10 Common Beliefs That Justify Avoiding the Truth

We all know that we should pay attention to our finances. We should know what we spent our money on. We should know how much is in our bank. Or how much we need to save. Or how much we need to pay.

For years, I avoided my own financial truth. I postponed checking my accounts. Thoughts about logging into my online banking would produce a painful pit in my stomach. I just didn’t want to know. I wouldn’t open letters (over draft notices) from my bank. I knew what they were – and I’d just file them.  I wouldn’t open my investment statements. I’d let my credit card statements sit there until the due date, never looking at the finance charge I was paying, ignoring the list of transactions, only looking at the minimum payment amount. Crumpled up dollar bills would find their way through the laundry. I’d throw away important receipts. I’d misplace warranty information I had no idea how much cash I had (or didn’t have) in my wallet. 

I realize that this makes no sense. I knew, logically, that looking at my checking account balance online was not going to strike me blind. I knew that the overdrafts were costing me money that I really didn’t have. I knew that my credit cards and lines of credit were charging me enormous amounts of money. I knew that avoiding it wasn’t really going to fix it. At the same time, any time I even thought about my money, or my lack of money, or my debt, I was seized with panic, worry, guilt and shame. 

So, I justified avoiding the truth. 

I’ve done this. My clients have done this. And you’ve probably done this, too.  We think about ‘dealing’ with reality – and it seems too painful – so we come up with fancy reasons to avoid it.

Here are a few of the most common beliefs:

1. I don’t want to give negative thoughts any power. We think that we need to avoid looking at the truth, because we tell ourselves that the truth is ‘negative’. Which is a lie. Our story about the truth is negative. The truth is never negative. The only way to transform a negative thought’s power is to actually look at it. Write it down. Question it. Allowing negative thoughts to live in the background of your life only amplify their power.

2. This will hurt my (Law of) Attraction. This is a favorite among my clients who think they understand (but don’t really) the Law of Attraction. They ask me, “Won’t looking at the reality of my debt just create more debt?”  The answer is no. The Law of Attraction is based on feelings. You become a match to what you feel. You attract more of what you feel. So, if you’re not dealing with your debt, and you feel anxious – you can only be attracting more anxiety. Dealing with reality and with the truth always feels better. When you feel better you attract more of that feeling.

3. I won’t be able to overcome it. Sometimes, we have an irrational fear that if we really know how bad our finances are – we might literally keel over dead, or have an emotional breakdown, or some other drastic event might happen. I had this fear and didn’t even realize it. It’s like being scared of the boogey man.  The fear is very real. The thing you’re scared of, though, doesn’t exist.

4. It will get worse. As with any relationship, our relationship with money only gets worse if we ignore it.  Paying attention to it, and understanding it and telling the truth about it can only improve our relationship.

5. It’s not repairable. (It’s too late. It’s too far gone.) This is a big lie that keeps us stuck in dysfunction. We tell ourselves that we’re screwed anyway, so might as well keep the blinders on. Each of us has our own relationship with money. And each of these relationships can be repaired. No matter how drastic the 'mistakes' have been. It is always repairable.

6. I’ll feel even worse. This is partially true. Even though numbers are neutral, our thoughts about them can be very painful. And these thoughts can make us feel worse. That’s why thought work is critical. Without it, we just suffer. If we avoid our financial reality, though, we never give ourselves the gift of bringing these painful thoughts to the surface. They just run in the backgrounds of our minds, unquestioned. 

7. I already know it’s a mess. This was one of my personal favorites. I knew my financial life was a mess, but I wanted to just skip through the whole ‘details, numbers, reality’ stuff and get to the part where I just made more money. This thought will never create more abundance, though. Knowing it’s a mess and understanding exactly why it’s a mess are two very different things.

8. I don’t want to have to deprive myself. (I don’t want to be punished.) This is probably the single-most common belief among the money-dysfunctional. So, I’m going to say, right off the bat, I never put my clients on a budget and I never tell them they can’t spend money. And I don’t want you to put yourself on a budget or tell yourself that you can’t spend money. Budgets and white-knuckling just don’t work. Forced willpower always ends up backfiring, and we end up spending even more money. Depriving us even more. This is a fascinating cycle and I’ll talk more about this later.

