When it comes to untangling our myriad of personal money knots, it seems to me there is an essential concept that is missing. It’s about putting first things first.
Do you have some challenges with money? Around 97{d17d1c7cbc79c3528c645ea839b9b4dcb45f699f05bb148e76e09641ba980643} of us do. There are bunches and bunches of problems people have with money. Although there are many, many variations, it mostly it comes down to:
- Not having as much as we want.
- Not knowing how to manage it.
- Spending more that we make.
In other words we realize that something isn’t working for us around money. And whatever we have decided the missing piece is, we then seek to ‘fix’ it directly. We try to make more. We take a class on budgeting. We set rules around spending. All that sounds like a great idea… and yet, it doesn’t work, does it?
It’s actually pointing to a much bigger issue, one that I discovered long ago in ‘Corporate Land’. In my day as a Controller/CFO, the ‘rule’ was to not bring up a problem unless you had a solution. Sounds good, but there is a big trap in there.
The trap is that you end up ‘fixing’ things that aren’t the actual problem, and thus actually creating more problems.
Huh? Well in business the fix is usually a form or a procedure, and if it doesn’t address the real underlying issue, it just makes for more bureaucracy and fiddly irritation, right? I finally learned that the longer process of actually discussing the issue came up with much more effective solutions!
So let’s go visit a hypothetical married couple and see what’s happening in the money tangle of their marriage. For grins lets say that he keeps a budget to the penny and is watching money all the time, and that she never looks at it and spends it on things that make her feel good. They fit the criteria we had above — not having enough, not managing it well, and spending too much. I’m guessing you wouldn’t be surprised to hear that talking about money is less than fun for them? It’s pretty messy and challenging, right?
So what solutions do they try? My guess is all sorts of things that are based on changing the behavior without actually understanding what caused it in the first place. They get into a push-me/pull-you power game that doesn’t take into consideration the ‘Why’ under the behavior.
And yes, I’m back to my concept that we all have 5-year-olds running our money:
- Because it is the most taboo topic on the planet
- Because no one talks about how to actually deal with it
- Because we make up ways to manage it that make sense to our little kid brain
- Because we then leave the little kid part of us in charge so we don’t have to deal with it
And so I come back to ‘First Things First’. No budget or plan will work until you understand what your little kid part decided about money. No lecture or personal rant from yourself or your spouse will help until you dig deep and find out what you made up about money.
By what you ‘made up’ I mean conclusions that you came to, most likely as a child, about money. Let me give you some actual examples of conclusions clients have shared with me:
- Money ruins families
- Money was the only way my family showed affection
- Money was the only criteria for success in my family
- My family believed money was bad and evil
Are there all sorts of wonderful ways to manage and handle your money more effectively? Absolutely! I have, use, and share a bunch of them—and they don’t help at all until you’ve untangled the underlying knot. Until you’ve addressed the likely ineffective thinking you’ve been operating under for years.
Please give yourself the gift of addressing first things first before you leap into the action steps! The results will be much more effective, truly!
Ka-ching
Shell Tain, The Untangler
If you’d like some help in untangling that really old hidden money knot in your head, just give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.