( reading time: 4 min 24 sec )
How many of us have tried budgeting that works for others but doesn’t work for us? Sometimes, the concept of budgeting feels like the fastest way to anxiety.
Without the math, mindsets have no foundation to build on. A different plan is not the same thing as a different mindset. Without a transformed perspective, familiarity is what our brain moves back to. We must learn the difference between a desired outcome and reshaping our thinking.
We will look at this from a couple of perspectives because that is also helpful when shifting our thinking. We have two challenges. The first is to build hope, and the second is to reduce pessimism.
Why are mindsets more effective than planned objectives?
In the introduction, we mentioned familiarity as a powerful influence in all our thinking. While researching this article, I found an article in Psychology Today on change regarding diets, Why We Resist Change | Psychology Today, which focused on inertia. While that article speaks to the weight loss struggle, it parallels financial change. Our clients at Budgeting Today have usually wrestled with inertia more than once, trying to overcome familiar routines.
Our minds resist change, so creating a budget when we are not used to budgeting comes with predictable challenges. We tend to feel the inertia of our routine working against the changes we try to make. If we are used to driving debt up month after month, eating out, it is also hard to shift away from that habit. Of course, we may all be able to think of exceptions, but the exceptions do not change the reality that this is typically true.
In our personal lives and with coaching, we have found that the familiar has inertial solid persistence. Budgets are plans, pure and simple. Plans don’t have as much influence over our minds as we wish they did. When plans go against our routine, the solution we look to is willpower. Mind over former routines is usually less effective over time. Routine has a fox-like craftiness to work against our willpower.
Why does willpower fail us? Do we need character? That is not the main challenge. We have seen many people who show character in many ways but still need help to get started and maintain good budgeting practices. When people have a mindset shift, the amount of character required is minor compared to changing practices when the old mindset still rules.
Example: The Crisis Budgeter
What happens when people come to us in crisis and need to budget well? In a crisis, we have noted that people have a temporary mindset shift. The situation drives fear, perhaps a panic level of urgency, in our minds. When the crisis has passed, and the budget is stable, the old familiar routines and mindsets seem determined to re-assert themselves in the lives of the budgeter.
Is it that we forgot the anxiety and overwhelm we just went through? The issue is what we thought was a desire to change our financial practices was present, but it was riding on the back of our desire to resolve more immediate issues. When the most emotional problems disappeared, the lesser desire to change was left to battle against the familiar routines on its own. Our routines have the power of inertia. They have also been winning against the desire to change for years; they know how to bring us back in control.
Winning after the crisis
After the crisis, the desire to change has a choice to make. Will the reality of the previous situation be excused or embraced? This is where we look at another mind game we play against ourselves: the battle of confirmation bias. It has been said that if you think you can or not, you are right. That is partly true. If it is possible, and you think you can, and you engage, you can. If you do not try, it doesn’t matter why you didn’t try. It doesn’t happen.
The questions with budgeting are as follows: Does this approach to budgeting work? Yes? Does it work for people like me? Yes? Does it work in my situation? Yes? Now, we are down to a decision. Will I take the path that favors my future, or will we put it off till tomorrow? You know, eat, drink, and be merry. Tomorrow we shall budget!
If our resolve is lacking, we must consider and validate what is real. It needs to answer what is true. One of the things that is good to discover is why we resist the truth. What do we have to give up to change our practice? Viktor Frankl taught what he called Logos Therapy. He suggested asking ourselves what the worst thing could happen if the thing we want or the thing we fear happened. His approach is more powerful at overcoming toxic thinking than willpower.
Tortoise Traction
Lastly, for those who have not heard of The Tortoise and the Hare, this story beautifully illustrates how to progressively overcome the power of inertia, routine, and confirmation bias. Most of us would like an easy, quick fix to life’s challenges and woes. We call this “tortoise traction”.
Tortoise traction: routine progress
The tortoise chips away at routine, with more minor victories that help us see farther down the path. As we grow in vision, proving what we thought was impossible, we are doing, and we see that we are growing; our hope and vision grow with the reeducation of our minds. We don’t always need massive discipline when the compound interest of practice and learning shifts our mindsets.
When we take a big jump and fail, it causes us to doubt. When we try and fail but learn, learning is a companion to progress. It is another win that guides us to make sure we get all the progress in the future. This is a form of losing we file in the win column of our ledgers.
Suppose we need help to embrace the losses or learn from them. It is a season to get a friend or a coach to join us on the journey. Getting help with finances is like getting help with working out. Some of us do well on our own, others find a friend, and others maximize our effort with the assistance of a personal trainer. A good budgeting coach is like a good personal trainer. The point we are making is help is available in different forms. Choose the one that helps you turn your frustration into your history. Remove it from your future and influence your future with better solutions starting today.
