159: 7 steps to rewire your financial life and be financially free

If you've ever felt like conventional financial advice just doesn’t work for you, this episode is for you.

I walk you through the exact 7 steps I used to rewire my financial life, not by cutting expenses or obsessing over spreadsheets, but by changing how I felt about money.

This is the emotional and practical roadmap that helped me pay off six figures of business debt, rebuild my confidence as the sole breadwinner, and finally experience peace around money.

These steps aren’t just theory, they’re the foundation of how I help other women become financially free from the inside out.

Resources

7-Step Guide to Rewire Your Financial Life and Be Financially Free

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello there and welcome to another episode of the podcast. So today I wanted to record this episode to share a little bit about the steps I took to go from someone who was very anxious and stressed out about money, always worrying about not having enough money, to someone who is a lot more confident now and has overcome her financial anxieties. So I remember over 10 years ago when I was in a six-figure business debt from a business that didn't work out, unfortunately. So I had to go back to a job. And then, you know, I left that job without any kind of a backup plan because it was really quite an impulsive and emotional decision. There was a very difficult situation at work. And so I tendered my resignation with no backup plan, even though I was the sole provider of our family of four with two young kids. And, you know, that was probably the most stressful time I have ever encountered because we had these mounting bills and I was the only one who was earning at that time. My husband was trying to get the business to turn that around, but eventually that also didn't work out. But before he actually started to go back also to do work and bring in income, I was really the only one who had that regular job with a regular salary that was paying not just the debt, but also our ongoing bills and debts and sending kids to school and making sure were providing a roof over our family's head, right? And so when all of that was gone and we dipped into all of our savings, it was obviously very, very, I found it to be very, very stressful and scary times. So I was recalling, and that was also actually the time when I started my journey into entrepreneurship, that I started looking at working on side hustles because I realized that we just cannot rely on the income from a job because it's anytime and you know in this day and age now with all the layoffs and jobs no longer being lifetime employment it is not a it is not a stable thing to just rely on your income and that was the start of my journey to explore how I could generate multiple income streams with less time right because obviously I was raising a young family and I had a job and then I wanted to make multiple income streams so I needed to be really clever and smart about it and creative about it and that really launched my entire journey into this you know starting a side business and having side hustles so that was over 10 years ago and I was just recalling how that journey has been how did I go from being very anxious about every every small thing right always worrying about money I remember having many sleepless nights and many fights with my husband about money I remember that I would wake up in the middle of the night and just be so breathless from the anxiety of it. I know that the first thing I woke up in the morning, that would be the first thing I'd be thinking about, about all my worries about not having enough money. And so that really consumed my entire world. And even when I did eventually find another job, I was worried and scared about losing it again. So I was just thinking about how I got through that time because I think that many people might be facing those sorts of situations these days you hear a lot about all the corporate layoffs and how we are going into a recession or already in a recession we hear about the high cost of living and so I think that it might be I hope that it might be useful for me to share how I kind of overcame that financial anxiety to then go on to generate not just side incomes but also you know to feel this sense of confidence and and calm and certainty, even though externally things are very uncertain, even though sometimes I don't have the answers. I don't know how I'm going to do it, how I'm going to make it. But there is this sense of calm now that I experience and a sense of peace. So I wanted to share my steps. All right, so let's get to it. Let's not waste too much time with too much of the intro. I just wanted to give you the context. So I came up and when I listed it down. I came up with seven steps, right? And I'm going to go through each of these seven steps. And by the way, if you are interested in going into more detail with these seven steps, you can download my free guide. I made it into a free guide, which is called Rewire Your Financial Life. So this guide will have all the different seven steps. It explains a little bit more and what to do and some of the immediate actions that you can take, no matter what your financial situation is. Okay, so let's get to it. So step one is to own And this very first step is just simply to make a decision. Do you want to lead your financial life or do you want to let your finances lead you, right? Do you want to be in control of money or do you want money to be in control of you? And I know this was actually a conscious decision I made one of those sleepless nights because before that, I wasn't very conscious about it. I just knew that I was always worried about money. But one night, it just... became very clear to me that I had to make a decision. I had to decide that I had enough of this. I no longer want to be a victim of my situation. I no longer wanted to worry and stress about money. And I wanted to take back control. I wanted to take charge of my financial life. I wanted to be the one to figure things out, how to make the money I need to have the lifestyle I wanted. And it was in the middle of the night, I remember this very clearly, 10 years ago, over 10 years ago, and I I made that decision, no more, that's enough. And so that's really step one. If you haven't done that, I think kind of just being very conscious