9. It’s easier to pretend. This was pretty much my religion. I’d tell myself that it was just easier to pretend. Pretend I had money. Pretend that I wasn’t in debt. Pretend that everything was fine. Pretend that I had it all under control. The problem with pretending: it isn’t real. And pretend never feels good. At best, you’ll just feel ‘pretend good.’ What I’ve seen, for myself and for my clients, is that pretending isn’t easier at all. In fact, it’s way harder. It’s way harder to live with anxiety and guilt. It’s way more difficult to constantly be pushing your feelings aside. It’s way more difficult to lie to yourself.

10. It doesn’t matter. Telling yourself this lie will rob you of your own happiness. Minimizing suffering never fixes it. Recognizing the truth is the only way to permanently eradicate your suffering.

Money and The Truth

To permanently change our relationship with money, we have to be willing to open our eyes. We need to know - in detail - where we stand financially. We need to take responsibility for our past and present behaviors. And, most importantly, we need to understand why we have created this financial reality in the first place. As you can probably imagine, unveiling these truths and digging through our money beliefs can be difficult, time consuming, scary, disappointing, and exhausting.

But the alternative is so much worse. Believe me. I know because I’ve done it.

Pretending that we know where we really stand. Keeping ourselves in the dark from the truth. Hiding from our own money. Trying to fudge the details, guessing, estimating, or fantasizing, only prolongs our dysfunctional relationship with money.

I was the queen of denial when it came to my finances. I always felt like I had a ‘pretty good’ idea of what was going on financially. To placate my anxiety, I’d minimize my spending and exaggerate my earning. I’d tell myself that the details really weren’t that important. I thought I knew the basics, the general idea. I had a hazy idea of what I made, what I owed and what I spent.

At least that’s what I told myself.
And it was a total lie.

A healthy relationship with money is vital to creating lasting abundance. The way we treat it, if we respect it, how we value it, what we do with it.  Just like any other relationship in our life, our relationship with money can only be healthy if it’s based on honesty, authenticity, and trust.

And money always tells the truth.

So the dysfunction in this relationship – is always our own.

Recognizing my part in this dysfunctional relationship was daunting but freeing. Daunting because I knew I could no longer blame my divorce, my job, the economy, special circumstances, or bad luck. Freeing because I knew I could no longer blame my divorce, my job, etc. Freeing because I realized that I could turn the dysfunction around. I could create a better relationship with money.  But I knew it would take work, practice and consistency.

Now, I know every minute detail. I know where my money goes and where it comes from. I know why I spend what I spend and I know why I earn what I earn. My relationship with money is grounded in reality. I’m no longer spinning stories or trying to sell myself my own cheap propaganda.

At our first session, I tell my clients that the entire first week is devoted to getting prepared to do the work ahead. Getting prepared to know the truth about where they really are. Preparing them emotionally for the challenges of this work. We don’t just dive into the hard cold facts. They prepare for what they are about to learn about themselves, their past, and their beliefs.

I tell them, “There’s a reason you are where you are. There’s a reason why you have money – or you don’t. There’s a reason why you’re in debt – or not. There’s a reason that you’re earning what you’re earning and spending what you’re spending.”

Most of us have avoided looking at the truth of our financial situation. We avoid our bank statements, our bills, our credit card balances, our pay-off amounts. We avoid checking our accounts and live with the panic and anxiety of the not-knowing. We swipe our credit cards and secretly cross our fingers hoping that the purchase is authorized.

We tell ourselves little lies.
It’s no big deal.
I’m sure its fine.
I’ll deal with it later.

We avoid the details. The truth. We don’t want to know what’s really going on. We are kind of like that little two-year-old who covers her eyes and thinks she’s invisible. But, the numbers exists whether or not we’re looking.

Numbers are just numbers. They aren’t personal. They aren't judging who you are - and neither am I.

I don't care how well-behaved you’ve been, how smart, stupid, naughty or kind you’ve been. I care that you find the truth. For your own sake.  

I've done it. My clients have done it. And now it's time for you to do it. 

This post is part of my ongoing book project. I'm posting parts of chapters and would love to have your feedback, questions, insights, comments, etc. 'Like' it, share it, or tell me why you hate it. Stay tuned for the follow up to this: "Common Beliefs That Justify Avoiding the Truth" will post next week.

