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  • Protect your energy. Honour your sacred NO

     

    protect your energy, honour your sacred no

    No. Not this. No more.

    Something powerful happens when you reach that point of no return. When you have finally had enough. You aren’t going to bend and accommodate anymore.

    Trust. Your. Gut.

    Your inner knowing and inner voice.

    No one strategy works for everyone. Don’t feel like you need to follow a formula or conform.

    People who insist otherwise may not be safe for you.

    I think of instances when I did trust others over myself, and instances when I reversed that and chose to honour my intuition instead.

    You can probably guess which served me better.

    Not obeying the rigid rules and expectations of family, or playing the games a toxic work leader played.

    Not chasing external metrics (one of the things that really solidified my self trust, hilariously, was the retirement of Facebook’s relevance score for ads. A colleague, and of course Facebook reps, were obsessed with getting this score as high as possible. Sure, it’s a factor – but it’s not the most important. Sometimes people need to see important information, whether they want it or not).

    You don’t owe anyone explanations.

    You can try once. Maybe even a couple of times. Beyond that, I wouldn’t waste your energy. The people who get it are your people. Those who don’t, aren’t.

    Honour yourself even if it means disappointing others. Don’t twist yourself into knots trying to get others to understand you. Some people cannot and will not. Some are actively (though not always consciously) invested in not understanding.

    You think you can help them see the light if only you land on the right combination of words, the magical example, the key that unlocks that breakthrough and aha.

    Being misunderstood is inevitable. Letting others down is inevitable. What matters most is honouring, understanding, and trusting yourself. Being an upholder of what you know.

    Choose yourself. Honour yourself.

    Parenting has changed me in so many ways. I didn’t stand up for myself enough in hospital, but once I left, I started to build my confidence, strength and conviction.

    Before I left, one sleepless night, I wrote a long explainer on the hospital feedback form. I poured it all out. I didn’t sign my name, but I figured they could pretty easily ID me. I was very open about how I felt about their approach to breastfeeding, pumping, and visitors.

    My midwife asked if I would meet with the hospital to discuss what I wrote.

    The old me would have agreed to meet with them. My people pleasing tendencies would have insisted. But that was a turning point. I paused and thought about it. The new me, the exhausted mother, took no shit. And she did not have the energy for that kind of interaction.

    I said what I said. I stood by it. I let it stand alone.

    There is a tendency for women to be written off by much of society as hysterical and emotional. I’ve definitely experienced this a lot since becoming a parent.

    I feel like I would have been gaslit if I went. No, I KNOW I would have been gaslit if I went. Nicely, Logically. It would have all seemed very above board. And it would have done so much damage to me and caused me so much doubt.

    Listen to your sacred NO and don’t dampen it down.

    Protect your energy at all costs.

    Without it, you can’t achieve in any area of life.

    Choose where your energy goes. Be deliberate. Be intentional. Be selective. Instead of fixating on fears and doubts, real as they feel, direct your energy towards your intentions and goals.

    And choose to trust yourself.

  • How to self soothe when you’re dealing with anxiety (financial or otherwise)

    how to manage financial anxiety

     

    I’ve previously written about how I had started thinking about mindset work as my full time job.

    Let me amend that.

    When it comes to money and life, I’ve realised, regulating your nervous system (that’s brain AND body) is what supports you in making sustainable progress and simply easing the regular ups and downs.

    It’s the foundation for feeling relaxed, safer, optimistic, confident day to day.

    Thoughts create feelings; they can and do absolutely influence them. One thought can change it all. One different perspective can open up a whole new dimension. One new lens can instantly shift how you feel.

    As you become more skilled at managing your thoughts and shoring up your mindset, though, you start running into limits. Because working from the neck up inherently limits you. You can only go so far without venturing lower.

    Our massive brains are what set us apart, but we’re still mammals.

