In today’s episode, I’m joining my client, Dielle Charon, on her podcast, The WOC Sales Show, for a candid conversation about transforming your relationship with money and business. Dielle is a coach specializing in sales, business, and money mindset. Together, we explore the common struggles many of our clients and listeners face—such as overcoming shame, building awareness, and breaking old financial habits.
We created a powerful 5-step framework designed to shift behavior and mindset. Listen as we walk you through each step of the framework for changing a behavior, by sharing real-life business and money examples from our own experiences and client stories. From clarifying your goals to releasing shame and tracking your progress, we cover the practical tools and strategies you need to improve your mindset, business, and finances.
Change may be challenging, but with these actionable steps, you can confidently ditch those bad habits or behaviors that aren’t serving you and set yourself up for lasting success. Tune in for a thought-provoking and motivating discussion!
Learn more about the five stages of changing a behavior…
- [03:09] Acknowledging that change is hard
- [07:00] Overview of the framework for changing a behavior
- [09:00] Stage 1: You aren’t aware of the behavior
- [16:02] Stage 2: You are aware, but still do it
- [22:22] Stage 3: You are aware and starting to slow down the behavior
- [34:10] Stage 4: You no longer do it, but still dream of doing it
- [45:54] Stage 5: You no longer have the desire to do it
Tune into this episode of Money Files for a candid conversation about the difficulties of change and learn a new five-step framework to shift behavior.
If you loved this conversation about the Five Stages of Change with Dielle Charon, check out my episode Sustainable Change: Take the Next Best Step to Change How You Think and Feel About Money!
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
Transcript for “Five Stages of Change with Dielle Charon”
Intro: Hi and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. So today’s episode is actually a special episode. My business coach Dielle Charon and I are having a conversation about stages of change. And so as you tune in and listen, you are going to hear. So she’s my business coach, but you are going to hear also her personal reflection about our work together. So she’s both my business coach and she’s also my client. And so we talk through different stages of change and we talk through stages of change based off of what it looks like when you’re working on your finances, but also what it looks like when you’re working in your business. So this is an extra special one. If you are someone who is looking at changing some area of your life, not just with your money, but maybe you want to start a side hustle or maybe you actually have a business and there’s something within your business or within your finances that you’re looking to improve, I think you’re going to find this episode really powerful and as we close out the year and go into 2025, really being able to reframe how you think about your growth. So enjoy this episode.
Dielle: Hello my lovely listeners and welcome back to the podcast. I have a great goal/behavioral change/why am I not doing the thing that I know I’m supposed to do podcast for you with one of my very good friends and also coaches Keina. Hi Keina.
Keina: Hi Dielle.
Dielle: How are you?
Keina: I’m well, how are you?
Dielle: I’m doing good. Keina and I came up with this framework when she was actually coaching me. She’s been my money coach for a year and a half now. That’s crazy.
Keina: Yeah, it is. I’m rolling my eyes in the back of my head to figure out the dates, but yeah, I think it’s been, no Dielle it might be almost two years.
Dielle: That’s crazy. Keina has a lot of thoughts about me.
Keina: I’m not saying it with any judgment.
Dielle: Her face gave it away everyone. Her face gave it away.
Keina: First off, I have a condition.
Dielle: Also everyone is going to see Keina’s amazing sense of humor on this podcast as well. And so we’re going to have a ball. But it dawned on me when she was coaching me about money and coaching me about my spending. I was like, I know what Keina is saying intellectually, but for some reason I’m not doing it. I’m not doing what I know I need to do. I think with money and in business it’s such a relatable concept to be like, okay, I know that I’m supposed to post online. I know I’m supposed to do my monthly or my weekly budgeting date. I know I’m supposed to work out three to four times a week. I know I’m supposed to do all of those things, but why aren’t I doing them? And so in real time on this coaching call where she was coaching me, we created a framework that we’re talking about on the podcast now and it’s all about the five stages of actually changing a behavior, any behavior. I’m super excited to dive in. What do you think or what’s the background or context that you think people should know about this?
Keina: I would say I think change is really hard and in any area of our life, even when we were talking on the phone yesterday, we were talking about business and money. But I think it’s something that’s really applicable to any area of your life that you’re choosing to dive into change. I think most people probably listening have probably heard of Atomic Habits or read the book. I think about intellectually like you were just saying, we know these things, but being able to walk ourself through the cycle, I think will allow you to give yourself grace to actually get to the next point in whatever next milestone you have. And you are pushing towards that. But I would also offer knowing these cycles of change, if you’re backslide in any particular point, that you can identify where you are to be like, okay, no I haven’t lost everything, I’m just stuck here. I’m not going back to zero because I think from the money perspective, I think everybody’s always worried about like, oh my goodness, I’m going to go back to where I originally started. I always tell people, this is not like Monopoly. You don’t have to go back to go or whatever the little thing is on the board. So I think that’ll give some context.
