151 | Why You Hate Managing Your Money

Let’s talk about why you hate managing your money.

It all comes down to a few things that you’re believing about yourself, about money, about money management skills, and/or about whether your efforts will pay off.

In this episode, let’s explore the different beliefs you may have that make you hate managing your finances and talk about how to change them.

• common beliefs about yourself that lead to you hating managing your money
• common money beliefs that lead to you hating managing your money
• how your thoughts about the effectiveness of your efforts can lead to you hating managing your money
• what happens when you know that the things you’re doing will lead to achieving your goals

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If you’re ready to learn the mindset and strategies to master your money, let’s schedule a call.

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. 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 to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. So today, we are talking about why you hate managing your money. So many lawyers tell me that they hate managing their money, they dread looking at it, they don’t want to look at it, it feels overwhelming all of these types of things. And it’s such a shame, because managing your money is really simple. It doesn’t have to be this thing that you hate. But when I think about why people hate it so much, it really comes down to three things. It’s the way that you’re thinking about yourself and your ability to manage your money. It’s the way that you are thinking about money itself, and money management skills. And it’s the way that you think about your efforts, like what the results of your efforts will be. So getting into the first one the way you think about yourself or what you believe about yourself. So many lawyers think I’m just not good at managing my money. And of course, when you think you’re not good at doing it, you’re not going to be super hyped to do it. You’re not like, oh, yeah, let me go do this thing that I really don’t know how to do. And so that just comes down to one looking at the things that you are already good at when you’re managing your money, because there are some things, but then to learning those things that you aren’t so good at. So shoring up those skills, where maybe you fall a little short. Another one that comes up is just beating yourself up all the time for past mistakes or things that you didn’t know. And this is one that we’ve talked about a few times. But I say all the time, it is not fair for you now, with the benefit of full hindsight, knowing the things that you know, now, to judge the past version of you who made certain decisions or certain choices, with the information that you had back then, even if you might have made different decisions, if you had known the information that you know, now, you didn’t know it. And so you don’t have to keep beating yourself up about it, it’s not productive, and it’s not going to lead to any change, it’s not going to make the situation be any different. It just leads to you feeling bad. Another one that comes up is thinking you should be further along than you are. And this one is like, based off of these random societal norms that we have adopted as the measure of where we should be in life. When people tell me things like they should be further along. It’s like you should be further along based on what what is the measure that you’re using here who said that you should be further along, when you’re thinking that you should be further along and you’re feeling maybe some sort of shame, some sort of regret, then you’re, of course not going to want to look at your finances and interact in that way. Because it’s a reminder of this thought that you have this belief that you have of not being where you think you should be. Another one that goes hand in hand with that is thinking that you’re a failure, because you’re not where you should be. So you’re not as far along as you think you should be. So you failed. And this one, I think is really common with lawyers, because we are such perfectionist. And we think that we should be going above and beyond in every measure. And so when we’re not, when we’re not where we think we should be based off of whatever random article that you read, or whatever you think is happening with your friend down the street or your colleague or whatever, then you think that you failed, but everybody is on their own financial journey. Everybody is taking their own path. And there is no objective measure that says this is where you should be. And if you’re not here, then you’re a failure. The final one that I have is thinking that this is just who I am, like thinking that the way that you manage your money now is some immutable characteristic, some part of your personality that you can’t change, right? And this goes back to the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset. Basically, if you believe that the way that you manage money, what you know about money is fixed and there’s nothing you can do to change it. And you don’t like the way that you’re managing it. Now you don’t think that you’re Managing it well, then, of course, you’re going to hate managing your money because you don’t think that there’s anything that you can do differently. The way that you manage your money is not just fixed, you can learn to manage it differently. If you don’t like the way things are going with your money, now you don’t like the way that you are spending or the amount that you’re saving or how much debt you have, you can change those things. But when you’re thinking that those things are just fixed, and there’s nothing that you can do about them, this is just how I am I’m just a spender, you know, that kind of thing, then of course, you’re going to hate managing your money, because you’re bumping into this thing that you don’t like about yourself, that you don’t think that you can change. Alright, moving into the way that you think about money, and money management skills. The types of things that come up here are thinking that managing your money is tedious. People think that it requires all of these really tedious tasks to manage money well. And