Starting Over Is Just Another Step Toward Financial Progress

Money Files

Fear of failure is something I hear about a lot from my clients. If they get out of debt, they’re afraid they’ll get back into it. They overdrafted before, maybe they’ll overdraft again. They feel like making a misstep means starting over from square one.

This fear could be why you haven’t started a budget or revisited your money goals or started tackling your debt. Like many of my clients, you might be scared that the process won’t work. Scared you’re going to have to start over.

But success isn’t linear. The ebbs and flows of your money are data points. They serve as information, not an opportunity for judgment.

Every misstep provides an opportunity to reflect and ask yourself how you can move forward differently in the future. It offers you a moment to ask yourself how you define failure and if you truly failed in this moment, or if, perhaps, you’ve just been given an opportunity to use the skills you’ve learned from your past experiences to make better choices going forward.

In this episode, I want you to think about why you haven’t started over (or started at all) when it comes to your financial success. You’ll learn questions to ask yourself that will help you get curious about your relationship with money. You’ll learn to rethink the way you look at financial failures or new financial circumstances so that you can apply the experience you’ve gained to have your own back when it comes to making better decisions about your money. You can always start over.  Don’t be afraid to begin again. And I want to empower you with the confidence to do that.

Tune in to learn how to build financial confidence and awareness that will last a lifetime.

In this episode, you’ll learn…

  • How we often let fear of failure get in our way of starting over [03:08]
  • The importance of monitoring your self-talk [04:39]
  • Why you should approach financial shifts with curiosity and questions to ask yourself about starting over and failure [05:56]
  • How your thoughts about failure hold you back and how data points help you make sense of your numbers [08:29]
  • How “starting over” is actually just a different starting point that gives you the tools to stay on track [10:03]
  • How a financial coach serves as a support system for your progress [10:53]
  • How to ask yourself critical questions [12:16]
  • Why you need to be honest with yourself and acknowledge why it’s hard for you to start over and the different tools you’re bringing this time around [14:01]

Tune in to this episode to explore the tools that will help you redefine the way you think about starting over when it comes to your money.

In the episode…

Starting over is all about absorbing new information. It’s not an opportunity to judge yourself for not keeping up with your budget or for overdrafting your bank account again. Everything that you do, or don’t do, is a data point that helps you learn your habits, where you’re excelling, and where you can make improvements.

The more you learn, the better your plan and your ability to get back on track. Your money journey is not linear. Don’t let fear of failure keep you in a situation where you don’t understand your money. Don’t let fear of failure keep you from applying to work with me. Don’t let fear of failure keep you from making the changes that you desire.

Instead, I want you to start over with new tools. Here’s how you can learn to use your experiences as a learning opportunity for progress with your money:

Get curious about starting over and the role that failure plays.

I want you to start by writing down all the thoughts you have about starting over. Get really clear about what it looks like and means to you.

And then I want you to think about what happens if you fail. What does failure look like to you? You can even think of a time in your life when you failed and what you learned from that experience. What did you learn when you missed that credit card payment? How did you feel when you overspent your budget? Think about what failures can teach you.

Now, I want you to think about how you want to do better in the future. 

What can you do differently? Ask yourself questions about the choices you made. Ask yourself if you have the skills to make better decisions next time. See if you can pinpoint the mindset mistakes that might be holding you back and how you can improve them going forward. This is about progress, not perfection. These failures are a learning experience, data points that you can use to shift your money habits. 

Lastly, I want you to think about what happens if you don’t start. 

How would you feel if nothing in your life changes? If you don’t ever learn anything new about money and your relationship to it? Don’t let thoughts of failure hold you back. Think about the new tools and data you’ve gained from your experiences. If you haven’t watched Netflix in six months, and you’re just now realizing that you need to cancel your subscription, that is useful information. Use it to shift your goals.

Asking yourself these kinds of questions helps you to know what you would do differently if you find yourself in that same situation again. It helps you to approach new challenges with more knowledge.

Here are the takeaways that I want you to remember from this episode:

  • Failures are lessons that teach you how to be financially prepared in the future
  • A financial coach can help you gain peace of mind around your finances and teach you how to have your own back
  • Remember: you can move forward after failure

Are you ready to reframe the way you think about starting over with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s change your relationship with money.

Transcript for “Starting Over Is Just Another Step Toward Financial Progress:”

Hi and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work every day with professional women and solopreneur producers 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. 

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. So I want to just have a candid conversation with you guys this week. I think about you guys all the time. I think about my life and how it parallels and what things might come up for you as challenges when you think about how you desire to have peace of mind with your money. But you start to think about what that may require of you in order to achieve that result. And I’m actually going to link to an episode, it was episode seven, called Moving Forward After Financial Failure. 