    The vagus nerve is a communications and sensory superhighway, connecting the brain and various organs. Like the main control room for our fight/flight response. It sends signals from brain to body, but mostly, vice versa – body to brain.

    It’s not all in your head

    “It’s all in your head” we say, but in fact, it goes so much further than that, deeper than the subconscious even, beyond to cellular level. Your body, physical reactions, the state of your nervous system.

    Imagine you overspent, blew your budget, miscalculated and went totally overboard with brunches and drinks and dinners and takeaways last month. Yikes.

    Maybe your jaw clenches. Shoulders go up. You feel tense and hot, but also a bit disembodied, disconnected, frozen. This immediate, instinctual reaction is automatic. The dysregulation going on there shows up in your body instinctively.

    Anytime you do anything with or even think about money, emotions can trigger you into fight or flight mode. It’s a subconscious response. Obviously you can’t function well or think clearly or act brilliantly in that stressed out mode.

    It all gets easier when…

    You can start being more conscious and compassionate with yourself. Cultivating safety and comfort at every level and every step. That opens up space to go even bigger and beyond. That’s the real key to getting, well, whatever it is you want, ultimately.

    This is the work: being okay where you are right now, so you can then clear the way to take things to the next level from here.

    You can feel scarcity and fear at any level, any point. You can feel guilt and shame at any point. Soothing yourself at every step helps you start expanding past those familiar internal set points you’re so used to.

    9 ways to return to neutral

    Stressed about money or something else in life? Get back to baseline in the moment by doing something for both your brain and body.

    Brain

    • Think about how much you can buy with the money you already have, right now. Or, think about 3 things you can appreciate right now
    • List all the ways you could take action to generate cash today. Or, think about 3 things you can do now that would feel 10% better than what you’re currently doing

    Body

    • Turn your head sideways, 90 degrees to your body, and hold for 30-60 secs. You’ll start to feel your whole body relax subtly, like a reset
    • Stand, focus on your breathing, in and out, and shift your weight from side to side, foot to foot, aligned with your breathing
    • Grab something in your hands (stress balls are great, or anything similar) and move it from hand to hand, side side, across the centre line of your body – think like a pendulum
    • Make your entire body stiff like an uncooked pasta noodle and hold for a minute, then consciously relax
    • Vocalise out loud! Brrrrrrr is a classic, but any sound you feel coming through you is great – do this till you feel some release
    • Shake, move, dance, stomp, rock your body – get very physical and move that energy through
    • Do a round or two of EFT tapping (there’s lots of videos on YouTube)

    Self-soothing when it comes to money

    How often do you handle, interact with, touch money in some way? A lot, right? Add to that, how often are you thinking about money?

    Imagine if all those touchpoints were a little more positive. What a difference that might make.

    How can you bring a little more positivity and safety into them?

    The more goodness you can inject, the bigger the ripple effect… infusing and informing the overall holistic relationship.

    Create stress free spaces for managing money. Low stress money dates where you go over your finances, celebrate progress and momentum, make plans for the future. Pair with delicious snacks and treats.

    Create parameters for safety that you can set and honour. You may chafe at structure and rules generally in life. I know I do. But they can actually be an ally here. Guardrails to guide your experiments or baby steps into the unknown, and ringfence risks or losses. Playing with a business idea? Give yourself permission to try, with a set allowance for experimenting. Making bigger investing moves? You can decide on limits, set stop orders for buying or selling. Have kill criteria for any money moves – a point at which you call time and quit like a pro.

    This goes for more than money

    This doesn’t just apply to money. It goes for anything else in life, too. Anything that feels hard, tough, sticky. That isn’t flowing the way you’d like. Where you don’t feel great.

    You can start shifting it from the inside out.

    Pause and get clarity. How do you want to feel instead? Identify your desired feeling, and think back to other instances when you felt this way. Recall exactly how it felt, and the circumstances that led to it.

    With this in mind… How can you get more of that? Kindle that flame? Expand that kernel? What step could you take right now to get closer to that feeling?

