You have set the financial goal. You have done the math. You know exactly how much you need to save every month to get there. And then you watch yourself not do it, not because you do not want it badly enough and not because you are bad with money, but because wanting something and doing something are two completely different muscles. And most people have never learned how to check whether their actions actually align with what they say they want.
I am calling that the say-do gap. It is the space between what you say you want and what you actually do, and it shows up in every part of your life, not just your finances. You said you wanted more sleep and then stayed up scrolling. You said you wanted to call your mom more and then never made space in your calendar.
In this episode I am sharing the exact exercise I want you to do this week to find your own say do gap that is impacting your financial goals.
In this episode you’ll learn…
[00:05:10] What the say-do gap is and why it is not a willpower or math problem
[00:14:30] Why telling yourself the cleanest version of the story about your spending is the exact thing that keeps the gap open
[00:19:15] The 30-day spending exercise that shows you what your bank account says you want versus what you say you want
[00:24:40] How to use what you find in your 30-day review to identify your specific gap
Tune in to this episode of Money Files to learn what the say-do gap is and how identifying yours is the first step to finally closing the space between what you say you want financially and the actions that will actually get you there.
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.
If you loved this episode on the say-do gap and finally understanding why your financial goals keep falling short, check out Episode 231 – The Three Numbers Most Likely to Be Wrong in Your Budget Right Now.
Transcript for “How to Identify the Say-Do Gap That Is Keeping You From Your Financial Goals ”
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. I am always really excited to talk to you. And can I just tell you that when you message me on Instagram, when I hear from you via email, when I know like Keina, I’m in your ear, you know what I mean? Like, you’re not in my ear, but Keina, you’re in my ears when I’m on a walk. I’ve had people tell me like, my daughter knows your voice, but I just appreciate you for taking the time to listen to my podcast. If this is the first ever episode you’ve listened to, welcome. I would love to get to know more about you. And if you’ve been listening for a while, and you are someone who would call yourself a Keina lurker, and you’re like, Keina, I know I need to actually work with you, but I’m just but, but, but, whatever those buts are.
If you are making six figures, if you’re making multiple six figures, and you’re like, girl, I have to do something different. Please put your excuses to the side, go to the show notes, put me on pause, go to the show notes, and book your consult. You are not going to make the progress that you desire to make by saying that you should work with me. What is actually going to change the thing is you working with me.
So this episode, I am actually going to dive right in and just tell you about a client that I’m working with right now. And I’m going to call her Maya, but Maya came to me making $120,000 a year. And she recently applied for a new job. So she is making $185,000. So she is earning more money, which we love to see. So she’s increased her income by $65,000. And so what that has brought up in terms of her increasing her income is us talking about, okay, we know that your paychecks are getting ready to increase. What do you want to achieve? What do you want that money to do for you? I don’t just want her to be making more money and not having anything to show for it.
I want her to be really clear on how that money is going to support her both in her short-term goals and her long-term goals for herself. So one of the things she told me on our last call, she’s like, Keina, I really thought about what I want to achieve in the next 30 days, the next 60 days, in the next 90 days. And something that came up for her was she’s like, I want $12,000 in my emergency fund. And I love to hear someone talk about wanting a five-figure savings account, because knowing that you have five figures in your savings account, that provides a lot of safety and a lot of comfort because you know, if something happens, I have money to be able to take care of myself.
And also the identity that you create in order to build this five-figure savings account is an identity that no one can ever take from you. And that identity is you becoming a saver. So here’s the thing. I hear Maya telling me. I want to create a $12,000 savings account. And I know by looking, if we’re just looking purely at the math, she can easily hit $12,000 saved. Like we could put a date on the calendar and be like, great. In the next six months, you can have $12,000 saved. In the next 12 months, you can have $12,000 saved, whatever. We could easily put that date on the calendar. But I know that if we just put the date on the calendar and just do the math, she’s not actually going to hit that goal. And you might resonate with that.
