Two years ago, my wife and I were making a five hour drive home from her parents house after Christmas. With Christmas behind us, we usually discuss our plans for the new year on this trip home. This year, I was not in the mood. I was 25 lbs overweight and had no energy. I was running (figuratively) as fast as I can at work and had recently enrolled in an MBA program; therefore, physical activity had been neglected. I was so fed up with how I was looking and how I was feeling. Something had to change. Enough was enough.
That car ride was my “enough is enough” moment. I decided then and there that I have had enough with the way I looked and felt and I was willing to do anything to change.
Are any of you at that “enough is enough” moment with your finances? I can encourage people to get out of debt and try my best to convince them that it is a good thing to do, but I can only do so much to help until they get that internal desire to make a change. You have to come up with that desire yourself. In my experience with helping people get out of debt, the most successful people are the ones who have said “enough is enough.”
There are three key elements to implement once you reach that “enough is enough” mentality.
- Write it down. Be specific. As soon as I got home from that car trip, I wrote down on a piece of paper: lose 25 lbs by end of year. I also wrote: I will be in the best shape/strength in my life by my birthday in October. It was going to take a lot of effort and focus on my part, but I knew deep down that I could achieve these goals. With your finances, write down your goal and your timetable of how long you want to work on eliminating your debt. I am not going to give you a form to do this on, just keep it on a simple piece of paper or a basic Microsoft word document. Put it somewhere you can see it.
- Come up with a plan and track it. I had to sit down and figure out where in the world I was going to find time out of my busy schedule to work out 5 times a week. From there, I stuck with the plan. I was so focused on the goal that I was not going to let my schedule get in the way. After a few months, it started to become a habit. At this time, I was tracking my progress. I knew exactly where I was and exactly how far I needed to go. My goals were not going to let me take any time off. You will need to come up with a plan and track it. Planning comes in the form of monthly budgeting and tracking comes in the form of weekly expense tracking. Doing this tells you exactly where you are and how far you need to go. Need to lower your expenses? Look at the numbers and find a way decrease your spending.
- Get extreme. I knew that the quicker I lost those pounds, the quicker I was going to feel better. Knowing that, I took losing weight to the extreme. It just so happened to coincide with my churches annual 21 days of prayer and fasting. I did a Daniel fast (fruits and veggies only) for 21 days. The pounds came off so fast that 6-8 people at my work joined what they called “‘the Daniel diet.” By the end of January, I had lost 25 pounds. Call it extreme or call it whatever you want, but I felt awesome by the end of the month.
The more extreme you get with your lifestyle, the quicker you will reach your goals of getting out of debt. I am not saying you will need to live like this for the rest of your life, but the more extreme you get with your spending (or lack thereof,) the faster you will reach the freedom from being slave to your lenders.