something that goes hand in hand with that is thinking that it’s boring. Managing Your Money does not have to be tedious, it doesn’t have to be boring, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. And so of course, when you’re thinking about it in that way, and you are managing your money in that way, the times that you do sit down, you’re doing the really tedious work, then of course, you’re not going to want to do it. Yes, there are times when you’re doing tedious work, like you’ve heard some of my clients talk about doing the look back where they do a look back of their spending for the last one to three months. Yeah, that might feel tedious. But then once you get that snapshot of how you’ve spent, you’re able to look at your spending from month to month in smaller bite sized chunks. It’s not that you’re looking at all of this data every single time you sit down to look at your finances. Another thing that comes up here is thinking that your financial situation is overwhelming. A lot of times for people this is their debt specifically. But sometimes it is that overall financial picture just feels overwhelming for people. And so of course, if you’re thinking that your finances are overwhelming, your debt is overwhelming, looking at your spending is overwhelming, you’re not going to be super pressed to do it. And of course, it’s going to lead to you not doing it, which will lead to it being more overwhelming because you’re not managing it, you’re not controlling it, you’re not getting that handle on it. Another one that I have here and I should have said this on when I was talking about the tediousness or the boringness. People think that budgeting is all about deprivation and you can’t make room for fun. And that’s not the case at all. I teach that budgeting is a way to plan your spending. And yes, you’re going to plan for your needs, you’re going to plan for your goals, but you also make room for your wants. And the reason it’s important to do that is if you’re not making room for your want, if you’re like okay, I’m just going to cut out this whole thing that I love. Because I’m on a budget and I’m trying to achieve this goal, you’re not going to stick with that for very long, and you’re going to hate it right. That’s why you hate managing your money, you think that you got to cut out all the stuff that you love. And it’s just not the case. All right. And the final category is the way that you think about the effectiveness of your efforts. So if you don’t think that the things that you’re doing are going to work, if you think that no matter what you try, you just never able to get out of debt, or you’re never able to save. If you are looking at managing your money as like the struggle, It’s you versus your money versus you and your money working together to get you to your goals, then of course you’re gonna hate managing your money. If you knew, though, that your money management efforts would lead to you having more money, or less debt or a higher net worth than you would love managing your money. Like I think about myself like my husband and I track our net worth every month. And it’s really fun to see where the numbers fall. And when we were still paying down our student loans, we would track our debt balances. And I loved closing out our budget each month and seeing how much extra we were paying toward the debt and making those payments and seeing the net worth increase and all of that, like it wasn’t a struggle at all. I knew that the effort that we were putting in was leading to the goals that we had, even if it was taking a while because it took us a while to pay the debt down. I could see that progress month after month. And so that motivated me to keep going and it was part of why I love managing our money. One of my clients literally thanked me recently because of how I helped her shift the way that she looks at managing her money. So like I told her how much fun it can be to manage your money and how it doesn’t have to be this struggle. And she didn’t believe me at first, but she had her first taste of like the fun of managing her money when she was updating her budget. And it didn’t take her very long at all. And she could see that she’s on track for her debt payoff goal this month. And she said she just feels like she’s in control of her money for the first time. And that goes back to her belief and the effectiveness of her efforts, she can see that the things that she’s doing, are leading her to being able to pay off her credit cards and being able to control her money and manage her spending in a way that she hasn’t been able to do before. So when you believe that the things that you’re doing, the effort that you’re putting in is going to pay off, then you’re not going to hate managing your money, you know that I do A, B, and C, and I’m going to get to my goal, you’re going to love it, managing your money does not have to suck, it doesn’t have to be this thing that you hate. When you believe that you can do it, you let go of that shame and beating yourself up and all of the measures of where you should be. And you’ve learned to look at your finances in a different way. And you’ve learned to look at money management skills, like budgeting and saving and all of that differently. And when you can see a clear connection between the things that you’re doing with your money and achieving your goals. You will stop hating managing your money. And that’s exactly what I do with my clients. So I invite you to come work with me, we will change the way that you think about all of the things that we have just talked about so that you can love managing your money and you can start achieving your goals as well. Just head to rho thomas.com/call To get started. All right, that is it for this week’s episode. Come connect with me over on social media. You can find me most often on LinkedIn, rho, Thomas, and Instagram at I am rho Thomas. Subscribe to the show and leave a review both of which helped more people to find it. And think of a friend or two who could use this information and share the episode with them. 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 regain control of your time, build wealth, and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.