271 | Consistency Is Key

If you want real success with your finances, you have to be consistent.

Too often, lawyers start to see progress and then stop doing the things that created that progress.

This leads to falling back into old patterns and sometimes ending up worse off than when they started.

In this episode, let’s talk about the importance of consistency and staying the course.

• • examples of common inconsistent actions I see with money
  • a non-financial example of inconsistent actions and the consequent results
  • the importance of consistency
  • how to remain consistent with your finances
    

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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 to the show.

Today, we are talking about the importance of consistency.

Inconsistent action is a really common mistake that I see with the lawyers that I talked to and the lawyers I work with. It could be something like a potential client who tells me that they did a 0% interest balance transfer and they paid off their credit card, but then they ran the credit card back.

Or they “buckled down” and they didn’t go anywhere or spend anything for X amount of time and then they splurged and wiped out all the progress that they were able to make.

Or a client that I’ve been working with for a month or two who starts feeling good about what they’re seeing. They’ve got more money in their bank accounts and their debt balances are going down, and then they go on a shopping spree.

Or a client that has to reschedule a few sessions, and when we come back together they haven’t kept up with the things that we have been doing. And now they’ve overspent, and they don’t have money for the goal that they were working toward.

So these lawyers are all taking steps in the right direction, but they stop short of the things that they need to do to see the results that they want or they fall back into their old habits or stop doing the things that got them to the point that they were at.

They’re being inconsistent. And that leads to them sabotaging their progress or even ending up in a worse position – in the case of the people who do the balance transfer and don’t make a plan for how they’re going to pay it and end up running their credit card back up right? They end up with more debt.

So if we take it out of the context of personal finance, it might be even easier to see. Because I think sometimes seeing the same behavior in a different context makes things click more. So let’s think about fitness.

You’re not going to go to the gym one time and expect to have a six pack. You took that first step, but you have to keep going if you want to see results. If you work out and you eat healthier for a month or two, you’re probably going to see some progress. But if you like what you see in the mirror after that month or two, and then you decide that you’re going to go back to not working out and not eating well, you can’t expect to maintain that progress.

If you are unable to go to the gym for a few weeks and you don’t workout at home or wherever you are and you start eating junk food, again, you’re not going to be able to maintain that progress.

Consistency is key to the progress that you want to make with your finances.

If we take that first step, that’s good, but you’ve got to follow it with more steps and keep taking steps in the right direction.

So you want to have a plan that you can stick with long-term. That is much better than a short period of extreme discipline like the people who buckle down and are able to save, but then they end up splurging. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

So you want to create a plan that accounts for your needs, wants and goals. Because if you don’t account for all those things, you’re not going to be able to pay your bills, you’re not going to be able to make progress on your money, but you’re also not going to have fun. You’re going to be miserable and you’re not going to stick with it.

So you want your plan to account for your needs, wants, and goals and then you want to stick with that plan. And part of the way you do that is by reviewing your plan weekly against what’s actually happening. So you make sure that you’re staying on top of things.

If you start getting off track, you’re able to course correct. You might have to tell yourself no, sometimes because something that you want to do isn’t in your plan, and that’s OK. You don’t have to do every single thing. You can’t afford to do every single thing and achieve the goals that you have. Something has to give.

So if you’ve got goals that you want to achieve, sometimes you’re going to have to tell yourself no to some of the things that you want to do. And again, I think you account for the things that you want in your plan so that you’re not completely miserable.

I don’t believe in just sitting in the house and not spending any money and never going out to eat and any of that stuff. You want to be able to do those things, but you might not do them as often as you’re used to, or you might not do them as big as you used to.

There has to be some measure of sacrifice if you’re in a position where you’re spending all the money and you want to be in a position where you’re saving some or paying off debt.

So that means that we’ve got to figure out how to spend less. Which might mean doing the things that you want to do, but on a smaller scale or less often. So you’re going to have to tell yourself no sometimes.

What I don’t want, and this is something that I’ve seen before too, I don’t want you to get off track, and then you decide that you’re just going to give up. Like, oh well, I messed up. I didn’t stick to the budget, so I might as well just throw it out the window for this month.

You’re going to get off track sometimes. That’s normal. The key is in what you do after that.

You don’t have to beat yourself up about it. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody slips up sometimes. Just get back on track, but don’t take yourself off track because you start noticing that there is extra money in your account. That money is supposed to be there. That money is going to keep you from living on the brink of overdrafting your account every month. That money is not meant to be spent. Just because you’re not used to having that money doesn’t mean it’s not supposed to be there.

And that’s something that I see a lot too, where people start seeing that money and they feel like it’s extra, but it’s not. Right. It’s the money that you need to have in your account to keep yourself from overdrafting. So don’t get off track because you see that you’ve got more money in your account. Don’t spend more because you’ve got more room on your credit card. Again, that room is supposed to be there.

Ideally, you wouldn’t have credit card debt at all, but that’s what you’re working toward. And so as you see more room on that credit card, it’s because you’re getting your credit card to the place that you want it to be. Don’t stop doing the things that you’ve been doing that have gotten you to where you are just because you’ve got a little money.

This is just the beginning. We are building beyond this, and if you spend the money every time you build it up, you’ll never be able to get there. You’ll never have money.

When you put yourself on the right track, stay the course. Give yourself the satisfaction of seeing it through to achieve your goals. You may get off track sometimes, that’s okay, but don’t let that lead to you giving up altogether. Don’t let that lead to you staying off track.

Keep moving forward, taking consistent action, and you will achieve your goals. And if you’d like some help with staying consistent to achieve your money goals, e-mail me at hello@rhothomas.com and we can set up some time to talk.

All right.

So that is it for this week’s episode. Please subscribe to the show and leave a review. Both of those things help the show get seen by 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.