer season is about to be upon us in full force.
As the holidays become more and more materialistic with people wanting to give more impressive and more expensive gifts, I figured now was a good time to introduce the concept of doing more with less (or at least what you already have). That said, I want you to play a little game of fill in the blank. This holiday season, and throughout the coming year, what do you want more of in your life? Go ahead, grab a piece of paper. You may want to reflect on these statements at a later date. Keep listing until you can’t think of anything else, and they don’t have to be holiday related at all.
If I had more _______________________ then I would ______________________________.
Done? Great! I’m sure you have uttered this statement many times throughout the years and nearly everyone will have some version of more money on their list. What will be different for each person is what we would do with this extra money.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on the sentences you just created especially the beginning part of the sentence, “If I had”. These three simple words that we tell ourselves over and over again are a very effective method we use to delude ourselves into believing that our current situation is not our doing. It is much easier to think that we are a just dealing with the hand that has been dealt us rather than owning the fact that our circumstances are created by our priorities, our choices and our actions or inactions. “If I had more” subconsciously gives ourselves the permission to remain idle or to postpone making a change until we luck out and “more” appears.
For example you may have said If I had more money then I would be able to work less and spend more time with my family. What you just said in this statement is that spending time with your family is important to you but that you won’t be able to do it until your circumstances change and you have more money. To you, more money equals working less, which will then free up your time to spend with your family. As great as this notion sounds, I’m sorry to say that getting more money won’t solve the problem. The root of the issue is that you are not determined to make spending time with your family a priority today. What makes you think that you will simply be able to flip a switch in the future when more money appears? If you don’t make spending time with your family a priority now using the money and time that you currently have, simply having more of either will not change your habits. Remember, to change your future, you need to change your actions today.
If you don’t change your current habits you will quickly find that with more money comes a new set of excuses/delusions to keep you from what you have convinced yourself that you would do. More money often means more time spent shopping, more bills, more time managing the money, more time working to maintain the things the money purchased, not less. All of these things will find a way to keep you from spending time with your family and perpetuate the cycle of "If I had more money." Unless you are determined to make what you would do a priority today how can you think it will just magically become a priority tomorrow?
Let me use a real life example. I used to say If I had more time I would exercise more. The truth of the matter was that when I did have more time I didn’t actually exercise more. Why? Because I hadn’t made exercising a priority in my current schedule. It wasn’t a part of my daily, weekly or even monthly routine. Exercising truly wasn’t a priority to me even though I tried to delude myself into thinking it was. In the past my saying “If I had more time” was simply my way of making excuses for not doing something that I knew I should be doing, a way to justify the results I was getting by not working out. It’s not my fault…it was because of my lack of time…right?!?
The problem with this idea is that it keeps us in a constant state of fantasizing about what the future will be like, what we will do when we get more. We assume that this new circumstance (the more) is what will make us happy and solve all of our current problems, instead of living in the now and finding a way to meet our needs with what we already have. This is a great reminder of why it is so important to keep ourselves in the present and to practice gratitude by making the best/most efficient use of what we have today!
The good news is that I now exercise about 3 times a week and I feel great, but I had to come at it from a different angle. I had to ditch the delusional “If I had more” and make the “Then I would” a priority in my current every-day life. How do you do this? First, get to the bottom of why you want more. What are you trying to accomplish? What emotion or outcome are you searching for in your life? What problem are you trying to solve? Revisit your statements from earlier and see if you can dig deep to figure out what it really is that you are needing?
Stop reading here and see if you can identify what your end goal would be for each of your statements above. Start here:
Let’s take a moment to reflect on the sentences you just created especially the beginning part of the sentence, “If I had”. These three simple words that we tell ourselves over and over again are a very effective method we use to delude ourselves into believing that our current situation is not our doing. It is much easier to think that we are a just dealing with the hand that has been dealt us rather than owning the fact that our circumstances are created by our priorities, our choices and our actions or inactions. “If I had more” subconsciously gives ourselves the permission to remain idle or to postpone making a change until we luck out and “more” appears.
For example you may have said If I had more money then I would be able to work less and spend more time with my family. What you just said in this statement is that spending time with your family is important to you but that you won’t be able to do it until your circumstances change and you have more money. To you, more money equals working less, which will then free up your time to spend with your family. As great as this notion sounds, I’m sorry to say that getting more money won’t solve the problem. The root of the issue is that you are not determined to make spending time with your family a priority today. What makes you think that you will simply be able to flip a switch in the future when more money appears? If you don’t make spending time with your family a priority now using the money and time that you currently have, simply having more of either will not change your habits. Remember, to change your future, you need to change your actions today.