    It’s like… preplanning success. Celebrating it now, despite our lifelong indoctrination to ‘not count the chickens till they hatch’. In a practical sense, that is fantastic advice.

    But internally, creating a sense of success in your body – a memory ahead of time – goes a long way toward prepping your nervous system for receiving and accepting it. Like athletes visualise doing the thing, triumphing, ahead of time … you can do the same with anything in your own life, no matter how mundane.

    Because when success feels unfamiliar, parts of you aren’t really open to it, and are even repelling it. Shout, move, dance, pump your fists, whatever you would actually do when the time comes. Practise it. Embody it. Encode it.

    This is how liberation starts

    From within. Cultivating true and lasting financial power is an inside job.

    Then, it’s always with you. Accompanying you wherever you go; it becomes part of you.

  • Weeding out money demons and financial weak spots at the root

     

    Deconstructing your individual money story, your unique flavour of hangups and hurdles along with triumphs, is something you’re probably going to eventually come up against (if you haven’t already) and is the key to sustaining next-level success.

    Buuuuuut when we really get down to it… what does that mean?

    Let’s make it real, let’s get raw with some tangible examples as I walk you through some of my shit.

    My mistrust of cash

    I love money but actual physical cash? Not so much. I can probably trace this back to what I think might be my earliest money-related memory, in which I was dispatched to the dairy to buy milk but lost the coins along the way (and was never trusted with that errand again).

    My struggle with boundaries

    My tendency to entertain any request, put up with unreasonable demands, give and give and give some more. This shows up financially and in other areas – though I’ve come a long way. Stems from parents who had poor boundaries and unreasonable expectations.

    My problems with spending on myself

    I don’t really have issues with buying experiences (food and travel) but when it comes to buying physical stuff? That’s a whole ‘nother thing.

    We rarely got gifts. I can probably count on one hand how many birthday gifts I remember getting; I think it was partly at the whims of parental moods. Sometimes from extended family too, but rarely. Ditto Christmas; I remember trying to dodge the question “What did you get this year” every year. And there was definitely a weird story around presents being for needs, not wants.

    As an adult, I’m relearning how to embrace the concept of pleasure. This probably also ties in with my difficulty receiving – I’m just not used to it, I feel really uncomfortable being given anything, as being the recipient of generosity is so … foreign.

    Little wonder it’s hard to receive anything. Even now, I receive cash every year for my birthday, and it’s not something I fully feel comfortable about.

    And that definitely links up with the drive to earn (that’s a whole thing of its own!), through hard work and hustle, and prove myself. It’s all connected.

    My problems with having and trusting

    Also – even just having stuff is difficult for me. It could be taken away (like my treasured Westlife CD, uplifted, given to someone who was visiting us, and never replaced despite the promise to do so).

    How does this manifest? Honestly, I often don’t take great care of my stuff. I was also burgled many times in my 20s, further cementing this wound. Feeling I can’t relax and have nice things. Feeling I can’t trust/rely on others financially; pocket money was inconsistent and the whole endeavour probably lasted less than a year.

    Yeah, there’s a recurring pattern here. Things suggested or started and then never heard of or mentioned again.

    My problems with underearning

    I’ve been anchored, pegged to my knowledge of the hourly rate my parents earned way back last century. Internalised that benchmark and operated with that knowledge in the background. Feeling like it’s good enough and I should be grateful to be beating that (despite, you know, inflation and other things…)

    As I mentioned before, it’s been deeply ingrained in me that I need to work hard for money. I need to achieve, to prove my worth. And subconsciously, probably to make up/atone for the brief phase in my teens when I shoplifted makeup. Not my finest hour.

    Soooo…. what are we supposed to do with all this?

    Acknowledge these root experiences and memories. Accept them, difficult as they might be and uncomfortable to admit to.

