Nancy: The decisions that you make move you toward your future. Every single choice you make, every single action you take, serves your vision or sabotages it. So right here, with this one powerful financial decision, the choice you make determines the future you live into.
Nancy: Welcome to the Nancy Levin Show. I’m Nancy Levin, Founder of Levin Life Coach Academy, best-selling author, master coach, and your host. I help overachieving people pleasers set boundaries that stick and own self-worth, anchored in empowered action, so you can feel free. Plus, if you’re an aspiring or current coach, you are in the right place. Join me each week for coaching and compelling conversations designed to support you in the spotlight, as you take center stage of your own life. Let’s dive in.
Nancy: So here we are a couple of weeks into 2023, and as part of Levin Life Coach Academy, I’m currently training my coaches, my alumni in their advanced training program. I’m training them and certifying them in worthy coaching.
And one of the steps in particular had me think. you listening, may benefit from implementing this right here at the start of the new year. So today we’re going to be looking at making one powerful financial decision. And here’s the thing, making one powerful choice activates other choices. It’s kind of like that first domino that impacts all the rest.
And if you make a choice in the direction of your vision, in the direction you wanna go, in the direction of your financial health, you activate the dominoes to all go in that direction. So one powerful financial decision, big or small, can positively shift your relationship with money and support you in propelling yourself forward.
And one of the concepts we’re going to be looking at today is pattern interruption. So in other words, doing something other than what you usually do, something that stretches you at least a little. And what I know from a decade of coaching clients is there tend to be five particular categories of these powerful decisions of these pattern interrupts that apply to most people.
Now, certainly there are endless possibilities beyond the categories I’m gonna share with you, but I will invite you to explore five particular categories with me and in a moment after I name them, I’ll go through each one. So first, hiring someone, second, spending money, third, saving money, fourth, making money, and fifth, handling money better.
So, we wanna look at, based on your level of comfort and discomfort and capacity, some of you might be willing to take a bigger risk and others may not feel comfortable taking such a bold move. However, what I invite you to do is something that is at least a stretch for you.
So, if we look at Powerful Decision category number one, hire someone to help you.
And here’s the thing, you can take advantage of getting support. Especially when you don’t have all the information you might need. So, you might wanna hire a financial consultant, you might want to hire a virtual assistant. You might want to hire someone to do cleaning or gardening or cook.
Whatever it may be, this might be the very powerful financial decision and pattern interrupt that you need to implement to support you. If they’re within your budget, ultimately, you can consider them an investment for a more abundant future. When I hire someone, I look at it as buying back my own time.
Powerful Decision number two is to spend some money.
So if you are naturally a spender, you can skip over this category. This particular pattern interrupt is really for those who have been known to hoard for fear of going without, and I will let you know that this was absolutely me. The defining feature of this category is really only to spend money that you have.
This is not about spending beyond your means. So, I’m gonna share a personal story here with you. One of the most powerful financial decisions I ever made was essentially to buy my way out of some of the negative emotion that came with my really shitty divorce settlement. When it came time to pay the mortgage on the condo that my ex-husband was living in, and that came once a month for three years.
I was filled with emotion that I subjected myself to feeling every month. Two years into the process, my sister suggested I pay the rest of the payments in one lump sum, and that way I wouldn’t have to continue monthly living these emotions. And on one hand, I hadn’t thought of this before, and I really wondered why.
And on the other hand, I had 10 more payments to make, which was no small chunk of change, and I had the money in the bank. Now this kind of takes us even back to the beginning of what it looks like when you might hoard cash. I didn’t wanna invest in anything because I felt so vulnerable. I felt like the stock market was gambling.
And so I had a bunch of money sitting in a basically no interest earning savings account. And the financial advisor I hired at the time told me that was like planting frozen peas, expecting them to grow. I love that. It really helped me. So what I realized is that if I paid it off in one fell swoop, I would be coming back to peace of mind.
And so I had to weigh it and there was actually no penalty even in paying it all off at once. And I can tell you, I felt so free after that. So if you’re accustomed to spending money on others, or if you are accustomed to hoarding money and not spending it at all, I encourage you to look at what pattern interrupt, what powerful choice you can make to support you moving in a healthier direction. Emotionally, physically, in all the ways.
Powerful Decision number three is to save some money.
So if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, if you have more debt than you’d like, if you know money burns a hole in your pocket, if you get money and immediately wanna get it out, get it away from you. This one’s for you.
The simplest financial decision here is to quote unquote, buy your way into a retirement account or a savings account and paying into it each month or each week. Treat it like a purchase you’re making or a regular bill you’re paying and imagine what that savings might allow in your future.
