Stop what you’re doing. Take a breath and think seriously for a moment. What brought you to where you are right now? What choices did you make that led you to this point in your life? Everyone is at a different stage of their financial journey but there is a reason you are here right now looking for more.

To be able to move forward and achieve the “more” you’re searching for, you have to confront yourself and be honest about everything- and I mean everything. How bad are your spending habits? Have you lied to loved ones to further your own agenda? Have you become complacent and stopped pushing yourself? Reflecting on yourself like this allows you to reclaim some form of control over your life and your money because you are no longer denying who you are, what you’ve done, what you want and why.

To put it into context: Have you ever jumped into a relationship before being truly ready just because you wanted some form of joy, validation, or companionship? Let me guess, it didn’t end well? This is because you weren’t being honest with yourself and that wall you had up caused you to make some wrong decisions. Before having a successful future with someone, you always need to be honest with who you are, stand firm in what you need/don’t need, re-evaluate any poor past decisions you have made, and be confident in yourself. The same thing goes for your relationship with money. You cannot have financial success without owning up to your shit and having that confidence to make the right types of changes. Some good ways to begin confronting yourself include:

● List out the things that sit heavy on your heart, whether it be related to money, family, school, etc. See these issues laid out in front of you and begin to identify why you made these decisions, why it is affecting you so much, and who else was affected by them, as well.
● Come clean. You can worry yourself into a hole just thinking about how others will react when you are honest with them but you will never know until you buck up and do it. First step is coming clean and then you can move forward from there.
● Take pride in the good decisions you have made. This isn’t just about being honest with the mistakes you made- you’ve had some wins, too, and you need to be proud of those! Seeing where we thrive compared to where we are at our lowest helps us identify what we need to work on, as well as where our strengths shine through.

When we stop hiding from ourselves and the mistakes we are scared to make again, we can take back the power that money has over us and charge forward in a more positive direction.