    Recognise you learned from what was imprinted on you and deeply encoded in your subconscious. It’s empowering to realise you’re not broken, there’s nothing wrong with you.

    And that now you can start to choose differently, day by day, step by steap.

    Start to build new conscious patterns for yourself. Actively. Deliberately.

    Question your instinct and consider whether the alternative might serve you better. Practice trying on new choices and see how they feel.

    I think about all the times I HAVE managed money well, upheld boundaries and honoured myself, spent well on myself, relied on others, enjoyed what I have, and grown my income.

    Find evidence to support your success and keep building on it.

    That’s how we start to exorcise these demons.  That’s the work I’ve done over the years to beat them.

    That’s how you stop sabotaging yourself and start finding your money groove.

  • Where are you making do?

    where are you making do in life?

    I used to be great at making do. I didn’t make much, nor did I expect to. I got great at working with those constraints.

    Leaving that world behind, graduating into a new reality, was a slow burn.

    Picturing and projecting into the future. Figuring out where, if nothing much changed, things would be in a year, 2 years, 5 years and beyond.

    Deciding what I wanted to carry on and what I was ready to leave behind. Contemplating how that changed the picture.

    Letting myself dare to dream. Expand my horizons. Stretch the limits.

    Getting ready to shed, getting ready to step up.

    Letting ideas creep in, not dismissing them summarily, discerning why they felt scary and whether I was willing to consider them anyway.

    Honouring my hopes and desires, my feelings, and the stirrings that energised and galvanised me.

    Where you are right now is where you are. And if it’s not where you want to stay, that’s okay too. And if you wind up remaining here longer than you want to, that’s fine, too. Things tend to unfold in their own time.

    But leaving it all behind starts with a spark. Saying no more. I’m done making do. I’m meant for more.

    I desire, deserve, and am destined for more than this.

    The audacity to think about wanting more. And then, daring to start doing things differently.

    Where are you making do, biding time, shrinking and playing small right now, and what’s your end game?

  • One word I just can’t stand (and what I’m replacing it with)

    find a mantra that works for you

     

    One phrase that REALLY grates on my nerves is this: creating money.

    So too do creating clients, creating results, etc.

    Hello, cue brain scoffing…

    BUT you’re not literally printing/minting cash, are you?

    BUT you’re not literally bringing new humans into the world, are you?

    You’re not literally making cash out of thin air. You’re recirculating existing currency. Clients were already moving through the world; they just weren’t YOUR clients before.

    The resistance, at least for me, is strong. The instinctual, involuntary reaction, visceral.

    Maybe it’s semantics. Making money doesn’t elicit such a response. Nor does getting clients or results.

    And isn’t make just another synonym for create?

    Stripping it back, I think I stumbled across two hurdles.

    1. Something about the word ‘create’ feels like it bypasses hard work (at least to me)
    2. Create is closely tried to creative, and I also have a fraught relationship with that word

    I don’t super identify with the label of creative so maybe I feel similarly imposter-y about throwing the word create around. (Probably a subject of another whole post; my hang up here is around my personal definition of creativity. It has traditionally been very narrow; only now am I starting to apply it more broadly beyond the visual arts that produce something tangible, and extending it to nonfiction writing, ways of thinking, etc…)

    Unlocking that little insight freed me to go beyond and search for a word that did resonate more strongly. Personally, I’ve adopted the word generate. Something about this feels much more aligned. More concrete. More momentous. More active.

    Y’all know I’m very anti-hustle, but by the same stroke, sitting back and waiting isn’t the vibe, either. For me, generate fits and straddles the gap. It feels to me like it honours the aspect of taking action and earning a result, but not necessarily by grinding.

    It’s grounded yet allows for ease and flow in there, too.

    If something isn’t resonating with you, by all means, find something that DOES vibe with you to take its place. Because words matter. They’re powerful. And choosing the right ones, even if it means making up your own mantra, makes a difference.

    Do you ever get caught up on a particular word? What’s gotten you stuck lately?