Dielle: That’s very powerful. And it’s just like, wait, I’m just on a spectrum and I’m on a process. I’m not from destitute to my goal, to achieving my goal, I’m super happy, there are steps in the midDiellee. I like that.
Keina: With you just saying that, I think it comes from my education background because when I used to teach math, I learned as I got further into the math curriculum that the way kids learn is not linear, even though in the year they make you teach curriculum in a very organized way. And there’s a graphic from this math book that I had that basically is like if you think about all the concepts that a child needs to develop over their elementary school journey, that it’s almost like thinking about it like you’re in a pond and there are lily pads and what we actually need is for kids to acquire a lot of different skills. And so you have to be observing and looking for those things, which means that the process isn’t linear. So I would just add that as you’re using this to reflect, like get away from the idea that something has to be linear and look for the progress that you have made.
Dielle: Powerful, powerful. And I’ve told this mini story so much when I was quitting my job, it wasn’t like out of nowhere I learned all the skills of content creation, sales calls, managing my money to save, time management, confidence, mindset work, healing my relationship with debt. It wasn’t like I did all of those things in a checklist. It was a culmination of just submerging myself in who do I want to be? Where can I give myself grace when I need to take a month off? Where can I get back on the horse? How can I start it small and then grow my skills from there? It was a hodgepodge of things. So that’s exactly it. Yeah. Okay. So how we’re going to break down this like little framework is I told Keina, I was like, let’s pick an example, one money example and then one business example and then we’re going to go line by line on how each of the framework applies.
So first I’ll read the whole entire framework out and then we’ll talk about it within the context of that example for each one. So the five stages are, you don’t know that you’re doing a behavior and so we’re speaking specifically about a negative behavior. So you don’t know that you’re doing a behavior, that’s number one. Number two is, you are aware that you’re doing the behavior but you’re still doing it. The third one is, you are aware that you’re doing the behavior and you slow down doing it. The fourth one is you no longer are doing the behavior, but you still dream of wanting to do it. That’s me with my money in so many ways. And then the fifth stage is you no longer have the desire of that behavior. And so to even start backwards for a second, then we’ll go back at the top.
I think it’s really important to even note that to be like, the goal isn’t to stop doing something, stop doing something, stop. The goal is how can you become a person where you don’t even want to do it anymore? And I got this, one of the concepts from Brooke Castillo and she talks about being done and she talks about being complete with something and she talked about how can you be complete with something where you’ve had enough of it for a lifetime. You’ve had enough, going out with your friends and partying for a lifetime. You’ve had enough overspending for a lifetime, you’ve had enough of working in a 9 to 5 job for a lifetime. Like where can you be so complete with something where you don’t even have the desire for it? It’s kind of like the bad boyfriend where it’s like you just, it’s not that you want to get over the breakup, you don’t even want to want him anymore, like that’s actually the stage you want to get at. So I just wanted to also make that little note.
So if we were to start with you don’t know that you’re doing a behavior, my example as a sales coach, I’m going to use content. So I tell my clients all the time when they’re like, I’m working my business, I’m trying to grow my business and I’m still at ground zero, I’m still at zero, nothing’s happening. And I look at their content and I’m like, girl, you haven’t even posted in the past four weeks. And they’re like, oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t even know that I was avoiding content. I didn’t even know. What’s your example?
Keina: I would say my clients don’t look at their bank account and they don’t know what’s actually going out. Like they have an idea, I love the word fake. They have like a fake awareness of where their money is going. So I would just say like not even knowing where their money is going. I think we even talked about it in our coaching where you’re like, oh I have two Hulu subscriptions. And it’s just like this whole lack of unawareness. Yeah. Just from not looking at their accounts.
Dielle: And so some questions you can ask yourself is like, do you even know what you are doing and do you know what you’re not doing? Like, do you just have awareness over your actions before you even start to judge them? Do you just have fundamental awareness over how am I spending my time? There are so many quotes on Instagram being like, how you spend your time is how you live your life. And if you look at your calendar, would you be happy with your life or if you looked at your goals, are your goals literally in your calendar? Are they in your day? I just think that’s such a good place to start. And also to not shame yourself if you don’t have your goal because you probably didn’t even put it on the table to begin with. I was just talking to a client and she was really shaming herself for not becoming a homeowner by now, like really, really shaming herself. And I said, when did you get this goal of becoming a homeowner? She was like six months ago. I was like, when were you actually saving? Like you just had the awareness that you haven’t even been saving, so don’t beat yourself up for the years and years and years you’ve lived your life without this even being a priority.
