I’m often asked, “Trice, when am I’m going to stop thinking about money?”
“Never,” is always my reply which seems to make the person asking more disheartened. Let me show you why this is a good thing.
Meet Janis Joplin.* She’s a sassy admin who earns $63,000 a year. She has always struggled with money. When I met her, she was 53, and was almost $30,000 in credit card debt. Fast forward three years, and she is completely debt free. She has decorated her house with $20,000, and has increased her retirement fund by $86,743. For the first time in her life, she feels like she has a shot at being able to retire.
During one of our monthly meetings, she blurted out, “Not to sound impatient, but when am I going to not to have to think (translation: worry) about money anymore?”
And in that instant I realized, what was happening. All this time, she was waiting for that voice in her head to go away. You know the one. The one that says, “I’m running out of money and I don’t get paid until Friday. What if I lose my job?” And so on and so forth. Janis mistakenly thought that, if you’re rich enough, that voice will disappear.
The good news is, that’s never going to happen. You don’t want it to! That voice is like the gas gauge in your car. Can you imagine owning a car without a gas gauge? Wouldn’t that be super scary? Driving down the freeway hoping you don’t run out of gas.
That voice in your head, I call it the money bell, provides the same function as the gas gauge. Rich people and broke both people have it. The difference is when the bell goes off.
For the financially trapped, it goes off when your paycheck runs out or when you can’t pay the minimum on your credit card. And that’s why it plays a tune of worry and stress. For the financially free, it goes off when you come to the edge of your spending that allows you to achieve all your goals. They live for building fancy houses, traveling the world, and building a nest egg! However, this tune sounds very different. It’s much more like a coach rooting you on, saying, “girl, I got bigger dreams to fly with than just getting a pair of new jeans.” You will feel unstoppable instead of defeated.
Now, here is something special to note here. This will not happen overnight! If you are new to managing your finances, and you start looking at your spending consistently, that bell is going to start ringing off the hook. It can be very overwhelming, and it usually spikes to an extremely uncomfortable level.
This is natural. You are resetting the bell to wealth. It will play a new tune if you hang in there.
You’re going to start noticing a lot more things. And it’s going to frighten the fun out of you, because a second ago, your only worry was that your credit card debt was too high. Now you’re going to see stuff that you didn’t even know existed, like a $1,000 grocery bill.
About this, I tell my clients: “Don’t worry! It didn’t get worse. It has been this way all along. It’s just that you can see it now which is a much stronger position!”
I’m telling you this because, if you are aware of what’s going to happen before you start, you can see it as it truly is. You are getting stronger, and getting closer to wealth. You will also be intellectually aware that the overwhelming-ness of it will subside if you push through. Although knowing something intellectually will not change how you feel, it will give you the willpower to hang in there.
But, if it sneaks up on you. Well, that can be the quickest path to failure, because, you will want to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling. You won’t know that it is actually helping you! That one day you will come to cherish that sweet defender of freedom reminding you that you want more than just a pair of Louboutin shoes. You want unlimited freedom!
So, how do your rest your bell? All you have to do is look. Start here.
*Names have been changed