  • Life lately…

    I feel like I covered off a big money update last month… so, time for a life update!

    I’ve shifted into a new, slightly different role that’s just the challenge I need. Dreamed up a new awesome freelance offer (I’m often referred to edit books and help put together online courses, and now I’m seeing a need for ongoing strategic and editing support with regular daily/weekly content). Finished NLP (neurolinguistic practitioner) certification and now am cooking up a coaching offer (which I envision as being a next step up from my course, and broader – more life and money, not just money). Watching Parenthood and Better Things; next up Ted Lasso, and catching up on the later seasons of Gilmore Girls (even if I hear they went off the rails)

    But realistically the thing that takes so much time, energy, bandwidth… is parenting.

    Sooo… here’s a braindump of life on that front 😊

    Toddler eating + ongoing food intolerances

    Spud is firmly in the beige food phase. I don’t blame him. All his intolerances really do restrict things.

    Dairy, seafood and fish, nuts (though all are improving, especially I thiiiink that last one?) – it cuts out many options, especially for an already picky toddler.

    A couple summers ago he returned to nightly screaming around midnight, waking and squealing bloody murder. It took a few days but eventually I pinpointed the likely culprit: my granola, which he’d started eating as well. So much for healthier breakfast cereals! Nuts were not identified in the ingredient list, but I imagine there were probably trace amounts. And when you can’t trust the inclusions on the label, you start making your own. So, I now make my own granola every week.

    When we did Hello Fresh for awhile, he was also struggling at nights. Again, I can only assume trace presence in some of the ingredients.

    The last few months, he’s started vocalising it, constantly telling me he has a sore tummy. That’s helpful, rather than me just surmising it from his actions and behaviour.

    What’s helping? This kiwifruit bowel health stuff is magic for soothing digestive issues fast. Also still doing these Renew Life kids probiotics, but the kiwi stuff is gold for quick relief. (I also have these digestive enzyme tablets on hand as a backup.)

    Obviously avoiding, though not totally, those trigger foods helps (dairy is in so many things, and lingers in the body too, as it’s slow to process through).

    Favourite things

    Screaming surprise! at me constantly.

    Robots.

    Transformers.

    Countdown farm blocks.

    Hot wheels.

    Dinosaurs and sea creatures.

    Counting out syllables.

    Sounding out letters.

    Asking questions, always. Are there lots of cranes in Ukraine?

    Revelling and struggling with…

    Teaching him how to think. This coaching really is the crux of parenting IMO.

    Responding neutrally.

    Asking questions. Open-ended, ideally.

    What have you tried? What else could you try?

    What about X? Strong-willed kids do better with suggestions than instructions, or at least this one does.

    I want him to form his own thoughts. Do things for himself. Learn to think and work through things for himself.

    So I find myself always trying to come up with analogies and examples.

    Sometimes it’s easy – ‘hug it!’ I said, telling him how to stay on the spinny thing at the park.

    Sometimes not. A page was ripped in his book – ‘”put it in the bin” was his response (as usual). I said ‘ if you get a scrape or scratch or bruise, are you no good, should I put you in the bin?’ Possibly a bit harsh but I think the message got through … nope, you’re still you and you’re still working just fine.

    I try to show when I’m learning too – making mistakes, having difficulty doing something. We saw BMX bikers doing all sorts of daring tricks as the Easter show, some wiping out pretty badly. I was thrilled. We were in the front row right up close. What better way to see people trying, failing, getting back up and trying again?

    His perfectionism tendencies (‘put it in the bin!’ ‘I’m done!’) are strong. “You’re perfect” he’s told me, even when I clearly show I’m not. But the other day, I heard “It’s not perfect but it’s fine” – and my heart soared.

    Staying calm, modelling calm nonviolent communication and a can-do attitude, reminding him we can figure anything out and fix things. Spilling milk in the morning always results in upset. But you know what? We don’t have to wipe up every drop immediately, as you’re probably going to spill more before you finish.