Keina: That makes me, I mean I’m talking off my dome right now, but it makes me think about how, also questioning where your goals come from because I think comparison, especially when I think about money and it’s like, there’s a lot of shoulding, like I should be able to do these things and so we acquire these goals and I just always ask people like, is this even your goal? Like where did it come from? And you’re talking about your client with the the home goal. I’m like, yeah, but why do you want a house? And where did it pop up just six months ago that all of a sudden you want to want a house and now you’re comparing yourself to someone else? Like just really being able to ask yourself like where did this come from? Where did this goal come from and why is there this like urgency and being able I think to identify that because I think that just can calm things down for you and give you some runway to actually be able to achieve the goal. Or even ask yourself, is this the goal that I want for myself?
Dielle: I was going to say it starts with awareness.
Keina: Yeah. I was going to go back to just this first line of like, you don’t know you are doing a behavior. I think that from the money perspective, there are so many things that we do routinely and they cause leaks in our spending, like when I’m looking at clients money, I’m always looking for patterns. I don’t think that’s something that we naturally do to be like hmm, what are my financial patterns? But that’s how I identify for clients. Like oh here’s actually what’s going on. So I’ll take an example from a client that I’m working with right now and I was talking to him and I’m like, Hey, I’m actually looking at your bank account and what I notice is everyday you kind of have like this $3 to $5 charge and it’s not anything bad, but are you aware that $3 to $5 charge every single day, let’s just call it $5 to round it up, that’s $25 a week if you do it every single day and it’s a hundred dollars a month.
And just knowing like that’s you losing a hundred dollars and not even thinking about it. Is that where you want your money to be going? So I just think when you are actually analyzing your numbers, if you go to a place where you’re like actually looking at your account, just look at what do I do minDielleessly and do I want to actually do these things? If you want to spend the $5 a day, once again, not villainizing it, do it, but I think there’s so many things we spend money on and we just don’t think about it.
Dielle: Yeah. We don’t have awareness over it and we may even think like, oh it’s not a big deal. I think like that could be the thought error on why we don’t have awareness over it because we’re like, oh it’s not a big deal. How we spend our money on this particular Tuesday is not a big deal. How we spend our day if we create content or not, that’s not a big deal. It’s not really capitalizing on the daily decisions of our lives and like our goals are created from our daily decisions. I remember when I was trying to quit my job, that was one of the big breakthroughs that I had. I was like, oh I’m going to have to like put this in front of me every single day. And I think that’s also what I’ve been able to do with my spending. I was just like, I’m so much slower to make a spending decision, like recently I was going back and forth over a $500 purchase and I was like who am I going back and forth over? Because I used to just be like whatever. It doesn’t matter.
So I think too, I see this so much in sales over and over and over again. People are just so minDielleess with their sales, they’ll create the same type of content and I’m like, you’ve gotten five likes on this style of content for the past year. When are you going to change it? Or they keep doing the same type of webinar and I’m like, can we do something else? Or they’re just going on and they keep getting no after no on their sales call. And I’m like, can you get a yes? Can we change something to get a yes? And I also think it goes back to like belief, like they don’t believe that it can change. They don’t believe that’s the issue. So I think awareness is really, really good.
Dielle: Awesome. Okay. Moving to number two. You are aware that you’re doing the behavior so now you have the awareness but you still do it. And I think this is where the shame piece comes in for a lot of people. So people realize, oh I haven’t been posting content or it takes me an hour to post and I want it to take me 10 minutes. They then have awareness but then they have a ton of shame like, alright, I’m still doing this. And to broaden it up even more, I definitely have felt this way with like my workout routine. I used to go to bars three to four times a week and then I traveled a lot this summer and this fall and I’ve been completely off. So I’m like, okay, another day I didn’t go to the bar. Another day I didn’t go to bar. And then of course I’m like now, so my brain has like put so much pressure on it now I don’t even, I just want to stay in because I’m shaming myself so much. So what are your strategies for like when you know that you’re making a mistake and you’re still making it or you know you’re not doing something you’re supposed to do and you’re still doing it, how do you navigate the shame?
