How do you hold yourself accountable to your goals?
We did a social media post asking: “Are you holding yourself accountable for those late night impulse buys?” We got a lot of comments on it, how women have been trying for years to put an end to their late night shopping! I began to realize how much our society has changed, how easy it is to spend money. You don’t even need to go through the check out process anymore, you just click paypal. Or you can venmo your friends money instantly. You no longer need to plan when you need an item because Amazon will have it at your door within one click.
I was talking with a couple about their spending habits. They had no idea how much they were spending because of technology. With technology today, there are so many ways to spend and to spend with ease…venmo, paypal, amazon, zelle, and on and on. All these methods are simply hiding your spending. They make it easy to click and forget about that expense until the credit card bill comes knocking at your door!
With all the discussions going on with clients and on social media, I kept coming back to accountability and boundaries. Boundaries are so healthy (just ask my therapist!), because they restrict you from exhausting your energy on a bad relationship, exhausting your wallet on a bad purchase, and are there to keep you healthy and focused. If you are in a bad relationship with a friend, and they are very negative ALL.THE.TIME then you need to put up some boundaries so they don’t suck the life out of you! If you have a late night shopping problem (yes I’ve been there!), then you need to put up a boundary around your phone, tablet, or computer, that prevents you from spending all your hard earned money. Boundaries can set you up for success instead of letting you fall back to old habits.
As they say: We all have uphill dreams with downhill habits!
Your downhill habits might be overspending online after a glass (or 3) of wine, you’re exhausted, and aren’t thinking straight. What can be your uphill habit to change this pattern? Have an accountability buddy check in with you at 10 pm to give you a dose of reality and remind you of your goals. OR you can set a timer on your phone to remind you that you NEED to get off all online shopping websites! It’s similar to potty training my daughter. We set a timer to remind her that she needs to go potty! And when we aren’t with her, she has a potty timer watch to remind her, it’s like her accountability buddy.
Your turn! What is a downhill habit you have been playing into?
How can we change that downhill habit into an uphill one?
Lastly, who will hold you accountable to that new habit?
This is crucial because without someone there to keep you in line, it’s easy to fall back to downhill habits. Just as one woman commented, I’ve been working on my late night spending for over 2 years now. She isn’t the problem, her strategy just isn’t working for her.
YOU aren’t the problem, the plan is the problem. Don’t feel bad if you have a slip up, you didn’t set yourself up for success. Just like when my Andie Girl has an accident, it probably was because we let her go too long to get her on the potty.