If you don’t change your current habits you will quickly find that with more money comes a new set of excuses/delusions to keep you from what you have convinced yourself that you would do. More money often means more time spent shopping, more bills, more time managing the money, more time working to maintain the things the money purchased, not less. All of these things will find a way to keep you from spending time with your family and perpetuate the cycle of "If I had more money." Unless you are determined to make what you would do a priority today how can you think it will just magically become a priority tomorrow?
Let me use a real life example. I used to say If I had more time I would exercise more. The truth of the matter was that when I did have more time I didn’t actually exercise more. Why? Because I hadn’t made exercising a priority in my current schedule. It wasn’t a part of my daily, weekly or even monthly routine. Exercising truly wasn’t a priority to me even though I tried to delude myself into thinking it was. In the past my saying “If I had more time” was simply my way of making excuses for not doing something that I knew I should be doing, a way to justify the results I was getting by not working out. It’s not my fault…it was because of my lack of time…right?!?
The problem with this idea is that it keeps us in a constant state of fantasizing about what the future will be like, what we will do when we get more. We assume that this new circumstance (the more) is what will make us happy and solve all of our current problems, instead of living in the now and finding a way to meet our needs with what we already have. This is a great reminder of why it is so important to keep ourselves in the present and to practice gratitude by making the best/most efficient use of what we have today!
The good news is that I now exercise about 3 times a week and I feel great, but I had to come at it from a different angle. I had to ditch the delusional “If I had more” and make the “Then I would” a priority in my current every-day life. How do you do this? First, get to the bottom of why you want more. What are you trying to accomplish? What emotion or outcome are you searching for in your life? What problem are you trying to solve? Revisit your statements from earlier and see if you can dig deep to figure out what it really is that you are needing?
Stop reading here and see if you can identify what your end goal would be for each of your statements above. Start here:
If I had more ____________ then I would ___________ because I want/need to ____________.
Great! Now that you are back, here’s how I did it. My statement went something like this “If I had more time then I would exercise more because I want to feel good about my body.” For me, the problem/emotion I was trying to solve was not “exercising more”, it was that I wanted to feel good about my body and the way my clothes were fitting. As humans we often try to mask our problems by buying material things to make ourselves feel better. Had I gone out and simply bought a new wardrobe I may have felt better for a moment but soon enough the feeling of not liking my body would have crept back in, along with the bill for all the new clothes, exacerbating the problem. So instead of putting a bandaid on the issue I came at it logically and made a list of the small steps I could take that weren’t so overwhelming. Exercise was simply a broad (and for me overwhelming) solution to my problem. Had I simply gone to the gym and tried to run on the treadmill for an hour you better believe I would have “magically” gotten so busy that I didn’t have the time to work out. (See how we create our negative circumstances to keep ourselves from getting what we really want.) Instead, I started with baby steps. I challenged myself by making small commitments to address my need to feel better about my body and doing them daily even if it was just 1 minute a day. C’mon, even you can do something for one minute right?! (NOTE: I could have chosen to work on my diet or on my self image but exercise felt like the right path for me.)
So, for all of the wants/needs that you were able to decipher from your original statements above make a list of the following:
Today I will ___________________________. Even if it is a simple 5 minute task. Now, put it somewhere where you will see it and make a vow to complete these small tasks before you go to bed tonight. Slowly but surely you will create a new habit.
For me it started with challenging myself to do sit ups and jumping jacks for a total of 5 minutes. (Disclaimer: Day 1 I wasn’t even able to do 5 minutes straight but instead of giving up I just did 1 minute at a time 5 times that day) Then a couple weeks later it easily became 10 minutes. Then I added jumping rope. Then I started going to pilates classes, then I added Cardio Barre. Before I knew it I had “found” the time in my current schedule to workout 3 or more days a week and low and behold, when I have more time I actually work out more and it doesn’t feel like a chore, it feels great. The end result, I love my body right now, my clothes fit better and a side effect is that I don’t have to buy more clothes, ultimately saving me money.