Keina: I would say, I mean it depends on what area of my life. But I think one of my go-to questions is to also, like you gave the reference to like thinking about the $500 expense. And if I’m thinking about it from a behavioral standpoint, like even just being able to think about like where have I slowed myself down? Like maybe I still made the same mistake but where is there progress even within the mistake? And my examples that kind of come to mind the most is like I’ve been working on my nutrition and I technically know I’m supposed to follow the plan that I wrote down for myself. But I don’t know, chocolate calls my name and it speaks out of my pantry. And so I might eat extra things and I’m aware of it, like I’m still doing the thing, but I have to give myself grace where I’m like, wow, you ate like one piece of chocolate versus eating the chocolate then going to find some ice cream and then being like, well might as well go pick up some french fries because it’s all over. And so like, where did you not spiral? And it’s like being able to observe like how I am changing in that moment. And I don’t think I can do it in the moment. It’s definitely like a reflective practice and letting myself call that a win as well. And the gold star doesn’t have to be that like you follow the play into the T, but like you can actually see a shift in the process.
Dielle: I like that. Yeah. It’s like the fact that you’re even thinking about it is progress. That’s why it’s number two, like the fact that you are thinking about it is progress. Stacy Beman, she had a podcast series about impossibility, possibility and then inevitability. In the first episode of the series and impossibility, she was like, if you believe that something is impossible, that’s actually one of the first ways to believe that it’s possible because at least it’s in your realm of awareness. And I remember listening to that like four or five years ago being like, what? Like if you don’t believe that’s the first sign of belief that blew my mind. It was so powerful. And I think that’s even here like Dielle at least you have the awareness and at least you have the desire to want to go work out. But you can’t for X, Y, Z reason.
Keina: What I say to clients is I’m like, this is like where we turn on the lights, like you have out a flashlight or you literally turned on the light switch. And I think that’s where people feel exposed is when you have that first sign of awareness. And I think that’s where the shame floods in because it’s like, well now I know and with clients it generally looks like, well Keina said that I’m supposed to be on a budget. And so they generally now are looking at things and so yeah, you feel exposed. But I think it’s letting that be okay, especially if you’re working with a coach or something, realizing like, this is the reason that I’m here. Like I’m here for this exposure and I’m here for this awareness.
Dielle: Yeah. And I think too like celebrating like at least I know my problem. That’s something I’ve been saying over the past year and a half. I’ve been saying this for everything. It’s like my little trick to make myself feel better where it’s like you know the problem but you’re not at your goal. At least you know the problem, what I’ve been saying all year is I’m grateful for awareness, I’m grateful for awareness because going back to the first step, you know what it’s like to feel lost, to feel like I have no clue what to do. Like, you know what that feels like. So what I’ve been saying to myself all the time is just be grateful for awareness. At least we know what the issue is. And it’s oftentimes when I’m coaching I’ll find out, I’m like, that’s it. That’s why your launch isn’t converting or that’s why your webinar isn’t converting.
You have this massive problem. It’s so big. Look, it’s right here. And they’re like shaming themselves like oh my god. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, we found it. It’s good. It’s kind of like the doctor where you want them to give you a diagnosis. Like you don’t want them to be like, I don’t know, scratching their head, like you want them to find diagnosis and then sure the treatment might be intense and long, but at least you’re on the right track. So I think you need to celebrate and be grateful for the awareness.
Keina: Which is easier said than done but yes.
Dielle: Extremely and to that point, a lot of people get here and they fail. Like they just stop all together. This is I think one of the main places where people stop is right here. Like they just bottom out and they completely go under. So if you can stay here and process your shame to move forward, that’s where all the magic happens. Third one is, you are aware that you’re doing the behavior and you slow down doing it. Now that I’m saying it out loud, I also think this is a very frustrating stage. It’s all going to be frustrating until you hit your goal. But I think this one too is very frustrating because I remember telling you with my spending, I’m like, I’m spending less than what I’ve ever spent before in years and it still doesn’t feel enough. This is kind of like the, it doesn’t feel like it’s working.
I’m doing so many changes that are taking so much labor, so much emotional. I’m putting myself out there, I’m pitching myself to podcasts, I’m creating content, whatever it is and it’s not working and it’s still not enough. I’m still not at my goal and it’s kind of making me think about a concept. It’s going to come out clunky because I’m thinking about it on the spot. But it’s like, why do you think you’re going to be a one hit wonder? Like why do you think the one time you do it all your problems are going to be solved?
Keina: That’s with everything. Like you eat healthy for the day and you’re like, I don’t understand why I’m not skinny or like well I don’t feel less bloated, so we want that instant gratification because we did the right thing. And I think what you actually have to shift to is loving the process and being committed to the process, which is something. Once again, it’s easier said than done because I think you were just talking about like the shame when you identify like your awareness piece and you have the shame, like people fall off there. I think people also fall off here because they’re like, how long is this going to take? I mean I talk to people all the time and recently I’ve been telling people, especially around debt, I’m like, listen, we can pay off your debt really fast, just as fast as you paid it off, you’re going to get right back into it because you’re not actually sitting in the change. And I want you to be able to go through the stages of where you realize that you’re slowing down the behavior. It is a necessary step because I think it helps you also know, like in the future, I’m going to be able to have my own back. And that’s the skill that you’re lacking in this change cycle is having your own back.
