In this post we’ll talk about:
- How to maintain momentum during the weight loss stages
- Why part of the process of getting out of debt has to suck enough to make you mad
- How to evaluate whether certain budget items are more important than your overall financial goals
- What automatic transfers are and how they are a game changer for any budget
As life coaches, we often reflect on the lessons and takeaways we have along with our clients each session and each week. Some things really stand out bigger than others. We love sharing our lessons from the sessions with you because you might find them helpful and valuable. We also think it helps you to understand a little more about life coaching. Life coaching is awesome whether you are looking to improve your health, your finances, your relationships, your home, your time management or your organization. So, when we share about these types of sessions, we hope it reduces the mystery about life coaching while also helping you to feel not-so-alone with the challenges you’re facing-because others are too! See which of these resonates with you and tell us about it!
Okay, so the first lesson we want to talk about this week is to:
Take the time to notice and reflect on the changes that are taking place as a result of the work you’ve been doing.
All too often we wait to ACHIEVE a goal to notice the impact the work is having on us and our lives. Worse yet, we often skip right over any win we do achieve and move right on to the next goal we think we want to accomplish instead of celebrating our hard work!
So, if you’ve been working on a goal, stop right now and reflect about any changes you’ve seen in your life.
One of our clients has been working on changing her eating and workout habits. She’s lost over 20 pounds and she’s doing great. Here are some of the changes she’s noticed recently:
- She packed dinner for when she went shopping instead of eating out. In her words, “Who does that?” She was proud of herself for thinking about doing it and then ACTUALLY doing it.
- She didn’t want to eat out ALL meals on her birthday. She typically would’ve eaten out breakfast, lunch and dinner. But now she’s found that 1. eating out has some ouchy results and 2. food isn’t the only way she has fun or celebrates.
- She was able to say no to junk food at a cookout. There was an unexpected cookout with all the typical fun things including chips and brownies. She was not tempted and was able to say no and stick to the food she had prepared for herself. As you can imagine, this was MUCH different than anything she would’ve previously done. Again, she was proud!
- As she was approaching her birthday and doing some shopping she was surpised when she needed a size small in a dress. She tried it on and it fit! She is also down to a size 8 in jeans!
Taking time to notice these things and cement them in your brain as part of your new identity is key to maintaining the results and the motivation to keep going.
Related: 3 Super Specific Ways to Maintain Momentum with Your Goals So You Actually Achieve Them This Year
Another fun revelation we recently told a client is that it has to suck.
She’d been spreading her money thin by trying to pay a little more than the minimums on all of her debts to “help with interest.” She was throwing a little here or there thinking she was “accomplishing” something. However, as you can imagine, none of those debts were going down very fast at all.
That’s because you really need to focus your money and your energy one one thing at a time. It will help you go further faster.
She didn’t exactly love it when we advised her to pay all minimum payments except on the one she was going to pay off first. However, when she did, she had a much bigger amount to hurl (snowball) at that first debt and was soon one payment down completely.
Related: 9 reasons why you should cut up your credit cards & divorce them forever
Before that win though, we advised her that it had to hurt. It has to suck. Yes, it hurt to see the numbers not going down because she was only paying the minimum payments. Some even possibly went up because the interest rates were ridiculous. That’s the hard part. But it does help you to get mad enough at it and want to get rid of it!
The process works but it might suck for a little while before it gets better.
By the way, she’s down from 10 to only 3 debts which include two vehicles. Yes, the process works.
Another recent lesson we’ve learned along with our clients is that:
You might not really need what you think you need.
We’ve talked about this amazing client before but it’s worth repeating. After our first session, we couldn’t get ahold of her anymore. We wondered if she’d ghosted us. Did the session go that poorly?
Eventually, she responded in an email letting us know she had cancelled her cell phone so that she could save money and power through getting out of debt and saving money. In other words, she gave up something so she could get something bigger: her goals.
This bring us to the larger point. Do you need a cell phone or whatever else you *think* you need? There may be some things in your life that you’ve long assumed you need. But it might be worth carefully considering things like cell phones, super high internet, cable, subscriptions, memberships and more.
One way to go about this is to look over your recent bills and purchases. Define each one as a need vs. want. Then convince yourself that each item is indeed a need or a want based on our example of our client who cancelled her cell phone.
What she REALLY wanted was financial freedom. What she REALLY needed was to be able to quit her soul-crushing job.
Remember, often in life you’ll be required to make short term sacrifices for the long term gain. And it’ll be totally worth it.
Automatic transfers are a game changer.
If you want financial freedom and one less thing on your to-do list, you’re going to want to implement automatic transfers.
Recently during a session we were going over a client’s budget. As she went through her bills account, accounting for everything having been paid, she breezily said, “And all the automatic transfers went through.”
What did she mean? Well, most of her budget happens automatically. Income gets deposited in the bills account. The bills all come out automatically. And her most recent addition to that awesomeness was that her grocery, gas, homeschool & spending money all get transfered over to the right account every single paycheck-without her lifting a finger!
That means every time she needs to go get groceries or gas, the money is sitting right there.
That means every paycheck she just watches things happen, she doesn’t have to stress or spend time doing it. It’s amazing!
This is especially beautiful because this client didn’t particularly consider herself good with money or administrative tasks. It’s been a game changer for her.
A side bonus is she’s also stop spending so much money AND she’s stopped being obsessed / stressed about money because there is always money and there’s always money where it is supposed to be.
Alrighty, that’s it for our lessons from the sessions today. We hope you enjoyed them and got something out of it!
Ideal Balance is The Life Coaching Studio in Navarre, Florida that focuses on Fitness, Family & Finance. We help women get unstuck and level up their lives. We know you don’t need more information. You just need to take action. So, we make doing uncomplicated and doable. We also know that none of us have brain calories to spare for the little things in life that make the biggest difference. That’s why we help women install systems that make things like healthy eating, home organization and budgeting easy and automatic. Fill out the information below if you’re interested in our help and we will contact you.
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