What We Really Want

  

We say we want more money. We say we’d like to win the lottery. A better paying job, a bonus, or a raise. We say we’d like our stocks to go up, or our house to sell. More clients,  better investments or passive income.  We say we’d like a windfall, or a book deal.

I used to say things like that, too. I used to say that I wanted more money, more clients, a better house, better car, more vacations and more clothes. 

But now I know that this isn't what I really want. (Except for the clothes, of course... I still want those.)

What I really want is the freedom that I think the lottery would give me.
The security from the better job.
The pride from the bonus.
The confidence from the raise.
The safety of higher stocks.
The independence of selling the house.
The stability of more clients.
The ease of passive income.
The relaxation of the windfall.
The honor of a book deal.

Ok... and... (sigh) what I really want is how I think those clothes are going to make me feel. (Cashmere does feel good. Trust.)

What we really want is to feel.
Something.

And we use the idea of money as a reason to feel that emotion.

We spend huge chunks of our lives waiting for these events to happen. For circumstances to change. For the windfall to arrive at our doorstep.

The problem with this strategy is that we’re not in charge of how the universe operates. Believe me… I’ve tried – and it doesn’t seem to listen to my rules.

We aren’t in charge of where the winning ticket is purchased.
We can’t climb inside the boss’s head and make her offer us a better job.
We don’t have access to other people’s checking accounts.
We can’t make the stock market behave.
Or force people to buy our house.
We can’t command a client to sign up with us.
Or coerce our investments to pay us what we want.
And, we can’t snap our fingers and have a windfall arrive on our doorstep.

Basically, if we are waiting for the stars to align, so that we have more money, so that we can feel better…

We are screwed.

So, I’m suggesting an easier solution.

What we really want is a feeling. Honestly, we just want to feel better.

Feelings are created in response to our thoughts.

The reason why the lottery, the job, the raise, the bonus, the windfall ‘feels’ better is because we would think better. When we think better thoughts, we feel better.

Security, freedom, peace, confidence, etc. are all feelings that we experience in our bodies. (Cashmere is a feeling we feel on our bodies... but I digress.) Each one of those feelings is a response to specific thoughts that we believe.

If we want to feel secure – we need to believe secure thoughts. We need to believe that we are safe. The money doesn’t make us safe – our thoughts about the money make us safe.

We have the power to feel everything that we want.
Right now.

Without even winning the lottery.

We can feel secure. We can feel free. We can feel peace. We can feel confident.
And nothing even has to change, except for our mind.

Not in a woo-woo way. Not in a Yoda-Jedi-Master kind of way. We aren’t talking about making things levitate or appear out of nothing.

This is a very literal and real approach to getting what you want.

Realize the feeling you’re looking for.
Find a thought to believe that creates that feeling.

If you want to feel secure, find evidence of safety around you. Know that you are only ever as secure as you believe you are. True security is the belief of safety.  Knowing that no matter what happens – you will always be OK.

If you want to feel free, find evidence of freedom in your life. Search for it. Free yourself from your mental prison and you will experience true freedom.

Most of the work I do with my clients is the tedious work of finding and proving new thoughts. Finding beliefs that create suffering and changing them to beliefs that feel better. We cut out the middleman. We skip the lottery, the raise, the money and we find peace now. We find freedom now.

It takes practice. It takes discipline.

And it works.

Where Money Problems Start

 

Whether we want to earn more, or spend less, or get out of debt, or save more, or worry less. If we want to have a better relationship with money, there’s only one thing we need to do to create lasting change.

Change our mind.

It’s not more complicated than that. We don’t have to understand investments, banking, real estate, business, dividends, stocks, ROI’s, percentages, budgets, spreadsheets, or exchange rates. We only need to understand the way our mind works.

And, by the way… that’s a big ‘only.’

Money is a neutral thing. It can be proven to exist or not exist. It’s a fact.  It’s a number. It can be a number on paper. It can be a number on your computer screen. It can be a number on a receipt.  It can be a number on a dollar bill in your wallet.

This money, this number, doesn’t hold any power on its own. It has no emotional charge. It can’t create pain and it can’t create pleasure. It’s just a number. The only power it has is the power we give it. And we give it power through our stories.