Dielle: It also makes me think and question like, do you want to be a one hit wonder, like we think we do and we think we’re entitled to it, but actually do you really want that? Okay, you create one piece of content, you go viral and then you book 10 sales calls from that and you’re like, woohoo. But you don’t actually know how to repeat that. You don’t have the identity of somebody who goes viral all the time and creates great content that’s easy. You don’t know how to sustain that. You don’t have any of the skills that slowing down and like refining what actually teach you. So I always say, I’ve prided myself on having a small audience and now I want to grow my audience. But I always tell my clients I’m so grateful I learned how to sell the slow way.
I’m so grateful I learned how to sell with a teeny tiny audience because now I want a larger one and I know exactly what to do. I know exactly what to say, I know exactly how to convert more people. I know exactly how to do that. Versus I always say if I was given a viral audience on a silver platter from day one, I probably would’ve not been in business anymore. So it’s also thinking about, to that point like, do you want to wipe out the credit card debt super fast and you don’t learn any fundamental money management skills that only come from slowing down?
Keina: You want to know, like you talk about the viral content piece. It is like you should know how to study to say like, why did that work? Because you want to create something that you can reproduce and yeah I think like in our society that’s something that’s missing because we want things so quickly.
Dielle: Yeah. I also think when it comes to like slowing down, one of the things, one of the mistakes I think I made with my money was like when I was slowing down my spending, but I was still so frustrated that I wasn’t at my end goal. I wasn’t celebrating the fact that I was making any progress, also because I wasn’t tracking it. I could have been celebrating, oh my God, I saved 5K this month. Like wow but because I even wasn’t tracking, goes back to number one about awareness because I even wasn’t tracking it I couldn’t celebrate. So I also think like you have to look back a lot and reflect probably more than what’s comfortable to be like, look at how far I’ve come and then that will actually give you a lot of motivation to keep going forward. But if you’re not tracking your wins, if you’re not tracking your progress, it’ll feel like you’re making all the sacrifices with no payoff.
Keina: Especially on the money front, one of the opening pieces I always have in my call is like, Hey, tell me your wins. And then, encouraging I call, in the dieting world they call it like non-scale victories. So like, what are you celebrating besides like the number on the scale. And so getting clients to think about like what are they celebrating besides like a million dollars in the stock market or $10,000 in their savings account and really trying to help clients slow themselves down to think about the behavioral things. Like, ooh, I realized I was on a shopping website after I’d been on Instagram and I had like a really hard day. You can celebrate something like that. I also think people need to know that you can repeat your wins because I think we also think that the wins are one hit wonders, like I’ve already celebrated that so I can’t celebrate it again. I think that stunts your growth because you’re like, I have a client right now.
She paid off her car maybe about a month ago and I have to keep reminding her, I’m like, you realize because she wants to pay off debt. I’m like, you realize you’ve paid off a car. Like you got $600 back into your budget And that’s still a relevant win. And I think that we drive past those wins so quickly and forget them. And I also think that there’s, I don’t know how to, I’m sure you could come up with a name for it, but I think there’s almost like a sensation that happens that I notice with clients where things start going really, really well and then almost makes them want to accelerate their progress even more. But it also is like, it’s actually going to be a little bit slower than you expected and then there becomes this point of frustration. And so I think that’s also why you have to go back and celebrate your wins.
Dielle: Yeah, I created another habit behavior framework at the beginning of the year. I create so many, I forgot which stage.
Keina: This is your specialty. Yes.
Dielle: So Keina always makes fun of me because I always know how to create a framework. I love frameworks. I love teaching just like this.
Keina: No, I don’t think you should say, I make fun of you. I’m just like, this is what you do. I add numbers and you create frameworks.
Dielle: Thank you so much everyone. Thank you so much. But I set on one of them, I can’t remember which one because I did like a two week challenge where I was creating a framework everyday for the self-coaching challenge inside of our programs and the programs you get access to this, but I set for one of the steps, when you have a win, you’re going to want to speed it up. And then that’s typically where people make mistakes that lead them right back to where they were. And so it goes back to what we were speaking about. It’s like, do you actually want the success as fast as you think you do. Because you’ll want to speed it up and then you’ll forget what you learn. You’ll forget a step. And like the slow way is actually how you integrate it and how you fundamentally change as a person.
