104 | General Criticisms and Specific Problems

We tend to have all kinds of thoughts related to money.

Those thoughts can run the gamut from thoughts about the details of your financial situation to thoughts about yourself and your ability to manage your money.

The key here is to differentiate those thoughts that are general, vague criticisms from those that relate to a specific, solvable problem.

In this episode, we talk about the difference between those general criticisms and specific problems and the impact each can have on your ability to achieve your financial goals.

Topics Discussed

• the difference between general criticism and specific problems
• an example of general criticism vs. a specific problem in my own life
• examples of how these concepts show up in the context of personal finance
• the issue with general criticisms
• why having a specific problem you want to address is useful
• finding specifics in the general
• how to handle general criticisms and specific problems

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Resources mentioned

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Email: hello@rhothomas.com

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Lightly Edited Transcript

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 general criticism and specific problems. The idea for today’s episode came out of my Bible study earlier this week, but stick with me even if you’re not a Christian, or you’re not religious, because it’s applicable outside of the religious context, which is why I’d like to do that. So I was reading a devotional earlier this week where the author was talking about condemnation versus conviction. She defined condemnation as a false guilt that attacks your identity. This includes thoughts like I’m not enough, I’m not lovable. I’m a mess. I’m a failure, things like that. She said, this leads to hopelessness because so often is not specific, but a general feeling that you are inherently flawed. Conviction on the other hand, she defines as God calling her attention to some specific behavior or thing that needs to be changed. So taking it out of the religious context of condemnation and conviction, I think we can boil these down to general criticisms versus specific, solvable problems. An example that came to mind for me when I was reading the devotional is the thought of not being a good enough mom. So I’ve definitely had that thought and worried about if I’m doing it right or doing it for my kids, versus when identifer started. I found myself yelling a lot more than I usually did. I was feeling overwhelmed. I was trying to manage my practice and billing all these hours, and the kids were really small. And they were three and one at a time. And we’re getting to all of these things like it was like they weren’t really doing but honestly just being kids, right. And we were in other spaces all the time, all of a sudden, and myself yelling and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way I was showing up for them. It didn’t feel good. To you all so much. And that was a specific behavior that I could change and find resources to help me with, versus this general thought of not being good enough mom with no solution for how to become quote, good enough, or even good enough means. And so I was thinking about how the concept in the devotional show up in different areas of our lives, where we sometimes have these general vague criticisms of ourselves as people and then we have specific behaviors that we may want to address. or improve. Specifically in the context of personal finance. I can’t tell you how many times lawyers told me things like, Well, I’m just not good with money or I’m not doing enough. And the issue with general statements like that those attacks on your identity as emotional hold them, because when they’re so generalized and so vague, what can you do to change them? What’s the solution? Be good with money, be more disciplined and what are the things even me who determined what it means to be good with money or to be disciplined? There’s no objective measure for when you reach those points. And when you think of these things, as just flaws and who you are as a person. Often it seems like there’s nothing you can do to change it. Also, when people say these things are not saying it, like it’s a good thing. It’s like, Yeah, I’m not disciplined enough, right? Like typically when you’re saying those like general criticisms, or getting those general vague criticisms yourself. It’s things that you don’t like, and you may feel hopeless or discouraged and think there’s no point in trying to do something different because this is just what it is. That’s obviously not going to lead to you doing kind of work that you need to do in order to achieve your financial goals. If you’re just bad with money or you’re just not disciplined enough or whatever that criticism might be for you. And just the way it is and how motivated would you be to learn about money or to implementing to learn or even to approach your finances in first place like probably not everybody to write. These general criticisms aren’t helpful because they’re not actionable, and they want to make us feel bad. And because of the demotivating, or distorting effect they tend to have they also tend to lead the avoiding or finances and not achieving goals. Let’s look instead at when there’s some specifically in behavior you might change. Maybe you overspend until you decide you can learn to create a budget or maybe you keep seeing the balances rising on credit cards. So you want to learn how to manage them better is starting off. Or maybe you know, investing is good, but you feel clueless about it. So you want to educate yourself. Now find some specific solutions to address these specific issues that you want change. So you can search online, you can read books, you can listen to podcasts, you hire a coach, because you have a specific problem want to solve, you can find a specific solution. And so that’s something that I want you think about when you notice those thoughts about yourself and your money management habits coming up. Pay attention to if it’s a general thought of attacking the person, you are something about your identity, some vague criticism, like not being good enough or not being disciplined enough, or if it’s a specific issue that you can find an actual solution for. And I think you can even identify specific things within some of those vague general criticism. Sometimes, for example, if you dig deeper on a person, like I’m bad with money, and ask yourself why then you might come up with some specific things that you want to address. So that might be like, Well, I don’t have a budget. I overspend I don’t have savings. I don’t know how much that I have. And then those are specific things that can change. Like you have something specific to work on. You can find resources help you learn to budget or to learn how to save or to actually look at your debt and figure out a plan for paying off. When you have specific things that you wanna work on, you can find resources versus generally thinking, I’m bad with money. That’s just the way it is. It’s just who I am, and then not having any idea where to go from there. This whole discussion goes back to something we’ve talked about many times before with really paying attention to the way you think about money and about yourself. We often just say our thoughts is true, but I’m bad with money or I’m not disciplined enough or any of those general principles we have about ourselves are not about the facts. They are thoughts, they are opinions, and you can choose whether or not you believe them, and what specific things you might want to change are more likely to be based on actual data. So I spent more than I made last month or I have X amount of savings or I have Y amount of debt. Those are facts that you can prove, but there also likely are some opinions mixed in there about that data. The difference though, is the specific things have a specific solution you can omit to address them. They are solvable where as a general criticism or not. So I want you to notice which type of thought you tend to have. Is it the general vague, something’s wrong me kind of or is it a specific thing I want to change? And as you notice the general thoughts you can start redirecting yourself away from them, and then as you notice the specific ones, you can find solutions to help you address those things. And whether you have gentle criticism about yourself in your finances, or you want to learn money skills to solve specific problems, I can help. I will teach you how to question those criticism thoughts, and I’ll also teach you the skills you need to manage your finances with ease. So your first step is scheduling your complimentary consultation at rho thomas.com/call. Alright, so that’s it for this episode. Connect with me over on social media. I am most often on LinkedIn. I’m rho Thomas over there and on Instagram and we’re gonna subscribe to the show and leave a review that would help more people to find it. And please take a second to share with a friend who you think would find the information useful. As we close out friend, I pray that you recognize that those general vague criticisms that sometimes pop into your head aren’t objective facts. I pray that you identify solutions to address the specific things you want to change and that you actually implement them. And as always I pray that you 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.