Episode 230 - Ending the Blame Game: Your Path to Financial Success
In a world where blaming external factors for our financial struggles has become the norm, it's time to take a step back and reflect on how we can truly take control of our finances and our lives. Join Ryan as he explores the journey of breaking free from the blame game and embracing personal accountability for a brighter financial future.
Embracing Personal Accountability
The first step towards financial empowerment is acknowledging personal accountability. It may be challenging, but holding onto past grievances only hinders our progress. By taking responsibility for our actions and decisions, we pave the way for positive change in our financial well-being.
Reflecting on Your Choices
A powerful exercise in understanding our spending habits is reflecting on our choices. By analyzing our expenses and highlighting unnecessary spending, we gain insight into where our money is going. This exercise may evoke a range of emotions, but forgiving ourselves for past mistakes is essential in moving forward with a clear financial plan.
Focusing on Solutions
Instead of dwelling on who or what is to blame, shift your focus to finding solutions. Whether it involves cutting back on expenses, seeking additional income sources, or exploring new ways to manage your finances, directing your energy towards proactive solutions is key to financial success.
Educating Yourself on Personal Finance
Knowledge is power when it comes to financial literacy. Take the time to educate yourself on personal finance principles and seek guidance from like-minded individuals who share your goals. Remember, it's never too late to learn and make positive changes towards a more secure financial future.
Resources Mentioned
Get better results with your finances in 30-60 days - GUARANTEED. Watch this video to learn how! - https://www.debtfreedad.com/payoff-debt-in-60-to-90-days
- The Totally Awesome Debt Freedom Planner
- For more help, and a step-by-step process to get started, enroll in Brad's FREE online course, LIFE WITHOUT PAYMENTS.
Free Tools and Downloads at www.debtfreedad.com
Connect With Brad
- Website - https://www.debtfreedad.com
- Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thedebtfreedad
- Private Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifewithoutpayments
- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/debtfreedad/
- TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@debt_free_dad
- YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@bradnelson-debtfreedad2751/featured
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Episode Transcript:
Ryan:
The economy's why I'm broke. Inflation is the reason I'm broke. Student loans yep, it's the reason I'm broke. I don't get paid enough. That's why I'm broke. Does this sound familiar? Does this sound familiar?
Ryan:
We love to find someone or something to blame for our financial problems. Hey, there's no judgment here. I was there once as well. But I'm here to tell you that if you wanna start winning with your finances and life in general, you have got to stop the blame game and start taking accountability for your situation. My name is Ryan Nelson, one of the co-hosts here at Debt-Free Dad and I paid off $160,000 over eight years and have been debt-free outside my mortgage for four years now. Today, I'm gonna be sharing four ways that can help you kick the blame game to the curb so you can start making real progress with your finances.
Ryan:
The world we currently live in thrives on blame and shifting the accountability to something other than ourselves. Go on any social media platform and you will see tons of people posting videos about how someone or something is to blame for their situation, especially when it comes to our personal finances. I was once part of that crowd. I thought my financial situation was the result of all of these outside forces working against me. I was trapped and honestly blaming someone or something for my problems. It felt good, it made me feel validated in my beliefs and it made me avoid addressing the problem head on, especially when so many people are doing the same thing. But the more I blamed, the worse things got, the more debt I accumulated and the more stuck I became in my life, and that is what kickstarted my journey to taking control of my finances. Being stuck in life just plain sucks, and the only person that can fix that was me, and the only person that can fix your situation is you. So here's four things that I learned that can help you end the blame game and take control of your finances and your life. Number one commit to taking personal accountability, and this is hard. This is really hard when there are things that have happened in your life. There's things that have happened in my life that are no fault of our own. Stuff just happens. But here's the thing that I've learned. Holding onto that lets those things win, and when I was holding onto those things, it just kept me stuck. So I learned to acknowledge that it happened, acknowledge that it isn't fair, but then take accountability for fixing it. Doing nothing will result in just more pain later down the road, and I'm living proof of that. I kicked the can down the road all the time and it wasn't until I took control where I started finally making progress.
Ryan:
Number two is reflect on your choices. Here is a great exercise we have people do at the beginning of their debt journey, and I want to warn you this exercise is probably going to be upsetting to you when you get it finished. So print out the last six months of bank statements, credit card statements, any statements from places you are using to spend money Think of Venmo, paypal, amazon. Once you've printed all those out, go through each of those statements and highlight all of your unnecessary spending things you bought that were not a necessity to live. Once you do that, really take some time to reflect on it. How does it make you feel looking at that number of all the money you've spent on things that weren't necessarily needed? Are you overspending, like most people find they do? When we ask them to do this, it's okay to be angry, mad, sad. You're probably going to have a lot of emotions. I know I did Feel those feelings and then forgive yourself. That's the old you and we're going to work on not doing that in the future.
Ryan:
Number three focus on solutions. When you're in the blame game, you're not focused on solutions. You're focused on who's at fault. So number three is focusing on your solutions. Now that you've committed to taking accountability and have a snapshot of where your money's going, you can start to look at what can I do to fix it. Where are areas that you can cut back or eliminate? Do you need to make additional income? Do you need to get a side hustle? Remember, we are taking accountability, so we're not throwing our hands up and saying it's too overwhelming and we're giving up If you feel like giving up or if you're feeling like it's too overwhelming.
Ryan:
Number four is spend time educating yourself on personal finance and seek out people who have similar goals and people that can help you. One thing we hear a lot from people is I wish I would have been taught this stuff in high school. Well, that's great. We all wish we could have learned stuff that we wish we knew now. Right, but there's no reason you can't learn this stuff now. So we can't say, well, I didn't learn it in high school, therefore I don't have to learn it now. There's no reason you can't learn it.
Ryan:
We have over 200 free episodes of this podcast that can help you get started. Debt has been marketed to us since we were kids. We've been trained to think about debt in certain ways and it just takes time to rewire our brains to think differently about money. You need to get around people who think differently about money. If you do these four things consistently, you will break free from the blame game that's holding you back from the life you want and that you truly deserve. If you are ready to take this a step further, we are hosting our Spring Life Without Payments free live workshop on April 23rd. Head over to debtfreedad. com and click on the green button at the top of the page and you can get registered today. Thanks for hanging out with me today and we hope to see you on our next episode. Take care.