Keina: You know where I see this with business owners I work with, it’s like once I get their accounts settled and they’re no longer stressed, they’re like, Ooh, I got money saved for taxes. I’m paying myself consistently. I can pay my expenses, is they want to go it, I feel like it shows up in their spending, whether it’s like, I want to go invest in something. Because now I’m safe because I got a whole month of progress behind me Keina or I want to start paying myself more, which is still I think a spending thing. And I’m always like, no, you cannot rock the boat, like we just got homeostasis and like let’s just ride things out, like this is why the system works. We can’t go and basically I’m just like, you need to go take two seats, like this is the point you actually wanted to be at.
And just watch how your brain wants to like fumble with it to put you right back. Like you said, like right back in the situation you were in, like you want to start paying yourself more. You want to spend more money. And so it’s interesting just to see how those things come in. I mean, I don’t know if I should say this so you can tell me and we can edit it out, but it’s like your AA analogy. So Dielle, some of our coaching calls have been like Keina, I’m an alcoholic and I should add in here, she’s not an actual alcoholic, but she’s been using the analogy because she’s like, oh I’m no longer wanting to do these things anymore. But yet she finds a different flavor of the same habit that she had before. So it’s like Dielle loves spending money and that’s how it shows up. She’s like, look, Keina, I have this money saved. I’m like, no, you can’t do that. She’s like, I’m still an alcoholic. You can tell your alcoholic story probably a little bit better than me.
Dielle: No, I think the example, so I also want to be clear for everybody. We take alcoholism very seriously. I like using social work analogies because that’s like my fundamental brain. So that’s the only reason I use that analogy. But we take it very seriously. I have family members who are in recovery. It’s something that matters to me greatly. So we’re not trying to make light of it. I want to be clear
Keina: I’ll also echo that. Yes.
Dielle: I like using that example though because I think we all can apply to the 12 steps and there are 12 steps. There’s a whole process. And going back to again jumping ahead a little bit on what we were saying on you no longer have the desire of the behavior, like that’s what I’m realizing. I would get into, okay, I’m better, I’m making progress. I can have a glass of wine now. And it’s like no, the real goal is that you no longer even want the wine and that’s crazy to even think about, like no longer even wanting it. Not just doing it less but not even wanting to do it fundamentally. Next one. This is a funny one. A lot of people laugh just like how you laughed Keina, a lot of people laughed at this one.
You no longer are doing the behavior but you still dream of doing it. I am not here yet, but sometimes I feel like I’ve gotten here with my content. So I am fully on board with like my goal of wanting to go viral. I’m fully on board with, okay I need to do reels. So I’m pretty consistent with my reels. I’ve been consistent with my reels for about a year now. I haven’t hit my goal yet but I still secretly wish that I didn’t have to do reels. I secretly wish that I didn’t have to grow my audience in this way. That’s like the dirty little secret. And the thing that’s really important about this stage is it will impact your goal, like how you show up to it. So you can, I was literally getting my content reviewed by somebody who has a really big audience and she was like, look at your eyes on these reels. You don’t want to do this. She’s like, I could tell in the reel you’re saying all the right things. You made it, you look great. You have the great outfit, you have the text, you have the sound effect, you have everything here. But look at your eyes. I can tell you don’t want to be here.
That’s what she said. I was like, oh my gosh. And she was like I can tell you don’t want to be here. And the people watching the reel can tell you don’t want to create the content either. I was like well okay. So it still can slow you down and it can still bleed out. Like you being frustrated with your money, even if you budget perfectly that will result in maybe you binge spending on a Saturday, like that lack of desire, that frustration will still bleed out somewhere.
Keina: The thing that comes to mind when we talk about this is I can use myself as an example. I think people think that I don’t spend money, you included.
Dielle: You spend money on trips to Hawaii, you spend money.
Keina: Oh now you want to give me money, claimed, thank you. I was thinking about this because I have a client right now and she’s like, Keina, I want to spend money on clothes. I want to spend money on my birthday. She was like giving me this litany of things that she has to spend money on. I was thinking about, I’ve gotten to a point with my spending where I’m able to think through the trade-offs. And so something that I enjoy to spend money on but I haven’t spent money on in the last year is I have a friend of mine who’s like a stylist and I haven’t spent money on her and let’s just say she’s a thousand dollars a month. I could go find the money to spend the thousand dollars a month on her. But I’m able to also think about what would be my trade-offs?
Keina: Is that investment, the thousand dollars a month for clothes, is that worth me not saving more money in my emergency fund or is that worth me decreasing my vacation allowance? So I’m able to just really talk through like what my priorities are in the moment. So I think that when you’re in the beginning stages of awareness, you’re like, oh my goodness, I feel so restricted and I don’t have enough money for this. But like I have gotten to a point where I can change the narrative and it doesn’t mean that I won’t ever be able to invest in the styling, but I can tell you I actually have other things in this season that feel like more of a priority for me. So I’m okay sitting this one out. I mean I also, if I spent the money that I dream about spending in my head, I’m like real good for like, oh I could do this and this. I spend money all the time, but I don’t actually click the checkout button. I do that a lot less than I did in the past.
