What do you do when you get restless and feel you want to eat dinner out, or buy something and you just know you shouldn’t? Shatter Patterns.
You’ve built a strong financial plan that required short term sacrifice and you have been making excellent progress.
How do you keep yourself on track when you feel like you need to be free?
The feelings can be quite strong, you’ve cut back on everything and have been very disciplined. You are seeing the signs of progress against your financial goals; you are benefiting from the feeling of accomplishment.
That silly credit card is sitting there smiling at you and you know you ‘have room’. It’s a long weekend coming up and a nice meal out and drinks with friends would certainly be nice. Deserved even.
These feelings are going to be a challenge to deal with. The temptation to splurge will be strong and the more you attempt to put it off the more it nags at you.
You also know deep inside that the credit problem you are dealing with won’t go away if you spend. You won’t reach that financially free state as soon if you break your plan.
In goal planning it is easy to miss important items that make us feel fulfilled, it’s also easy to believe we can do without all the perks we enjoyed while we got into debt. These become much more challenging when the grind of making the necessary changes start to impact your former habits.
A few items to consider:
- Have you planned ways to reward yourself for meeting milestones and achievements?
- Have you cut yourself off from support and activities that maintain your wellbeing?
- What is the emotional need that you are trying to meet by buying that must have item today?
While you are feeling this burning need to step out and spend take a deep breath and think about what you really need. Are you needing social activity? Social support is a critical element in our mental health, even if your financial plans won’t allow for expensive meals and liquor out don’t give up the social aspect of your life. Get creative, invite friends over for potluck, replace the usual dinner and drinks with a walk in the park. Be prepared to share your new priorities with your friends and remember goals spoken to others become goals supported by others. Find new and inexpensive ways to enjoy time with people who are important to you. Pack a picnic and go to the park.
Is your brains need for a dopamine rush about to sidetrack you? Are you punishing yourself inside for the debt problem you are working through? Stop. Say it to yourself, stop. I will not punish myself for placing myself in this current situation. I will learn from it and make the changes necessary to ensure it doesn’t occur again. I accept this challenge and step forward with courage.
Break the pattern. Break the habit by focusing on your new desired future.
Habits are hard to break. These cravings and needs could be caused by the discomfort we feel when we take action to break our old habits and replace them with new ones. If you feel this is true call it what it is, bring it to your awareness and have a look at your goals and/or vision board. Imagine the future you are working toward and be kind to yourself as you work through creating this new future. There may be things happening chemically inside your body that you are not aware of that are driving these feelings.
Act, give yourself a challenge, if you find a way to generate a little extra cash reward yourself with a portion of it and go out. Do you have any unused items around that you may be able to generate some quick cash with by selling? Determine how much you will spend in advance, set boundaries and have fun creating new ways to set yourself free.
The dopamine rush you get from successfully generating cash and rewarding yourself might be greater than what you would experience after a few drinks and a swipe of the card. The rush you get from learning a new habit and rewarding yourself later will give to you repeatedly. The short-term rush associated with swiping that card again will only last until your next bill arrives.
Choose the better future and live in a little discomfort.
There is opportunity and learning in this discomfort. This choice is all yours.
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