And, boy-oh-boy, can we tell a good story about these numbers. We tell stories about not having enough of these numbers. We tell stories about how these numbers never stay with us. We tell stories saying how hard we work for these numbers. How difficult these numbers are. How painful these numbers are. We tell stories that we aren’t given enough of these numbers. That other people are given more of these numbers. If we only had more of these numbers we would feel better. Happier. Smarter. Safer. Hell, even sexier.

These stories roll around in our head day and night and they hold a lot of power over our bodies, our actions and our lives.  When we believe a stressful story, our brain tells our body to feel stress. This has nothing to do with the validity of the story. Whether our story is fiction or truth. Our bodies are servants to our minds.  Our bodies respond with emotion. Stress, anxiety, overwhelm, worry, anger, hopelessness, fear, despair or joy, excitement, optimism, hope. Our bodies respond to the stories that we tell ourselves.

While we are feeling these emotions we live our lives.

These feelings determine the way we act, and they color the way we do what we do. With these feelings, we are constantly doing things.

Buying things.
Selling things.
Building things.
Destroying things.
Avoiding things.
Pretending things.
Drinking things.
Eating things.
Watching things.
Ignoring things.

And, these ‘doings’ add up to significant results. These actions can create results of success or failure, of wealth or poverty, of savings or debt, of connection or disconnection. These actions can make us richer. They can also make us poorer.

If you look around your life and do not like the results you see. If you’d like to have more money, or less debt, or a better job, or a higher salary, or more money in savings:

You have to change your thinking.

That’s where I come in. I help with that big “only” of changing your mind. Changing your mind takes practice. Most of us were never taught how to think. We weren’t taught that our thinking leads to every result in our life. We weren’t taught what to do with a negative thought or a negative feeling. We weren’t taught to change our mind when we can’t change our circumstances. We weren’t taught that we have the choice to feel better – no matter what is happening around us.

These are skills to learn, understand, and practice. 

You can learn how to change your mind. You can change those old programs that you’ve been running in the back ground of your financial life; and you can permanently change the way you think about money.

I've seen hundreds of my clients change their thinking, and I've seen the life changing results from their work. I've done this work, and continue to do this work, and have lived the results myself.

They've done it. I've done it. And I know you can too.

Join us.

If you’d like to learn more about Self Coaching - please click here.

Built for Days Like This

It was still dark outside. Customers had lined up with their lawn chairs and sleeping bags. Some had been there all night. The store had not opened yet, but the excitement buzzed around us. We were in the storeroom, receiving last minute training, watching videos from around the world showing our fellow employees, people just like us, handling a day like today.

My brilliant manager looked each one of us in the eye - and said:

Our store was built for days like this.

She explained to us that our store wasn't built for the average Tuesday afternoon, where we had one very friendly customer who knew exactly what they needed and just handed over their credit card to make a simple purchase.

Our store was built for days like today. Lines out the doors. Frustrated customers. Excited customers. Disappointed customers. Equipment not working. Employees going too slow. Or too fast. This was the day that our store was built for. And this is the job we signed up for.

I recently shared this story with our Rowdies - and they were off and running with this idea. What started as a story about an inspiring store manager has become a mantra for the Rowdified.

In case you don't know about the Rowdies yet, let me fill you in. We are people who question our thoughts. Who have the courage to create change. We do not tolerate unnecessary suffering. We hold ourselves responsible for our own beliefs, emotions and actions. We deliberately create a life that we want.

To put it simply: We do happy. As a verb. 

And we were built for days like this.

Not to say that we don't wish for those easy-breezy Tuesday afternoons where everything-just-goes-perfectly. Of course we all want that.

But we know we were built for way more than that.

We were built for days like this.

Days where we are challenged. Days where our dogs are sick. Our kids are upset. Our relationships fall apart. Our feelings get hurt. Days where we end up alone. Or with others.

We were built for days like this.

Days where communication breaks down. Where fingers are pointed. Where love is lost. Or found.

We were built for days like this.

Days where we want to shop, eat, drink or do anything other than just be in our own skin. Where we want to run, or cover our eyes, or pretend.

We were built for days like this.

We were built to be strong. To weather the storms. To love. To hope. To find the truth. And to have the courage to live it.

And whether you are a Rowdy or not... This is the job that we all signed up for.

Now...

Go live the life you were built for.