Dielle: I love that. And it goes back to like again, the prompt is you no longer doing the behavior but you still dream of wanting to do it. What would you want to do instead? What could you shift the priority to exactly like what you said? Like do you care about something more than the behavior you’re trying to change? That’s how you get out of it. And that’s how you move forward is thinking about, okay, what is something that’s more important than this? So quitting my job is more important than having to fake showing up. I want to learn to love this. I want to learn to be akin to this and have an affinity towards this. I want to learn how to make this fun for me because I know there’s going to be a payout on the other side. I feel like I really did this well with sales calls. I genuinely, like when I do the sales call clinic, my clients are like blah. They’re like gross because I get so excited.
I love sales calls and there’s nothing that can replace that. And there used to be a time where I didn’t. There used to be a time where I didn’t love sales calls, but now I’m really trying to love it and same with like my webinars. I really love doing webinars and just recently I’m like, I think I really love funnels. I’ve been putting that on the table to be like how can you, going back to what you said earlier too, how can you love the process? Not the end goal. How can you love the skill? Not the end result, not the bank account, not the debt balance at zero or not you sending in your resignation. How can you love the art of creation or the skill of whatever you need to do? Because I tell my clients, I’m like, you’re going to quit your job. That’s your goal. You want to quit your job so bad, guess what you’re going to do all day, content. Guess what you’re going to do all day, sales calls. Guess what you’re going to do all day to sustain this. So you might as well learn to love it now because it’s not going anywhere. So if you are debt free, you’re going to have to maintain a budget. Tell me if this is wrong, but probably more religiously than when you did, when you first started.
Keina: I was going to say the thing that came up for me when you were talking about the skill. If you can get to the place where you no longer dream of it or what did you say? Listen, I don’t have my notes.
Dielle: You no longer have the desire for it.
Keina: You no longer have the desire for it. I think that this is what helps in lifestyle creep. Because what happens is people make more money and if they haven’t changed the behaviors, like all of their problems go with them. And so this, I think getting to the stage is what’s actually going to accelerate your financial progress. So like you being able to know that, like okay, I’m going from making a hundred thousand dollars this year to now I’m making $130,000, but because I have control of my spending, I know that I’m going to be able to use that extra $30,000 to actually funnel towards the goals that I actually want to achieve. I’m not just going to watch that money disappear on God only knows what because I think that’s the thing that happens is like people can’t actually tell you where the difference went. And that’s the point of frustration. Like if you’re paying off debt because what’d you say? Like is it more important to like budget? I think if you’ve paid off your debt in a way in which you’ve actually built the skills.
Dielle: As you went.
Keina: Yes. Like if you built the skills to make sure like I am spending my money in an intentional way and I know where it’s going. I’ve learned how to plan for the things that cause me to go into debt. I think you can get to a place where debt is just something that you, you no longer, this is going to sound funny, you no longer desire, but in the place where you know you’re like, Hey, I do have the money for this or I don’t have the money for this or you’re willing to at least state those trade-offs out loud or if you have to take on debt for instance because sometimes that does happen. Then you also know like, yeah, I’m taking on this $5,000 worth of debt for X situation, but I also know that I can adjust my numbers to pay it off in X amount of time.
Dielle: Yeah. It goes back to like you no longer have the desire, like something then becomes more important. And yeah, learning to love the skill. If you learn how to love the skill before you achieve the goal, you’ll continue doing that skill after the goal is created. But that’s why you see like a lot of people hit a goal then fall off or hit a goal and then leave the industry or hit a goal, then shut their business down. It’s because they didn’t during this process love the process of whatever it is to achieve the goal so that they could actually sustain it.
Keina: Well we were talking about this last night and I think my followers would know this because I talk about it a lot on my podcast is like my fitness journey. But two years ago I had lost like 30 pounds, because covid 15 30, whatever it was. And I achieved the goal and then my brain was like blah. I didn’t know what to do. So I couldn’t take care of myself and actually go through maintenance of that goal. And so like in the two years since then I’ve just been able to really watch like, wow, I didn’t know what to do when I hit the goal, but like this time I would know what to do when I hit the goal because I’ve learned the skills but also that journey has just taught me to also not be afraid.
