066 | When You Think You Can’t Do It

“I can’t do it.” It’s such a common thought for many people, especially when learning to manage money for the first time or trying to create and stick to a budget for the tenth time.

In this episode, we discuss why “I can’t do it” is such a common thought, why it’s not useful, and what to do about it.

Lightly edited transcript appears after the show notes.

Topics Discussed

• why “I can’t do it” is a common thought
• why it’s not useful
• strategies for handling it

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Resources mentioned

Lifestyle Freedom Starter Guide

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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. So today, I want to talk to you about something that comes up a lot in the context of money holes, and really in a lot of areas, it’s not just in the context of money but of course I’m talking to you about money, so that’s the way that I’m gonna approach it. And it’s this thought, I can’t do it. It’s such a common thought for so many people, especially when you’re learning to manage your money for the first time, or when you’ve tried to stick to a budget before, or pay off your debt or build your savings or whatever your goal is, and it didn’t work out for whatever reason. So then your brain immediately goes to. Well, I just can’t do it. So let’s talk about it. I want to talk first about why we do this. Our brains are designed to look for the negative, right, we look for all the bad things, or the things that can go wrong, it’s a result of evolution. So in primitive days, humans had to watch out for anything bad or any threat, like literally as a matter of life or death. If I’m not paying attention to, or on the lookout for potential threats, then I could be eaten by a lion or you know whatever animals were around at that time. But even though we’re no longer in those times, our brain still default to looking for the negative or the threats, and present day. So, for example, think about the last time you had a review at work, and you may have had an overall positive review, but maybe there were a few comments about things you didn’t do well or that you could improve on, you’re more likely to remember those few negative comments over the positive ones just because of the way the brain works. And the same thing happens when you’re thinking about budgeting or paying off debt, or trying anything new really like your brain immediately goes to all the reasons why it’ll be hard, or you’re not qualified enough, and you don’t have XYZ resources, and you just can’t do it right, like, in your mind, this new thing is a threat, your brain sees it as a life or death situation. Just like in the primitive days, but rather than life or death. Now, in present day is actually just a matter of potentially feeling emotions that you don’t want to feel right so you don’t want to feel the discomfort of doing something you’ve never done before, and you don’t know, step by step how to do it. You don’t want to feel shame or disappointment or whatever you would feel if you tried it, and it didn’t work out. You don’t want to experience you beating yourself up if you fail, right. So you tell yourself you can’t do it. And you may even have quote, evidence of past failures to back it up. So maybe you’ve had, you know, credit card debt, and you pay some off but then you put more right back on the card, or maybe you’ve created a budget in the past, but you haven’t consistently stuck with it. Or maybe you save some money, but then you end up spending it. So you’re focused on all of these things that didn’t go the way that you wanted them to go right, but you don’t have to focus on those things. You can literally choose to look at the parts that have gone right and see them as evidence that you can do it, rather than looking at those parts that didn’t go well and seeing them as evidence that you can’t. You could choose to focus on the parts that are working, rather than the parts that aren’t working. So on the scenarios I mentioned before, like you’ve paid off some of your credit card debt. You’ve created a budget before you’ve saved money before. All of that is evidence that you can do it because you haven’t done it. So now you just have to figure out how to keep moving forward and not taking that step back that you’ve done in the past, right, you pay some off and then run it back up or you save some and then spend it. You’ve already done the thing that you’re trying to do. And so now it’s just a matter of not kind of regressing right how to keep moving forward and keep going, staying consistent with that goal. And even if you don’t have those specific types of experiences, you’ve got other evidence that you can look to for why you can do this thing right you’re listening to this podcast right now. You’re learning about how to manage your money. I bet there are days where you’re just hanging out at the house, and you don’t spend any money or do anything related to money at all. So you literally can’t be doing something wrong, you know, you, you aren’t doing anything with your money, you can’t be doing something wrong with it on those days. All of that is evidence that you can do it. A belief is a thought that you’ve practiced over and over. So