So let’s go back to my hypothetical example of the person who wants to spend more time with their family. “If I had more money then I would work less and spend more time with my family because I want to participate in their lives.” The need here is to participate, to connect. Perhaps their small task is that they ask their husband/wife/son/daughter a question and remain present for the answer. Perhaps they will read a bedtime story to their child, perhaps they will make walking the dog into a family event instead of a chore. It is your job to be creative with what you ALREADY HAVE to meet your needs. When you are determined, things will fall into place. If a person is adamant about meeting their underlying needs, when they get more money the actions they take will be in line with their needs, and they will make effective choices like hiring a housekeeper to clean, freeing up more time for them to spend with the family since it’s already an ingrained habit. However if the idea of spending time with the family is just a nice notion for a future date, if they were to get more they would likely just spend more on stuff that fills the void for a fleeting moment. They will be doing the same thing they have always done yet expecting different results, and we all know that is the definition of insanity. You see how the cycle of if I had more _______ then ______ will just keep going if you don’t tune into what it is you truly need?
Have you ever noticed that it is a heck of a lot easier to find the resources to support something that is a priority in your life? It’s way easier and more realistic to take that approach rather than hoping that the resources will create the priority. If you make spending time with your family a must, you will find the time. By finding time you will be forced to be more efficient with the time you already have. By being more efficient with the time you have you will create opportunities to earn more money. And so the cycle begins.
It’s like I always say to my clients, adding a zero on to the end of your paycheck is not going to fix anything unless you address the roadblocks you are having today. If you are currently spending more than you bring in you will continue to do so. If you don’t know where your money is going now, how will you know where it is going when you have more? If you can’t seem to find money to save, or pay down debts today, what makes you think more money will solve it?
This holiday season I want you to give yourself the gift of making full, efficient use of the money, time, and resources you already have, that way when you do find yourself with more, you will know exactly what to do with it to maximize the benefits!
As always, if you want help honing your financial skills, figuring out what it is you truly need, or to make sure your money (and time) is working hard for you, make an appointment today and I will help you sort it all out.
So, for all of the wants/needs that you were able to decipher from your original statements above make a list of the following:
Today I will ___________________________. Even if it is a simple 5 minute task. Now, put it somewhere where you will see it and make a vow to complete these small tasks before you go to bed tonight. Slowly but surely you will create a new habit.
For me it started with challenging myself to do sit ups and jumping jacks for a total of 5 minutes. (Disclaimer: Day 1 I wasn’t even able to do 5 minutes straight but instead of giving up I just did 1 minute at a time 5 times that day) Then a couple weeks later it easily became 10 minutes. Then I added jumping rope. Then I started going to pilates classes, then I added Cardio Barre. Before I knew it I had “found” the time in my current schedule to workout 3 or more days a week and low and behold, when I have more time I actually work out more and it doesn’t feel like a chore, it feels great. The end result, I love my body right now, my clothes fit better and a side effect is that I don’t have to buy more clothes, ultimately saving me money.
So let’s go back to my hypothetical example of the person who wants to spend more time with their family. “If I had more money then I would work less and spend more time with my family because I want to participate in their lives.” The need here is to participate, to connect. Perhaps their small task is that they ask their husband/wife/son/daughter a question and remain present for the answer. Perhaps they will read a bedtime story to their child, perhaps they will make walking the dog into a family event instead of a chore. It is your job to be creative with what you ALREADY HAVE to meet your needs. When you are determined, things will fall into place. If a person is adamant about meeting their underlying needs, when they get more money the actions they take will be in line with their needs, and they will make effective choices like hiring a housekeeper to clean, freeing up more time for them to spend with the family since it’s already an ingrained habit. However if the idea of spending time with the family is just a nice notion for a future date, if they were to get more they would likely just spend more on stuff that fills the void for a fleeting moment. They will be doing the same thing they have always done yet expecting different results, and we all know that is the definition of insanity. You see how the cycle of if I had more _______ then ______ will just keep going if you don’t tune into what it is you truly need?
Have you ever noticed that it is a heck of a lot easier to find the resources to support something that is a priority in your life? It’s way easier and more realistic to take that approach rather than hoping that the resources will create the priority. If you make spending time with your family a must, you will find the time. By finding time you will be forced to be more efficient with the time you already have. By being more efficient with the time you have you will create opportunities to earn more money. And so the cycle begins.
It’s like I always say to my clients, adding a zero on to the end of your paycheck is not going to fix anything unless you address the roadblocks you are having today. If you are currently spending more than you bring in you will continue to do so. If you don’t know where your money is going now, how will you know where it is going when you have more? If you can’t seem to find money to save, or pay down debts today, what makes you think more money will solve it?
This holiday season I want you to give yourself the gift of making full, efficient use of the money, time, and resources you already have, that way when you do find yourself with more, you will know exactly what to do with it to maximize the benefits!
As always, if you want help honing your financial skills, figuring out what it is you truly need, or to make sure your money (and time) is working hard for you, make an appointment today and I will help you sort it all out.