Like you have said, like the math works and you’ve set a financial goal for yourself. And then you watched yourself not actually achieve that goal. And here’s what I’ve learned from coaching hundreds of six-figure earners, is that wanting something and doing something are two completely different muscles. You can have a very clear want. And in this case, it’s I want the emergency fund. And actions that have nothing to do with what you say you want at all. And it’s not that you’re lazy. It’s not that you’re bad with math, but it’s because you haven’t learned how to check that your actions and your wants actually align. And that’s what’s most important. And I’m going to call that the say-do gap.
The say-do gap. It’s the space between what you say you want and what you actually do. And it’s not just a money thing. You’ve probably felt this in every single part of your life. You said you wanted to get more sleep, but then you stay up scrolling. You said you wanted to call your mom more, and then you didn’t actually make space in your calendar to call your mom. And this doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you by any means, but it is a gap. And if we can just name it, just that, like it’s a gap. We can measure a gap and we can close the gap.
And this is what my client and I were talking about, is if we can identify what she says she wants versus how we know she’s going to show up and we can mitigate, what are the things that are going to make you like backslide and not allow you to say, what are the things that are going to get in the way? If we can identify that, then we can adjust for it. We can be able to respond to it. By being able to adjust and being able to respond, then we know especially for my client Maya, that she’s going to be much more successful in reaching her goal because we’ve identified her say do gap.
So with Maya, like I told you, she wants to save $12,000. She is able to identify that really, really quickly. But when I look at her actions, I already know the little things that are going to get in the way. They’re the things that are going to get in the way that I’ve been watching for the last eight weeks. So that’s what we were talking about. I said, what’s it going to look like when you want to buy something for your dad? What’s it going to look like when you decide that you and your husband actually want to take a trip and it’s just a local trip, but you want to book two nights in a hotel. I said, what is it going to look like when you realize that you want to buy some clothes or that you want to do some upgrades at Sephora or that you need to take your dog into the vet.
And so once again, none of these things are bad. I want you to be able to take your dog to the vet. I want you to be able to go on this vacation. But if we don’t actually adjust your plan based off of the actions that we know that you’re going to take, then you’re not going to reach your goal because your actions are going to get in the way. And I can just give you a little bit more insight for Maya. What that looks like for us to adjust her say do gap is like, we actually got into the numbers. Like we went back and I said, okay, let’s actually look at your credit cards because that’s the other thing is we’re working off paying off some credit card debt. And I said, let’s actually look at your credit cards and let’s look at the things that have gone on your credit card that made you roll your eyes.
So we started looking at like the vet expenses. She is someone who likes to give things to her family. So we looked at her family giving. We also looked at her dog food purchases. Like we were in her numbers. And I told her, I was like, let’s make sure that we’re creating space for the things and the actions we know you’re going to take. Let’s make sure we’re creating space for those things so that we can close this say do gap. Because I don’t want you just to say that you want to have an emergency fund. I want you to be the person that has the actions that actually align with you having an emergency fund.
And part of aligning your actions means that we also have to be really honest with how we actually spend money. We can’t just tell ourselves what I call like the cleanest version of the story where you’re like, no, no, no. The math says that I can save a thousand dollars because I put a thousand dollars into the spreadsheet, Keina. So I’m going to save a thousand dollars every single month. And then I’m going to get to $12,000 in a year. And that sounds really good until you’re like, oh, Keina, I forgot that I got to get my car fixed.
I’m like, oh, you got to get your car fixed but you didn’t actually put money in auto maintenance because you were just so focused on the goal that you didn’t think about, you know what, my car is something that like generally every single year it goes on my credit card or it makes me dip into my savings. And then I feel really bad that I had to dip into my savings. And then it goes into a shame spiral. Like those are the things that are happening. So when we’re identifying this say-do gap, we are identifying what are the things that I am saying that I want, but then what do I actually do?
So you might be thinking like, Keina, how does that apply to me? And what do I need to do in my life to identify my own say-do gap? So I want you to pull up your bank account. If you have a credit card, pull up your credit card as well. And look at the last 30 days. We’re not judging if you have overdraft fees, we’re not judging how many times you went out to eat. This is not a judgment exercise. I will never give you a judgment exercise, but I want you to look at the last 30 days. And I just want you to observe and ask yourself one question. Based on this, based just on what has actually happened in my account. What would someone assume that I want? Not what you tell them you’d want, but like what does your money say that you want?
