Why don’t we reach some of the huge goals we set? How about the financial goals that we set but can’t seem to pull off? I think we all hit barriers at some point in time no matter what we are pursuing, so it’s worthwhile spending some time learning about them and how to deal with them. Lately I have been learning about barriers that could hold us back even when we have the right financial knowledge. So far I have learnt about and explored Fear, Doubt, and Laziness, and this next lesson is going to be all about Bad Habits.
Bad Habits
This is a huge topic because I feel like it can branch off into any area or lesson. I will do my best to keep it relevant, understandable, and applicable to real life. Let’s begin by getting a stone cold definition of a habit:
“Something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it”
Wow, that second portion of the definition is quite profound – not knowing that you are doing it. If you’re not aware of what you’re doing, then it obviously doesn’t take much drive or motivation to do it. If I have a habit of working out, then there’s no longer any mental battle of “I need to try and get myself to the gym”, and I end up just going and doing it without even thinking, how awesome is that! If we put this understanding into the bad side of habits, it means we could be doing something wrong often and regularly without even realising it. It’s easy to see from this alone that habits shape our lives more than we know it. In Robert’s book, he starts off with a statement – “Our lives reflect our habits more than our education”. There could be better ways to respond, but the way my mind responds at my current age is “Daaang, that’s fire!”.
I completely agree with what he is saying, because habits have so much more impact on our lives than temporary knowledge used to pass papers. He goes on to explain how his dad had a habit of paying his bills first before doing anything else with his money. Some could argue that this was a good habit, but Robert goes on to explain another perspective. If you constantly pay everyone else first, then other things that matter to you will only receive the leftovers, if there even are any. Taking a step back, this is all about order and priorities. It’s easy to talk the talk and say “family is more important than anything” but when it comes to how your paycheck is spent, the reality is that your money will be spent on many things before going into your family. Noone says “I am devoted to my bank, my insurance and utility providers, and then my family”, yet if you look at most people’s bank statements the first payments going out are to the mortgage, insurance and utility bills, then maybe into savings for the family holiday.
One of my favourite verses on this topic is Matthew 6:21 which goes like this: “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. Treasures are things that we own that are precious, almost like special resources. The obvious one is money, but it also includes things like time and energy. So wherever you place your money, time, energy, etc, that is where your true heart values are placed. Bridging that back to our lesson of priorities, once again if you place your money into bills first, then that reflects the heart showing that you truly value the electricity company (realistically it’s probably a deeper issue like security) above other things like family. Great lessons, but let’s get back into the actual topic!
The main barrier we are talking about here is bad habits. I feel like we could take any of these barriers and apply this rule of a habit. If we only experienced fear and doubt for one day, then that won’t stop us in the long run. If we were only lazy for one day, then we probably wouldn’t count ourselves as truly lazy. Habits in general govern a lot of our life, and the key here is to intentionally identify and work on the bad ones. And just as the habit was created over time, it will take time to remove or change. So on the positive side, you could probably pick up any of these lessons and create a habit of meditating on it for 5 minutes every morning and your life will change.
Breaking the whirlpool
Now I’m aware that it’s not always easy to simply get rid of habits. In fact I heard that the first part is the worst, because that’s when you feel the most resistance. I remember hearing that it is similar to when you create a whirlpool in a circular pool, which I found easy to understand as I used to do this all the time with my younger siblings. You’re in a circular pool and start running in a clockwise motion at the edge of the pool. It takes a while running around in circles, running the same path over and over until the water itself is in the same motion as you. It gets to the point where you can stop putting in any effort and the motion you have set will keep on twirling you around the pool. This part reminds me of our first realisation that habits can get to the point where we do things without even realising and putting in any effort.
Now let’s say that this clockwise motion was the wrong motion, and what we actually wanted to do was run in an anti-clockwise position. You pretty much do the same thing, put in energy and time running the same track over and over to set the water in motion. When you first attempt to set this new motion it’s going directly against your old motion and it can feel like you hit a brick wall that is pushing straight against you. Kind of like how us trying to set a new habit instantly goes against the old habit, and we instantly feel the pressure of not doing what we normally do. Sometimes even though you’re trying to run anti-clockwise, the motion around you is so strong that you physically keep on moving clockwise! But if you have hope and understanding of what happens if you don’t give up, then you will realise that you are actually slowly breaking down that clockwise water motion. If you keep pushing for a certain direction, the physical progress of where you are will eventually catch up.
Even as a kid I understood this in the swimming pool, and so I would keep on running against that water, smiling knowing that I will eventually have the entire pool swirling in my new direction. There are a lot of splashes and disruption in the water, but it eventually gets to the point where the water is neutral again. This part feels easier because there’s less resistance, but the key is to keep going so that you can set your new direction in motion and just like before you will eventually find yourself not putting in any effort and floating around the pool in your new direction! I felt like that was such a huge explanation of a simple concept, but my mind keeps drawing deeper analogies between this and real life so I can’t help it.
The key points here have been that habits can be so strong that you can be doing them without even knowing it. Secondly, habits apply to everything and the good news is that we have a say on what habits we keep or not.
Applying all of this to me, with the first lesson on priorities, the order in which I prioritise things would be first God, then my close relationships like family and girlfriend, and then probably my own goals in life. So for me, I will try and ensure that my money first goes into tithing to represent my love and trust in God, then giving so that I can bless those around me, and then into savings and investments so I can grow my personal journey. For you it may be paying yourself directly first, and this lesson will still do the trick and help you build a habit that will push you into new places. And for the main lesson of habits, thinking about this has helped me see that my habit of working out has given me a lot more consistent and long term health which I am super grateful for. The habit I would like to get rid of would be me leaving things too late, and I would like to build a habit of staying organised, even in the area of writing about my money journey! Hopefully you’ve captured some of this gold as you reflect with me, and if it was too much then here is the simplified 3 main lessons:
- Whether you’re aware or not, habits impact every area of our lives
- Let your priorities guide and determine your money flow!
- Effort + Repetition + Time = Habit (You chose whether it’s a good or bad one)