You can start this as small as you want. You can start this with $10 a week that you’re gonna save. It will add up over time. What really is happening though, regardless of how much money you’re saving, is that the simple act of changing your behavior, even a little bit, opens up energy around your finances. So you might find that you become more abundant more quickly than you anticipated, and part of this is really allowing for the increase.
If you truly don’t believe you can save any money, look at areas where you might be overspending. You can simplify your lifestyle a bit, perhaps, and it might actually feel liberating. One of the ways you can work with this particular pattern interrupt is what I like to refer to as found money. So, you can call your credit card companies and ask them to lower your interest rates or transfer them to lower interest cards, return items that you don’t need or want.
Don’t keep something you won’t use just because it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable to get your money back. Maybe you have an unused gift card stuck away in your drawer. Make use of them to purchase gifts that would otherwise have cost you precious money. Here’s a big one, especially for my coaches and my entrepreneurs and independent contractors.
Bill right away for your services rendered. Do you have any outstanding bills that haven’t been paid to you? Are you following up on invoices? Check if there is any money owed to you. That can be from clients, from people who perhaps borrowed from you. And make sure you don’t have any unclaimed funds waiting for you from the government.
Look through your things, see if there are items you don’t need. Can you sell them on eBay or Craigslist or Facebook or have a yard sale or. There’s a really great organization called Thread Up, where you can fill a bag full of your clothes and they will sort through them and send you money. Check if you’re overpaying for services like utilities, or telephone, or cable, or internet, or other things.
Are there companies with better deals? Do you have any automatic debts and memberships that automatically renew monthly or annually that you’re not paying attention to? Perhaps a gym membership, perhaps Netflix, perhaps. I mean, there are so many things we get monthly charged for, annually charged for, that we’re not always paying attention to.
And are you just letting them accrue without deciding if you really need the product or service, and if you’re really even using it. So if you’re not using it, it’s time to lose it.
Powerful Decision number four is to make some money.
So this could be in relationship to perhaps you’re in a partnership and your partner is the one who is supporting you financially, or a parent, or even if you have an inheritance.
I mean, here’s what I wanna tell you. I have coached hundreds of people through worthy coaching. And one of the things I am absolutely clear on is everyone has issues around money, whether you have it or whether you don’t. Whether you’re independently wealthy and never have to work another day in your life, or if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, every single person has issues around money.
So, in terms of making money, looking at, perhaps you want to take a course to enhance your skills. Perhaps you want to create something and sell it. Perhaps you want to build a side hustle while you are working another job. There are ways to create for yourself, revenue streams that can support you and that can allow for you to have some of your own money.
And the Powerful Decision number five is handling your money better.
And so part of this is really looking at how you’ve been avoiding your finances. Handling your money better can even begin with opening up your bank statements or looking online at your balance, making sure that everything is reconciled and accounted for.
You might want to look at paying bills as soon as they come in, paying off your credit cards every month, paying down your debt. Keeping track of what you spend each day and how you spend it. Making a commitment to no longer shop as a way of avoiding your feelings. Give up your excuses for spending on things that aren’t important.
So, you can take a few moments here to consider these five categories that I mentioned. These ways that you can create a pattern interrupt for yourself. looking at hiring someone, spending money, saving money, making money, handling money better. What is one powerful financial decision, one choice you could make in one of these categories that will set you up for success this year?
And what do you need to put into place? so that you create a structure for yourself.
You know, again, I’ll give you a few examples and you can start thinking about your own. So perhaps if you’re going to go with hiring someone to help you, it could be hiring someone to clean once a week or once a month.
Spending some money: Spend $1,000 from your savings account on a vacation.
Saving money: Commit to saving a hundred dollars a month in a high interest savings account.
Making some money: Take an online course in website design.
Handle money better: Invest in software to keep track of bank and credit card accounts.
So again, it doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. It just needs to be something that you can choose to do. That is a pattern interrupt that is different from what you usually do. Notice what possible choices have you feel excited? Which ones have you feel empowered? Which choice will serve your future vision rather than your old beliefs?
The decisions that you make move you toward your future. Every single choice you make, every single action you take serves your vision or sabotages it. So right here. With this one powerful financial decision, the choice you make determines the future you live into. If you want to make a change around your finances, a place to begin is to make a different choice.
A different choice will create a new outcome. Perhaps even an outcome that you did not know was possible or available to you. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and I will be back again next week.
Thanks so much for joining me today. I invite you to head on over to nancylevin.com to check out all the goodies I have there for you. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a rating and a review. I’ll meet you back here next week.