325 | Rewind: Your Money Is Not Happening to You

Often when I talk to lawyers about their finances, they describe them as if their finances are happening to them, and they don’t even realize it.

They talk about their money as if they have no control, but when you do that, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

In this episode, we talk about what happens when you believe your finances are outside of your control and how you can turn things around when you acknowledge the power you have over your money.

• • examples of how lawyers speak about their finances when they believe they are out of their control

  • how you feel and act when you believe your finances are out of your control

  • how everything shifts when you acknowledge the control you have over your finances

You’re listening to Personal Finance for Lawyers. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom, and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back, and happy summer. I am doing something I have not done in the six years I’ve recorded this podcast, and that is taking the summer off.

In place of recording new episodes, I’m sharing webinars I’ve done, trainings from private programs, and past episodes. So, please enjoy today’s episode, and I hope you’re having a great summer.

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Today we are talking about something I’ve noticed when clients first come to me about coaching. For background in our initial consultation call before we begin the actual coaching relationship, one of the things we talk about is where you are currently with your finances and where you want to be.

And often when I’m talking to clients about where they are currently with their finances, they talk about everything as if their finances are happening to them and they have no control over it. So the way they describe their financial situation is as if it’s completely outside of them.

So they’ll say things like:

I just don’t know where my money goes.

I get to the end of the month and I don’t have any money.

No matter what I do, my debt doesn’t seem to change.

I try to save, but I always end up not having anything left to save.

And it’s all of this, I don’t know why this, that, or the third is happening, but you do know because your finances are in your control. And to be clear, this was me for a long time, so if any of those statements are familiar to you, I feel you, and I want you to know you’re not alone.

You’re not the only person who feels this way or views their money in this way. However, also know that all of these statements suggest that you have nothing to do with where your money goes or whether your debt balance changes or whatever else. And that’s not true.

Your money is not happening to you. You are in control. Everything happening with your money is a result of your choices and the things you’re doing or not doing with your money.

And let me say here, I recognize that some people do have things outside of them that happen that affect their finances, right?

Maybe it’s a job loss or a medical emergency, and you end up taking medical debt and things like that. Like, I’m not talking about those things. I recognize that those things happen, but when clients come to me, that’s not their situation.

What has happened for my clients is they’ve made good money for however many years, but they have not been intentional with the way they use that money. And then they describe their financial situation as if it just happened to them, that not making progress with their debt just happened to them, or not having savings just happened to them. I don’t know what’s going on because it’s something outside of me, and it’s not something that I have control over.

Listen, if you’re not paying attention to your money, if you’re not being intentional with planning your budget, if you don’t even have a budget, all of that is why you don’t know where your money goes each month.

If you make a budget but don’t look at it, if you just swipe your credit card and pray you can afford whatever you’re buying, that’s why you don’t have money to save or make progress on your debt.

When you believe you don’t have any control over your money, and you don’t know what you’re doing, and everything is just happening to you, you’re going to do different things than if you believe you’re in control of your money.

Because if you’re telling yourself, I don’t know what I’m doing; I don’t know where my money is going; it just seems like I don’t have any money at the end of the month, all these things, you’re putting the money and what’s going on with your money outside of yourself. It’s this external thing that you have no control over. And when it’s something that’s outside of you, when it’s something that’s just happening to you, there’s nothing you can do about it.

But when you acknowledge the control you have, and you recognize that the choices you made have led to the current financial situation you have, no matter how much that may suck to admit, cause I know it sucks or at least it did for me. But when you look at your money as something that is completely within your control, then you can change it. You make different decisions when you recognize that your finances aren’t happening to you, that you have a choice here.

One of my clients recently said she’s finally realizing that she’s in control of her money. That action she’s taking now from that realization are day and night from what she was doing and not doing when we first started working together. But it all comes down to that belief that she’s in control.

You can decide to start a budget. You can decide what goes in that budget. You can decide what you’re going to spend on and what you’re not going to spend on and what financial goals you want to prioritize and to actually make them a priority.

But if you continue to say things like, I don’t know what’s happening with my finances, then you’re not gonna take those steps because if it’s something outside of you. What can you do? You feel helpless, and you feel like there’s nothing you can do and so you do nothing, and that’s not gonna help you improve your finances.

You have to be real with yourself and recognize that what’s in your bank account or what’s not in your bank account is completely a result of your choices. You have to recognize that the debt that you have is a result of your choices, the debt that you have not paid off is a result of your choices. The savings that you have or do not have is a result of your choices.

So I want you to consider how everything that’s going on in your finances is a direct result of choices you’ve made and not made or things that you have done and have not done. Then I want you to think about where you can make different choices and take different actions going forward.

And this is not for you to beat yourself up or anything like that. I simply want you to recognize if you’re believing that you have no control of your money and see that you actually have complete control and you can do something different. Your money is not just happening to you.

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Alright, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and got a lot out of it. If you have not done so already. Please subscribe to the show, leave a review, and/or share this episode with a friend or two who you think could use this information. All of that is how we get this podcast in the hands of more lawyers, and as always, I appreciate your support.

As we close out, friend, I pray that you take the information you learn here, apply it in your life, and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently, week after week, you’ll continue to take steps to take back control of your time, build wealth, and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.