I notice that for my clients, failure is something that they’re scared of because in their past, it may have looked like they’ve paid off debt and now they’re right back in debt or their overdraft of their account. Again, something has happened where they feel like they’re going to have to start over. And I feel like I understand this concept very well, because if you listen to that episode, episode seven, I go a little bit into this journey that I’ve been on for now, well over a year in terms of becoming a person who works out, someone who pays attention to my fitness, etc., and my brain wants to tell me that that’s supposed to be a linear process. Like it should go my way, it should go straight down, my strength should go straight up. Like if you were thinking about this line graph, like it should just be clear that I’m improving at all times or that I’m losing way or whatever that looks like at all times. 

And the truth is that that’s not what happens. The truth is that every single day I have a new data point, whether that’s me choosing to eat the things that I know will make my body feel good, or me choosing to eat the things that sound good in the moment, like French fries or a milkshake or any of the other things. And so the data points don’t always form this linear line if you look at them individually. But when you look at the past year of data, there is this line that goes downward. And you look at my strength, there’s this line that goes upward. So like the trends are where they’re supposed to be. 

But recently I’ve been living my best 2022 summer, and I feel like I’ve enjoyed time with friends. And so that means that I’ve been eating out more. Just getting away from some of the habits that I know equate to, I would say success for me. And as I was working out the other night, I was thinking about my clients and I was thinking about myself. And I was like, You know what? We have so many thoughts about having to start over. 

And that might be one of the reasons that you haven’t actually started budgeting or you haven’t, quite frankly, reached out to me and said, yes, I’m ready to be your client. And when you think about it, I just want you to sit and think about what are these thoughts that you have about starting over? Like when you think about starting over. Does it make you feel like a failure? Do you say like, Oh, that’s validation for the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be successful? And so you would just rather not try or attempt to shift anything in your life. You would rather be stagnant, which if you actually take the time to think about that, that sounds absolutely absurd. Right. 

Instead of going and moving forward towards the peace of mind that you desire, instead of moving forward towards being able to be someone who saves money consistently or moving forward to become the person who pays off their debt or has the money to travel. You would just rather sit in this financial fog that you’re in. You would rather sit in the financial anxiety that exist instead of having to deal with starting over. Doesn’t that just that sounds really crazy, right, when you really start to think about it. 

And one of the things I learned to do, just with the support of working with different coaches and having different tools, is really monitor my own self-talk, my own inner dialog. It’s like, what are the thoughts that my brain is offering me that really don’t make any sense, that don’t have truth to them? So I just had this conversation actually on a client call and I told her I was like, Oh my goodness, I was thinking about you. I said, I was also thinking about myself, but I was thinking about you because I realized that in our last couple of calls you’ve brought to our coaching calls a lot of anxiety. You have a lot of fear about what happens if. Right? And so this particular client that I was talking to, she is in a new season of her life. She’s newly single. And she has come into some money and she’s just kind of scared that everything is like the bottom is just going to fall out and she’s going to have to start over. She’s scared that maybe the process that we’re going through won’t work. 

And I like to provide her and even myself with, like, these counter narratives or asking ourselves different questions. I think the best thing that you can do when you’re approaching these shifts, specifically, as I’m talking to you right now, talking about financial shifts, is to approach it with curiosity. If you allow yourself to just be curious, if you allow your brain to go into different places and answer different questions while you feel relatively safe, what comes up for you? 

And so on our call I was asking, just one like what are your thoughts about having to start over? And if you’re listening right now, I would invite you to write down all the thoughts you have about having to start over, whatever that means, and even being really clear. What does starting over mean? Right. And then I want you to think about, well, what happens if I fail? You’re like, what does failure look like for you? And what would happen if you actually did fail? You could take it a step further and right sometimes in your life when maybe you had failed. But then when you have failed, I want you to ask yourself like, what have those failures actually taught you? What have you learned from those failures when you overdraft? Did your account however many years, months or weeks ago, what have you learned? I encounter failure with my clients often. I think sometimes they may feel defeated, like if they engage in emotional spending or overspending, or maybe there is an overdraft. But I’m like, Yeah, but what are we learning by way of that happening? Like, how is that teaching you some level of financial preparedness because you failed? Like, how do you want to do this better the next time? Notice I’m not saying perfect, but like how do you want to do it better? And just being able to have some level of an intentional shift so you can see that it’s just a data point and that data point is still going to help you go down. 

You remember that linear graph I was talking about? You’re going to go wherever your destination is. Maybe it’s up or down, whatever that looks like. And so, yeah, just be really curious and ask yourself what happens if I fail? But then I also want to ask you, when you think about having to start over, what happens if you never start? I bet that there’s some level of avoidance that you have, and it’s the reason that you don’t want to start over because it’s going to make you feel bad or it’s going to confirm that you don’t know what you’re doing, right? 

And so think about what happens if you don’t start. That means nothing changes for you. It means you don’t learn anything new. It means that you just continue to exist in the way that you currently show up. And do you actually want to live your life in the way that you’re currently living your life right now? I don’t know anyone who’s had a call with me, who has worked with me that actually wants to continue living in their current state of being. But what’s holding them back is their thoughts about what if I fail or or what if I have to start over? Then what my client and I talked about was that, yeah, maybe you do have to fail, right? Like you overspent on your groceries, and maybe that feels like a failure to you. But because you started, you’re going to be able to approach this situation with a new set of tools, right? Like, okay, that didn’t go exactly how I planned. I had planned to spend $200 at the grocery store, and I spent $300. But now I know because of this data point that I have, that I might actually want to shift my grocery line item because I have new information that is giving me new details. 

