We’ve all done it in the new year: Started by telling yourself that this is the year you get your money in order. This is the year that you make major progress on your money goals. You even created habits and had a great start. But somewhere in March or April or June or July(heck you may not even have gotten that far), you began to slack on those habits and give up on your plan. Read on to find out what happened and how to do better next time.
Reasons Why You Think It Happened?
Life gets in the way and you begin to prioritize different things.
It’s not that your money goals are not important to us, it’s just that everything is a priority.
You’ve lost the motivation to keep going.
Perhaps you tell yourself that you didn’t have the resources.
Maybe you blame others for getting in the way.
There were a few (or a lot of) emergency expenses.
These are all valid reasons for not having your money in order by now. But let me tell you that you went about this transformation the wrong way.
How Your New Year Started
Your intentions are 100% in the right space at the beginning of the year. You want to fix your financial situation. Your journey began by exploring the strategies of personal finance. You may have brushed up on your financial literacy, downloaded an app or two, started to automatically save, and/or started investing in the latest money asset.
Action is great because without taking action, you will not go far no matter how much your mindset is in the right space.
Why This Doesn’t Work
The problem with all of this sudden action taking is that you need the motivation to start and keep the momentum going
Let me tell you one thing, motivation alone will not lead to success. Motivation is fleeting and may come in bursts. If your actions are fueled by motivation alone, you will be inconsistent and you need consistency to make progress.
What about building habits? Surely once you build habits, they will lead to success. For the time being, yes. But what do you do if you’ve failed to consistently keep those habits?
You need the motivation to keep going and pass those thirty-whatever days you need to be consistent to build a habit. Some succeed not because they were consistent, but because something changed in that process. Without this change, you will run out of willpower juice and go back to square one.
In fact, making this change will automatically install those habits so you don’t even need to wait those thirty-something days.
The Real Reason
One of the most common reasons for our inability to be consistent in our habits is that we are not embodying the person we want to become. We are thinking and being the same person we’ve always been.
Real change begins with shifting your identity to the wealthy person you want to become. When you begin to BE like the person you want to become, you are embodying them.
What Does this Mean?
Embodying means feeling, thinking, and acting like the wealthiest version of you. Act as If you are already that person. This does not mean going out and going on luxurious and expensive vacations. It means thinking and behaving in a way that that future version of yourself will be proud of you.
For example, I can embody the wealthiest version of myself by; reading self-development books, paying off my credit card every month, practicing mindful spending, having spa days at home, and being in a state of gratitude. Etc
The questions to ask yourself are:
- What would wealthy me do right now?
- How would she feel?
- What would she be listening to right now?
- How is she showing up to get to that level?
Why is this important?
By embodying the person you want to become, you will find that building habits become easier. You can focus on the options that suit the future version of you and this will help you be more consistent in your habits.
For example, you identify as a healthy person and it’s time to work out. There is no question whether or not you exercise because of course healthy you do this. Forget excuses or feeling like other things are a priority, because healthy you believe in physical excercise to be a priority. So you make time for it.
Apply that same concept to becoming the wealthy version of you.
Closing
By starting with a shift to your identity (mindset) before taking action you will never have to count on motivation or willpower to make changes in your life. Your money will thank you.
Give it a try, and challenge yourself to embody the wealthiest version of yourself.
I am here to support you on your journey to manifest dinero easily. Schedule a 90-minute session HERE or book a bundle of calls to save.
Cheers to abundance!