I shouldn’t say not be afraid of failing, but to also give myself opportunities to brush my knees off, stand back up and go after the thing again and not be mean to myself. And like not to quit or to be like, okay you failed today, we’re still going at it tomorrow and to really just like develop this level of consistency. I wanted to say that in the sense of like whether you’re looking at this from a content angle or you’re looking at it from a money angle. I think one of the other things that you have to learn within this is to be resilient and how will you continue to show up for yourself and really defining what consistency will look like for you. And consistency doesn’t necessarily mean showing up every single day, but it does mean that you are setting, at least for me, it means that I am setting intentions about showing up and I will continue to show up for me.
Dielle: Yeah, I love the resilient piece. It’s just like things are going to happen and you’re going to have urges and desires, that’s normal. All of it is normal and you can still hit your goals extremely imperfectly. Every single goal I’ve hit, I’m like, I was not expecting to hit it this way. I didn’t expect it to look like this way, but I just had to keep going with what’s in front of me. Okay, last one. You no longer have the desire of the behavior. Is there something in your life where you no longer have the desire of it?
Keina: You know what I’ve gotten really good at is not taking advantage of sales. I mean, it doesn’t mean I don’t shop on sale, but I think that in the past I would’ve been someone like, oh, it’s on sale. And now I’m like, oh, you’re going to have another sale in two weeks. So really being able to tell myself, like I’m not missing out. Like there’s going to be another opportunity and not just buying something because it’s on sale. I think particularly with clothes, I have an Instagram post from way, way back where I had several pairs of shoes, never worn them. I bought them because they were on sale. So like I like, created the scarcity within myself, like let me get these because it’s a good deal. But I think that’s probably one of my most reformed areas when I think about my spending is being able to say no to the sale. What about you?
Dielle: To that point a money example where I no longer have the desire, for like all of 2022 and all of 2023 it was funny to this point of like we hit the goal and we freak out. So we bought this house, my little North Carolina farmhouse in 2021 and we were so happy. And then in 2022 and then 2023, I don’t know, I just got this massive itch to leave. I think the lack of diversity was getting me a little stir crazy. I was just really freaking out. And also I was traveling, the world opened back up, so I was traveling a lot more. So I was leaving my house more and realizing the lack of diversity in my area. Then I was like, Tampa has diversity, Chicago has diversity, it’s just Raleigh. Let me get out. I think I had that awakening, so it was relent, I was like, I hate Raleigh. I hate living here. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it. It was a little relentless, like it was tough. I didn’t want to decorate my house. I was in that funk, like, I want to move, I want to move. And then as I’ve been learning more about money and as I’ve been learning more about spending and just like how great of an interest rate I have and how great of a mortgage I have.
Our mortgage is like in the thousands, in the four figures and we have almost four bedrooms. We have an unfinished attic. So we have an almost four bedroom house with more than enough space and room for me and my husband. We have just really, I’ve really calmed down to be like, I have everything I have. I have everything I want right now. I no longer have the desire or the rush. You could replace the word desire with rush. I no longer have the rush to get out of my current situation. I no longer have the rush. I no longer have the desire to want to move and have a $4,000 mortgage or a $5,000 mortgage when our little mortgage that’s right above a thousand dollars is more than enough right now.
And so to that point, I was talking to Keina, I was listening to a podcast and the person was like, can you want what you already have? And that, like, blew my mind. Like the life that you currently have, can you want it versus like you were saying, I’m specifically talking about the lifestyle creep without going to that level and that extreme.
Keina: Yeah. It is a hard shift I think in the society we live in. I think now more than ever. I just pay attention even for myself, like how does social media play into what I desire? So I like your word rush. It makes me also think about, can I feel settled or content?
Dielle: Yeah. I think too, like from a business standpoint is thinking about you no longer have the desire to not want to show up for your people. You want to create content, you want to show up. Sometimes I will get this bubbling in my stomach, being like, I got to say something and I have to say it now and it’s going to help so many people. I have that desire or when you see a sales call on your calendar, you are like, I’m going to help this person. I’m going to close them. It’s going to be a win-win for both of us or when you do a webinar, you’re like, I’m going to talk to dozens and dozens of my audience members, like you no longer have the desire of dreading it, like you look forward to it and it’s a part of your routine and you can’t imagine your business, your finances, your health, your life without this thing. So that’s the place where you want to get.
Keina: I like that.
Dielle: Amazing. Awesome. This was very good, very, very good. Can you share with us where people can find you Keina if they want to get their money together?
Keina: Yes, you can go to Wealthovernow.com. You can follow me on Instagram at Wealth Over Now. And then I also have a podcast called Money Files Wherever you listen, podcast.
Dielle: Awesome. Thank you all so much and you can hit any goal and change any behavior you dream. Thank you all for listening.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