So now we’re talking about starting over with different tools. You’re going to be able to make sense of what’s happening with your numbers. Like this is the exact conversation. It wasn’t around finances, but this is a conversation I was having with myself as I was weightlifting this week. And I’m like, Yeah, there might be times where you have to start over. But I would much rather be here starting over. And I use air quotes with that because it’s really not about starting over because I’m at a different starting point than I was when I really think about my day one start. I have more muscle. I have different tools. I have a routine and I have a plan and I know how to get back on track. And so things look different for me. 

And I can also acknowledge where my thoughts are trying to make me sit down on the side of the road and never get back up and just quit. And a large portion of the work that I do with clients is really helping you have your own back. When you decide to commit to working with me as a financial coach, that’s what you’re going to learn and you’re going to learn to have your own back. I don’t want everything for you to be perfect because I don’t think that perfection is the goal. It’s going to be about progress. It’s going to be able to look at a time when you’re like, Oh, yeah. I remember when I wasn’t prepared to pay for that annual bill, but then I learned how to plan ahead for annual bills. I learned how to think ahead for quarterly bills. I learned how to think two years ahead, three years ahead from where I thought about and I decided I wanted to be. But it’s because I had that experience. 

And so that’s like the overall shift that comes when you have a coach in your corner to help you reframe your thinking and help you see what you may not have been able to see on your own. The client that I was just telling you about, we had that exact conversation. She was telling me about a financial decision that she made and she said, Keina, I just want to get your input on this. What do you think I could have done? And I’m a coach, so I didn’t answer that question, but I told her, I asked her. I say, what would you do differently if you were encountered with the same financial situation again? What would you do differently? And she rattled off four different questions that she would ask herself, but she was able to acknowledge that a month ago, I wouldn’t even have thought to ask myself, like, okay, where is that money coming from? Am I okay with my financial situation if I never get this money back? What do I actually want to happen the next time I say yes to a situation like this? And for me as a coach, that’s my biggest win and my biggest celebration with that particular client, because I can see that she is learning to have her own back. I can see that she’s learning to trust herself and where she is financially. And she’s developing this financial awareness, financial confidence that’s going to far outlast the five months that we’re working together. 

Because my goal is like, yes, I want to work with you for five months. And some of my clients, we work together for ten months. Some of my clients, we work together for two years. The relationship shifts over time. But my ultimate goal is to help you gain peace of mind with your finances, but then also be the person that has your own back. And being able to know that you are going to be able to develop some type of protocol for if something like would happen that would make you kind of feel financially shaken that you know how you would step up for yourself. 

So today, if you’re in a place where you are thinking about your finances, maybe you’re a little frustrated that you’re feeling like you’re feeling like you have to start over or you have a fear of starting over. I want you to acknowledge, truly, truly acknowledge what tools you’re bringing this time around when you think about starting over. And I want you to tell yourself, like, what are you going to do when you fail? And what’s the alternative? If you decide to not start. Sometimes we just got to be frank with ourselves and really think about what’s happening and take the emotions out of the actual situation. 

So that’s all I have for you today. It’s very short and sweet, but I just wanted to speak to you today from a place of, like, failures. Okay. You can move forward after failure. And all those thoughts you have about I don’t want to get started because I might have to start over. I need you to bump those thoughts. And I need you to lean into the discomfort. Because literally behind your fear is every single result that you want. 

And another client, I hope she’s listening, I won’t say her name, but I’m very, very proud of her because she messaged me the other day and she’s like, Keina, I haven’t done a money date in a month and I’m never going to go that long before I do another money date. And honestly, probably more than one client that could resonate with this. But the fact that she is overcoming her thoughts about starting over makes me so proud as a coach that she has the tools. Because if you ever. I worked with me. If you’ve ever been on a webinar with me or any of these things, I will tell you that when you work with me, you’re going to have the tools that will help get you back on the path to be successful. I want our work to be the last time that you actually have to learn how to budget. Doesn’t mean you might not have to shift something. We’re like, okay, come on, this week we’re back in it. We’re back at our money dates. I’m not guaranteeing that you’re not going to have to rally yourself up to make sure that you’re, you know, doing the things that you say that you want to be committed to, but you’re going to know exactly where to start. 

What might be true right now is that you don’t know where to start. So my clients, they know where to start. They know what they want to look for, and they actually know how to move forward. And so if you want that level of skill behind your numbers, you want to have purpose in your life in terms of where your money is going and you want to have peace of mind. I invite you to apply to work with me so you can go to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and become a client. In five months from now, everything will look different about your finances. I look forward to working with you and until next week, have a good one. 

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. 

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