So if someone had no context, they looked at your last 30 days of spending, would they assume that you’re someone who’s working towards saving $30,000? Would they assume that you’re someone who’s trying to pay off $15,000 worth of debt? Would they assume that you are someone who is preparing to have a down payment on a car? Or would they guess that you’re someone who’s mostly just getting through the month, who’s comfortable, who maybe doesn’t have a lot of direction with how they’re spending financially? And there’s no wrong answer here, but it’s really important to have this sober view of your finances because it’ll allow you to close the gap when you are actually honest with yourself.
I want you to be able to close that gap. Just because you say that you want something doesn’t mean that it is magically going to happen. And I will say this again, I do not mean that in a negative way, but when I actually look at your actions, when you look at your last 30 days of spending, what does it say that you want? So you’re making six figures and I would argue this has nothing to do with you actually needing to make more money. You simply have a say do gap and your gap isn’t there because you don’t want it enough or because you’re missing some willpower or other people have it and you don’t. This is not a reflection of you needing to say like, I can never be that person. That’s not what this is.
You can actually change the gap that you see. I tell people all the time that managing your money it’s a leadership skill. It’s a muscle that you can build. It is something that you can change, but you can’t change it until you actually acknowledge the gap and really see it. So then you can say like, Oh, I am saying that this is the lifestyle that I want. I’m saying that I want to pay down debt. I’m saying that I want to save $10,000. But when I look at my account over the last 30 days, what does it say about me? And for those of you who are listening that are like, well, you know Keina, I did throw $1,500 towards my credit card, but if you had to turn around and then put money back on your credit card, yes, you’re paying down debt, but it also lets me know, Oh, you don’t have a plan. You’re just making decisions based off what’s in your bank account.
So whatever that gap is, if we can identify the gap, that’s the thing that we can actually go in and adjust. That’s the thing that we can go in and change. Because once you can actually name the gap, the next question becomes, is this something that I want to address right now? Or do I want to address later? And are we talking about a want that I want to show up like in the next month? Or are we talking about a want that maybe is going to take me a couple of years to build? And does my day-to-day behavior match the timeline that I’m talking about?
So I have a couple more episodes on this topic and I hope I’ve done a good job, but I wanted to give you just another way to look at your finances and to be able to really have that sober look that is okay, I’m going to look at my last 30 days of spending and I’m going to notice what is happening without actually judging myself. And what does my actually say that I want? Not what you say you want. Not that what you wrote on paper, you say that you want, but what does my bank account say that I want? What does my credit card say that I want? And if you get through this exercise, you’re going to be looking at your own say-do gap and you should be able to say, okay, I see it.
And maybe you’re thinking like, Keina I want to be able to close this gap, but I’m not sure how to close this gap. And that’s exactly the work that I do with my clients. My client, Maya, that I’ve been telling you about in this episode, we’re closing her say-do gap. So because she’s working with me, I actually have no worries that she’s going to close this gap and hit her $12,000 emergency fund goal and be able to pay down the debt that she wants to be able to pay down. Like, I’m not worried about that because I’m watching her behaviors change week after week. When we’re looking, because in our coaching calls, we actually look at her bank account.
And when she’s doing this 30-day reflection, when we’re doing this on a weekly basis, I can see the changes that she’s making. I’m like, oh my goodness, your transactions, you have less transactions than you did last week. The only things coming out of your account are bills. Oh, look at that transfer to your savings account. Those are the things that we’re talking about because we are closing her say-do gap and we are identifying what are the behaviors that she needs to change and what space do we actually need to put in her budget so she doesn’t feel restricted, she doesn’t feel deprived.
Her new dopamine hit is going to be seeing that emergency fund grow to five figures. That’s the impact of budgeting, is that you get a new dopamine hit where now you see your credit card debt go down and you see your savings go up and you start to see yourself as this different person. And that is what’s available when you’re working with me in my five-month coaching partnership. So if you’ve been listening, you’re like, Keina, yes, I need this. Then go to my show notes or you can go to my website and you can apply to work with me, but I will talk to you later and have a great week.
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.
