095 | Letting Go of the “Right” Way

As lawyers, we often get really caught up in doing things the “right” way or wanting to make the “right” decision.

But what if there is no right or wrong when it comes to personal finance?

In fact, what if looking for the “right” way leads to spinning in indecision and not making progress?

In this episode, let’s talk about why lawyers try to make the “right” decision, how it holds you back from the progress you want, and how to think about making decisions instead.

Topics Discussed

• an example of one lawyer’s attempt to do money “right”
• why lawyers try to make the “right” decision
• why trying to find the “right” way or the “right” decision hinders your progress
• a different way to think about decisions

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Resources mentioned

April Money Reset Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/aprilmoneyreset

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If you’re ready to learn the mindset and strategies to master your money, let’s schedule a call. 

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Social media: Instagram and LinkedIn

Email: hello@rhothomas.com

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Lightly Edited Transcript

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 letting go have the quote, right way to do things or the right decision. As lawyers, we often get really caught up in doing things the right way, or wanting to make the right decision. And that often leads to sending an indecision. And now before we do that, we could where could we be good if we weren’t worried about doing things quote, right. I see this all the time with respect to personal finance. So clients will tell me that they haven’t taken steps toward a particular goal they have because they want to make sure they’re doing it right. They haven’t made a decision because they want to be sure they are making the right one. I was just putting together some coaching for my Facebook group that you’re going to be sent. If you are listening to this in real time in April 2022. And you haven’t joined us over there. Please get in there. You can head to rho thomas.com/reset or discharged, you want to reset on Facebook. But at the time I’m working on this episode we’ve been talking about budgeting in the group. I do a live coaching call each Monday and I go through and pull coaching for the topic of the week from clients that I’ve worked with in the past in case members of the group don’t have anything to discuss on the call. Of course, honestly, I’m not sharing names or anything like that, but just sharing with the group how other leaders have approached the topic and coding I gave them. So one example that I pulled for our call on budgeting was client wanting to reallocate some money for the holidays. She already made her budget for December. And she was thinking that she actually wanted to spend a little bit more than she originally planned to spend for Christmas. And she came to the call basically asking my permission like if it was okay to increase her spending. So let’s call her right, she’s in charge. That’s one of the things that I really want my clients just helping them to see that they are the ones in charge of their finances. So that’s one thing, but the main thing is irrelevant. What we’re talking about here is she already knew what she wanted to do. She had even looked at what categories that we would come from to be able to increase the holiday spending. But she was afraid to do it because she wanted to make sure she was doing it right. So she was waiting for approval or permission before she execute her plan. And I asked her what would happen if she didn’t do it right. And she said she’d be disappointed and she didn’t want to, quote drop the ball in the last two weeks of the month because she’d been doing so well to that point. And that’s even dropping the ball that’s really representative of one of the main reasons where you’re gonna make sure they’re doing things right. It’s not so much about doing the right thing or not doing the wrong thing as it is about how you treat yourself if you do something wrong, or that doesn’t turn out the way you expected. We can be super hard on ourselves. And I told this client, it’s normal to feel disappointed if you don’t achieve your goal, right. They just think you’re human. But you don’t then have to layer on the shame and the judgment and all of that that we tend to do on top of it. There is no right way to budget there’s no right or wrong way to do it. First of all, it was only halfway through the month. He was already indicated failing and not achieving our goal. But second, even if she did over budget or overspend for the month or miss school or whatever, it would have been nothing more than a data point that she could use in evaluating that month and deciding how she’s gonna move forward for the next month ultimately voted an outcome to the blow her goal for that month out of the water even with increasing our Christmas spending and reallocating money like she completely finished her savings goal for a time together. And she paid off one or two of her student loans. But the thing to remember is that personal finance is personal. There really isn’t a right or wrong way to do it. There’s only what you decide to do. And then making that decision gives you data to work with for how you want to move forward. So you made a decision. You made that decision. And then you can see like, Oh, I like this. I don’t like that or I want to do this thing differently. I want to keep doing what I was doing whatever it is, but sitting and not making a move because you’re waiting for the right thing is only going to keep you from making the progress that you could be making. So thinking that there is a right answer out there and you just don’t know what it is that might be feeling confused. You think the right answer among different choices and that might make you feel indecisive or even overwhelmed. Right? There are some different students. How do I know which one’s the right one? You might feel pressure if you’re thinking you’ve got to make the right decision. But none of those emotions will be useful for you and actually deciding whatever you’re trying to decide, you’re likely not gonna make a decision from confusion or indecision or overwhelm or pressure and again, not making a decision leads to you stalling yourself unnecessarily. We put so much weight on making the decision off because we’re not used to making decisions. So people have many times before about how many of us are like on autopilot, right? We’re going with whatever comes our way rather than intentionally making decisions for our lives about what we are going to do. And if you could let go of an idea of right and wrong, and just look at it all as gathering data. Like I’m gonna try this and see what happens. Okay, then, like the outcome of that we try something else, or I like the way this turned out. Let me keep doing this. Right. If you can look at it that way, that more objective view of it, rather than I have to get the right answer or I’m somehow wrong or embed all the shame and judgment and guilt on ourselves when things don’t turn out the way that we expected. If you can look at it more objectively, you’ll make quicker decisions, you’ll move forward so much faster, because you’re actually implementing things and it will turn out like you will get data to work with more than if you’re spinning and waiting for the right thing to do. And maybe a client Christmas shopping example isn’t a huge deal, right? You wish you could have started shopping a little sooner, but it didn’t affect your finances much. I often see people get stuck on more substitutions about the finances though, like I was about to use that strategy, how much to save an emergency fund where to save it, things like that, where they don’t know what the right decision is. So they do nothing and they make no progress at all. They build it up to this daunting thing in your mind so much so that they avoid and all of it you have a choice so you can choose to make a decision you can choose to decide that decision is right. You can choose to treat yourself with compassion and that layer on shame and all of those types of emotions. If decision doesn’t turn out the way you want to. You can choose to look at your decisions more objectively and not make them mean anything about you as a person or your ability to manage your money or any of that there are no right or wrong answers, especially in the context of finance. What works for one person or what one person may be comfortable with might not be the same for another person and that’s okay, like next week. And even when we say group, for example, we’re talking about saving and the amounts that people decide to save for an emergency fund runs the gamut, right? Some people are good with $1,000 Some people want a month’s worth of expenses. Some people want you know, three to six months expenses that typical advice that we hear some people want full year and none of those is right or wrong. It really is dependent on the other person. So you can make whatever decision you want to make with your finances. But the main point is you have to train yourself to make a decision in first place. Because until you do, you won’t be able to truly evaluate whether you want to go down that path or if you want to try something different. There really are no right or wrong decisions. Just make one. And if you are ready to let go of finding the right way to do things and learn start trusting yourself in your decisions with your money. I can help you so had to request a conference call to schedule your consultation. All right, that’s it for this week’s episode. Don’t panic with me over on social media rho Thomas on LinkedIn and Instagram. Please subscribe to the show and leave a rating review which helps more people to find us and please take a second to share this episode with a friend you think will find it useful. As we close out friend I pray that you let go of always trying to make the right decision. I pray that you learn to trust yourself and implement decisions to make more progress with your goals faster. And as always, I pray that you continue to take steps to regain control your time, build wealth and live the life freedom of choice you deserve. Talk to you later.