189 | Why You’re Not Achieving Your Goals

You’re not uncomfortable enough with your current financial situation to achieve your financial goals.

Often our goals are things we think sound good or would be nice to have, but that’s not enough to actually achieve them. If you want to achieve your goals, you need to view them differently.

In this episode, let’s talk about why you’re not achieving your goals and the changes you need to make to achieve them.

• • the way we often think about our goals
  • what’s required to achieve your goals
  • the discomfort of your current situation vs. the discomfort you believe your goals require
  • a personal story of discomfort pushing me to achieve a goal
  • why you don’t achieve your money goals
  • identifying your compelling “why”
  • why I’m so passionate about teaching lawyers about money

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. Today we are talking about why you’re not achieving your goals. Often we have these grand ideas of things that we want to do in our heads and they sound great to say right? They sound great to think. But when it comes to actually doing the things to actually implementing the fall short, we missed the mark. And the main reason for that is when you’re trying to achieve something new, that necessarily will require you to change to do something different. Maybe it’s something that feels harder than what you’re used to or more uncomfortable than what you’re used to. And often we theoretically desire things but when it comes down to it, those things aren’t worth the discomfort to us. They’re not worth the change or the difficulty. You will achieve your goals. You will do the things that you say you want to do. Make the changes that you say you want to make when your discomfort in your current situation is greater than the difficulty or discomfort or effort or sacrifice that you perceive is needed to accomplish the thing or to make the change. You will do the things that you need to do to manage your money better to pay off your debt to save more to invest more to build wealth to change your financial circumstances. When the discomfort you’re feeling now in your current situation feels greater than the discomfort you think you’ll encounter and making those changes. When your why isn’t big enough when the reason that you want to make a change isn’t big enough, the effort and difficulty and whatever else is required to make the change is not worth it to you. The cost associated with the change is greater than your why. So thinking back on my own personal situation. Before we started on this money journey when we were just living life, you know, we were able to buy stuff we wanted. We were able to go out to eat and we’re able to take trips all of that like we were living a nice life. There wasn’t really any difficulty or any discomfort there. There was maybe a little bit of an inkling a little seed of something there because I had come across some personal finance blogs and stuff like that up to that point. But it wasn’t a huge deal to me that we actually make those changes because our life was fine. So I had talked to my husband about seeing people pay off their debt quickly. And you know, what if we did that too, but I didn’t really have a reason why that I can articulate so when he wasn’t that interested. I didn’t push it because it wasn’t a big deal to me. the why behind it was very weak. It was just like this seems like a cool thing that we could do. It wasn’t until I was on maternity leave after having our first child and I’m looking at the life that I had been living for that last year and a half or two years, right because I was going into my third year when he was born. But I was looking at the time that I had been putting in and looking at the hours that I was billing and the lifestyle and realizing that it didn’t mesh with the kind of mom I want it to be. It was not going to work out with the schedule that I had been keeping up to that point. And that was when I wanted to decrease my hours and go part time. When we looked at our finances. It was like oh, we can afford to do that with the way we’ve been spending the debt payments we had like all of that we weren’t in a position financially to do that. So now the discomfort of our situation was greater than any discomfort of making a change to improve our finances. We were going along just fine before it bother us one way or the other because we were able to do the things that we want it to do. And we weren’t looking holistically at our finances or the impact that the way we’re managing our money was having on our lives because it didn’t feel like it really affected them. But when I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do when we weren’t in a position to take a pay cut for me to be able to go part time and spend more time with our baby. When we were projecting out years and thinking about when he got into school and he had events and he had activities and whatever else and thinking about what that would look like what the schedule is that we were currently keeping up. Oh now that’s uncomfortable. Now our why for improving our finances was greater than any cost associated with it. It was no longer just yeah, it will be nice. It was like no, I want this for my life. I want to have more flexibility. I want to have more time. I want to be able to go to my son’s games or school plays or whatever it is and not in the back of my mind. Be thinking about all the stuff that I’m gonna have to catch up on and the billing that I have to do to meet my hours and all that kind of stuff. When the discomfort of staying the same is greater than the discomfort of change, then you do it. Then you move forward. You take the steps to achieve the goals you’ve been saying that you have. If your why isn’t big enough though, if you don’t see the tangible impact and managing your money better is going to have on your life. If you don’t see how not spending everything you make is gonna make your life better. If you don’t see how paying off this debt is going to give you greater control in your life. If you don’t see how having money available to invest and make your money grow, it’s going to give you more freedom to make different choices in your life. If the goal you’re trying to accomplish is not more important to you than the effort you have to put in to achieve it. You’re not going to do it. You’re just not. When that’s the case you’re never going to do the work required. And you can say that you want certain things all day I want to pay off my credit cards. I want to build my savings. I want to become a millionaire. You can say those things all day long. But if you don’t have a big enough reason why if your current situation isn’t uncomfortable enough, if the cost of doing nothing and staying the same is not greater than the effort of you achieving that goal. You’re not going to do it period. So the thing that I encourage you to do is think about how managing your money better paying off your debt, building an emergency fund building wealth, whatever your goal is, how will that impact your life? Why is that important to you? What is the ultimate driver beyond it just seemed like a good idea. For me it was having control of my time it was being able to live my life the way I want to and not worrying about somebody else being able to tell me that I can or can’t do something. I don’t like that. My husband is the same way. And when we were spending everything when we had all this money going out to all these different bills and student loans and car loans and restaurants and shopping, we didn’t have that control, at least not the way we do now. We didn’t have the freedom and the flexibility to make decisions for our lives in the same way we do now. And let me tell you being on the other side is glorious. That’s why personal finance is so important to me and why I’m so passionate about teaching other lawyers about it. I have seen an experience firsthand the freedom that comes with having your money in order and not being dependent on every single paycheck. So start thinking about the deeper reason behind the goals you have. Find the piece that’s bigger to you than the effort you would have to put out to achieve your goals. And once you do, you’ll actually be willing to do the work necessary to achieve them. All right, that is it for this week’s episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second scroll down on your podcast app and tap that five stars and leave a review. All of that really helps the show to grow and get in front of more lawyers so we can spread this information and 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 regain control of your time, build wealth and live a life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.