    My family of origin is very judgmental, quick to share their thoughts and opinions. I want to foster the opposite. Cultivate non-judgmental, open-minded curiosity.

    It’s possible. Could be.

    Very little is black and white in life here on earth. I try to reflect that in what I say.

    What I’m thinking about

    Thinking about starting school in term 4, and holiday care…

    Thinking about planning his first plane trip…

  • Getting more intentional about my belongings

    CURATING MY HOME - starting with books

    As a renter, I lived with a hodge podge of random furniture and belongings. I really couldn’t commit to anything, because I moved so frequently, and often had to upsize or downsize accordingly.

    Seven years after moving into my own home, I still very much live with a random assortment of things. And I’d like to be more intentional about what is in my home.

    I feel my family was very much in the ‘grab it if it’s free/cheap’ camp. Books, CDs, toys weren’t really carefully curated, more just whatever came our way or was on sale.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m very grateful for all the freebies we’ve received. I just want a bit more curation in my life.

    I’m going to start with books. Reading is a core part of my identity.

    But, I don’t buy books – I live and die by the public library.

    That said, there are definitely a few books I think I could happily own and come back to over and over.

    Right now, all the books I personally own were gifts or freebies through work. I’ve made a list of books I would like to own and will start looking out for ways to acquire them frugally.

    I’m also getting better at saying no to my mum, who is always offering me something or other from her latest round of bargains from the op shops, picked up off the roadside or gifted to her.

    I still don’t really care about decor, colour schemes, matching sets … but these days I do want to carefully curate what I surround myself with. To be more selective. More intentional.

    Do you choose your stuff, or has your stuff chosen you?

  • The joy and agony of using your emergency fund

    mixed feelings about using emergency fund

     

    It was our second to last night on holiday. Slumbering in a cute Airbnb in Napier. Literally the last thing I expected was a call from the local cops at 4am notifying me the car had been stolen (from right outside!) for a joyride, recovered, and the perp in custody.

    Instead of carrying on to our last stop, Rotorua, after breakfast – the morning was a flurry of phone calls and Googling. Dealing with insurance. Frantically trying to find a rental car. Figuring out what we’d need to replace immediately and where to buy it. Trying to get to the tow yard, which turned out to be closed all weekend.

    You may also know the exquisite pain of tapping your emergency fund.

    But it’s an amazing feeling not to have to worry about money in a situation like that. We just needed to find a way to get home, preferably while continuing with our original plan and one more night before heading home. It didn’t really matter how much it cost.

    Annoyingly, insurance would only reimburse the equivalent of bus fare directly back to Auckland, which was a couple hundred dollars. We considered flying, but in the end found what must have been the last available vehicle in the city for about $900 for a one-way overnight rental. We’d drive on to Rotorua as planned, spend the night in town, then back to Auckland to return it at the airport. (It was a neat vehicle. Brand new, lots of little self-driving functions.)

    There is, it turns out, an extra you can add on to your car insurance policy for car rental in this situation. It is not free! Nor is it all that great. It simply entitles you to preferential hire rates (whatever those might be).

    We did also replace Spud’s carseat right away (which again, has risen significantly in price since I bought the original 2 years ago). Honestly, this is what bugs me the most. What a waste of a perfectly good carseat! I hope someone picked it up off the side of the road or whatever, because seriously, that was a $500+ (now $700+) carseat with a LOT of life left in it.

    Some other annoying, random things were also lost from the backseat. Cereal, books, hat, jacket, drink bottle, etc. (A few bits, not worth claiming through contents cover.) But they left everything in the boot. The wagon, the ball, the beach toys, scooter, etc – untouched. The damage was minimal. They clearly just wanted to go hoon around.