when you keep practicing the same thought I can’t do it over and over again. You’re solidifying that belief in your mind. Why would you do that, it’s not helpful. Right, it does not help you to beat yourself up and to keep telling yourself that you’re not able or you can’t do something. Also, when you’re so focused on how you can’t do it all the time. What are you not focused on, you’re not focused on finding the information to learn how you can do it right, you’re not focused on learning the skills you need to know to be able to do the thing. So the next time you find yourself thinking you can’t achieve your money goals, or some other goal you have, I want you to question it. Ask yourself, what are the steps it takes to accomplish this goal, because typically we haven’t even thought about that, right, like we don’t even know what it is we’re telling ourselves we can’t do. We just know we can’t do it. And our brains, often make things seem more complicated than they actually are. So look at what steps you need to take to accomplish your goal, and literally write them out. Don’t just say oh I can’t do this, like break down what it is that you’re thinking you can do. Then ask yourself why you can do it. Typically there are reasons on both sides, but we just look at the negative things like all the reasons why we can’t do it. But there are things that you’re already doing that show you can like we talked about before, there are things you’re already doing that support you being able to keep moving forward, that support you being able to learn more. So what are those things that you’re already doing that line up with the steps that you would have to take to accomplish the goal. What are those things you’re doing that support you managing your money the way you want to, or that support you accomplishing whatever other goal you have basically make yourself look for, the evidence on the other side, because I’m sure you’ve already identified all the evidence why you can’t do it right. Then finally ask yourself why you believe you can’t do it, and really make yourself answer that because we’ve got all these thoughts about what we can’t do and what we can do and you know why we can’t do it, but we never really question them or examine them like we just accept them as true. So what are the reasons you believe you can’t achieve your goal. Write them down, and then question them. Are they even true. Typically they’re not, it’s just limiting beliefs, or, you know other thoughts other distractions, to keep you from moving forward and doing something new, which is what our brains do. Right. New things are seen as threats. They’re dangerous. So, if we don’t do this new thing, then we stay safe, but safe does not get you to your goals. At the end of the day, you can continue telling yourself that you can’t do it, and never achieve your goals and stay quote safe. Or you can question that thought and challenge it and start making the progress you want to make with your money. I’m here to support you in that process. So when you’re ready to challenge the thought I can’t do it, and any other limiting beliefs standing in the way of you achieving your money goals, head to rho Thomas comm slash coaching, schedule a complimentary consultation with me and we will get you going in the right direction. So that’s it for this week’s episode, please take a second to subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already. If you didn’t know it’s free. I actually saw someone on live they recently that they couldn’t find the pricing info to subscribe to a podcast, they like, and so they were looking for help with finding it. It’s free, does not cost anything. It just allows you to automatically get notified when there are new episodes available. So go ahead and hit the little subscribe button on your podcast player, and you will get new episodes of this show, automatically to your phone. Also while you’re there take a second to leave a written review, subscribing, and leaving reviews are super helpful because they help more people learn about the show. Another way of course, that people learn about the show is when you share it. So please think of a friend or two, and share the podcast with them. I greatly appreciate it. And finally, if we’re not already connected on social media, please come connect with me over there. You can find me most often on LinkedIn and Instagram, my handle on Instagram is at I am rho Thomas, and I’ve actually been going live over there the past couple of weeks just hanging out with some of you guys talking about some of the things that we talked about here on the show. So I would love for you to join me. I have been going live on Mondays around 2:30pm Eastern time. So if you’re free at that time, please come hang out with me, and I might go live, other times as well. We’ll see. I’ll let you know. Okay friend, as we close out, I pray that you will look at all the places in your life, you’re telling yourself you can’t do it, and question it. I pray that you will do the work to overcome your limiting beliefs and move forward toward the goals you have for yourself. And as always, I pray that you continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live a life of freedom and choice, you deserve. Talk to you later.