Why Self-Discovery Can Help you Break Repeated Cycles
First and foremost let me just be real. Organizing my finances has been a struggle for me since the dawn of time. Ever since I was a youngin I seen the hardships that my mother faced trying to care for us. When I got old enough to start babysitting to earn a little money here and there I could hold on to it for a minute but then I would soon have to share it to help with the family. It wasn’t much but ten or twenty dollars can help when you have zero. I remember there being such a frustration around money and always being told I couldn’t do an activity at school because there was no money, so eventually I just stopped asking.
The lack of resources or money created an embedded effect that showed up later in my life. We were always robbing Peter to pay Paul which is a pattern I picked up and later landed me in Jail. Luckily the 3 times that happened… Yes 3 time (hangs head) I was able to pay the bad check and be released immediately. I could spend money easily on others but when it comes to me I have a hard time spending money on myself. I never learned to properly “budget” if that is such a thing and I never looked at money as a “value” or as a “positive resource” until I got sick and tired being sick and tired.
Once I got to that point I started researching the web, watching youtube videos and having discussions. I also started listening to Suzie Orman and Dave Ramsey. I am literally one of those people that will get a good bonus check and it’s gone before the end of the month or by the next month because I am catching up on bills or spending it on stupid stuff. I AM SO OVER IT!
The blessing is that there is a tone of research that has gone into understanding the biological mindset, the genetic makeup and the social and social economic insights regarding why finances can be more of a hardship to some than others.
Through these studies, thought leaders and authors I have learned I have to change my relationship with money, how I connect with it and change the way I value it. It has been a difficult and slow process but I am grateful to have a better understanding of it. I have also learned how my past experience and what has been embedded in me unintentionally has affected the way I value money and understand the hardship that I face when spending money on myself. I regrettable have transmuted some of these beliefs to my young men and I am working to correct that now.
I am also working to change this cycle of ongoing struggle and hardship with money with never having enough. Some things are preventable and somethings are not preventable but there is always an option to refine and save.
One of the lessons that I have learned from Dave Ramsey, Suzie Orman, and Kate Northrup is that you have to know your numbers. You have to know where you stand. The other thing that I learned was from Bishop Td Jakes is that you have it, you just may have to move something things around or eliminate it and that giving is a big component of “sowing.”
I am still working to break the repeated cycle of lack. My bank account is constantly negative and I give money and spend money when I should either be saying no or asking myself is this something I value. I am also working to build my income. That is the other thing I learned is that when you are working for someone else you will never be-able to reach your full income potential because you are capped or limited to your earning potential (and forgive me because I forgot who I learned that from but it is certainly good advice).
With knowing all of the information I have learned, it is now time to regroup and put it together. I have to know my numbers, use my vision statement that I created when taking a webinar for Smart Cookies, create a plan to pull myself out of this state of lack, understand what I truly value and don’t, say no and more importantly, stay focused!!!!
Hope this has helped someone know that if you are dealing with a similar struggle you are not alone.
Ri Wyatt
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