    Eventually, it got towed back to Auckland for repairs. The mechanic also got hit by thieves over the summer break and had no courtesy cars available. And then we had the devastating cyclones that upended things around the country. It took two months to finally get my car back! But it was better than ever. It felt like they did a full mechanical once over – the brakes are smoother, and even though I specified that the crack on the back of the side mirror was already there, they still fixed that up and bundled it all up in the claim.

    I was out hundreds on the car rental, and then paying for convenience for nearly two months to have grocery delivery (only available from the more expensive supermarkets). And it was fine. Inconvenient. But fine.

    The last few months have been spendy…

    More generally, it’s been an expensive few months. Yes, there’s the cost of food and basic necessities. But also, a lot of choice. That road trip, a much needed holiday. A long overdue trip to the dentist (I hadn’t been since, uh, pre-pregnancy…) and my first fillings ever. New glasses, well overdue. And a lot of overdue things around the house, like fixes to the side gate, getting the roof painted (which had been on to the todo list since moving in 8 years ago) and getting the rotten eaves replaced.

    It’s been an invitation and challenge…

    to practise, deepen, and embody everything I’ve been thinking and talking about in relation to money.

    To channel deep gratitude for being in place of safety and plenty, to not have to worry about any of this. As I said to the victim support rep – it has been a hassle, there have been many inconveniences, and the expenses are annoying, but not devastating. (I was actually kinda excited to go through the restorative justice process, which I wrote a big feature about when it was a new thing and I was in journalism school. But between the perp’s circumstances, the distance, and then the massive cyclones that disrupted everything, it seemed the cons outweighed the pros in this case.)

    To remember that money comes and goes, is designed to flow, to support us, and trust that it is always continuing to flow in, too.

    I don’t advocate for burying your head in the sand. It’s not about denying reality.

    It’s about acknowledging the circumstances, and choosing to face them with grit and grace. Deciding, over and over, to spurn the fear, scarcity, and anxiety. Releasing the need to control and letting go of that power dynamic of struggle. Surrendering to what is, and choosing calm and trust through it all – even as insurance approvals and supply chain delays drag out.

    Making moves from a place of fear never works out well. Making moves from a place of confidence, empowerment, and expansion is the real flex.

  • Wishful thinking

    I’d like to have so much money that I could have …

    a chauffeur

    a chef

    holidays every quarter that somebody else plans and books for me

    a dog walker 2x a week

    go WILD at the fancy cheese shop

    spontaneous weekend trips without looking at the bank balance

    Clearly, I’m exhausted because that’s about all my imagination can stretch to right now!

    Seriously though. Goals should be ambitious yet achievable, IMO. At least 51% believable.

    For now, I’m pretty happy to be in a position to:

    go out to eat on a public holiday without even thinking twice about the 10% surcharge

    give three-digit donations (not just double digit)

    buy the thing I want upfront, not the cheaper alternative (always leads to regret!)

    What are you daydreaming about? Any goals for 2023?

  • When you feel better, you do better

    feel better, do better

    Everything is about how you feel. As the Maya Angelou quote goes, people may forget what you said, but never how you made them feel.

    How you feel influences how you do anything. EVERYTHING. It impacts how you show up. Feeds into what you do and how you do it.

    To some extent, it’s true: what you put out comes back.

    Hey, I’m not into the ‘good vibes only’ vibe. Denying emotions does not work. Toxic positivity – no thanks.

    But I do think it’s important to do ourselves a favour and limit wallowing and spiralling, and do our best to shift out of that mode before it goes too far.

    When you feel better, you do better. Full stop.

    In money and life.

    You think more clearly, quickly, confidently (that’s gold when you’re in the hot seat for a job interview).

    Stuff flows out of you, just pours forth from your fingertips and tongue. You write and speak in full flow – it almost bypasses your conscious brain. Like you’re a conduit, channelling some deeper spring of brilliance.

    You make better, more aligned decisions without agonising for weeks, going back and forth second-guessing yourself.

    And you can’t get into that beautiful flow state unless you’re feeling good.