about it and making a decision and not just making a decision, but being committed and owning that decision. That's why I call step one, owning it, right? It's owning that decision and making the commitment and making that commitment means that you agree and you commit to taking the actions that are needed in order to honor that decision, okay? So this is really step one, okay? Step one, own it, make a decision and own your decision. Step two is what I call master it. So, you know, before I made this decision, I kind of never really made much of an effort to learn everything about how money works. So even though I went to school, I've got an economics degree, I studied monetary economics, you learn everything about money supply, but it was all just very theoretical. And I'm not talking about you know being a nerd and learning all of these things I'm talking about how money affects your day-to-day life I'm talking about very practical things like do you know exactly how much you spend every day every month do you know exactly what's what are your annual expenses you know like there are these annual payments there are these quarterly payments and you don't want to be caught off guard right many of these things you already can plan for and know beforehand do you know anything about investing you know basics the basics. So this is really about understanding the basics, getting the foundations right. So when I say master it, I'm talking about getting equipped with some basic knowledge around money, around finances, about personal finance, about money management, about simple investing. Okay, so this is step two. So that you have an idea of how it all works, right? How money and finances work. Then step three is to organize it. So I never really wanted to look at my bank statements and credit card statements. I just knew like, okay, if there's money in my bank account, then okay, I'm fine. And then I'll spend it, whatever I need to spend. And that's about it. And then if I didn't have any more money left, I would just have to not spend or just wait until my next paycheck, literally living paycheck to paycheck, right? Never really having a good overview of where everything, all my money is coming and going. And so step three in organizing it was to get everything under one roof. Everything that's got to do with your money and your finances under one roof. So this is all about knowing where your money is coming from and where it's going. Besides the usual expenses, right? You also have maybe things you have like investments. You have those payments that I talked about, right? Periodic payments that come in every quarterly and annually. And so you want to have almost like a bird's eye view, right? Like a one-paged dashboard and you don't need to get really technical or fancy with this. I use a simple Google spreadsheet so I know month by month how much I spend on food, how much I spend on transport, how much I spend on my insurance payments, you know, things like that. And I know where my income streams are coming in from. And that's really just you just want to have it all in one place. It's really simple. You just have a bird's eye view of it. So that's step three, which is to organize it. So after you've organized all your money, then step for is what I call to clear it. And this is all about the money stories and beliefs that we pick up along the way. A lot of it we picked up when we were kids before we had any kind of analytical reasoning, rational thought to see what made sense and what didn't. So when I say clear it, I mean clearing up money beliefs and stories that actually don't help you be financially free or feel Like you have a handle and control over your money, right? Beliefs that don't help you to become that financial leader that you want to be in your life. For example, money is stressful. You know, I never have enough money. There's never enough. I'm bad with money. I don't know anything about how money and finance works. I mean, all of these are the stories we tell ourselves. You know, things that we unconsciously have been programmed with since we were young. and then what happens is these stories feel so real and true because actually they become self-fulfilling prophecies you know we decide that there is a money story somehow along the way either from our caregivers and parents and society and then we take it on board we unconsciously absorb it into our minds and then we just go around looking for evidence to confirm it and and then we kind of like reinforce these things happening in our lives so we want to to clear all these kind of disempowering money stories and beliefs that really don't help us to be in charge of our financial lives. OK, so we need to clear all that out. All right. And then step five is what I call to align it. This means that you have those old disempowering stories and beliefs that don't actually help you to have the kind of financial life and financial freedom that you want. But instead, what you want now is you want to replace those old this empowering beliefs with positive and self-empowering ones, the ones that will align with the vision that you have for your financial life. So if you want financial freedom, what does that mean? What are the beliefs and stories you need now to tell yourself? What are the new stories you need to tell yourself? For example, if your old beliefs and stories about money was that there's never enough money, you know, you never have enough money. Well, the new story and belief that you want to install that would align with your vision of being financially financially free, could simply be I always find a way to meet my needs, you know, or the one that I use all the time is that the money I need always flows to me in the most perfect timing. So, you know, I didn't just arrive at this out of the blue because, of course, I had to do the work in order to arrive at this. The thing is with beliefs is that sometimes it feels very far out there, like it's a it's false, you don't believe it because that hasn't been your experience and your reality, right? So what we need to do is to build smaller beliefs that are closer to what we actually do believe. So for me, what I started to do was to play a game with myself and to always, and I looked back, right? I looked back at my life and all the times where I thought that I would not be able to make a bill, you know, to pay a bill or that I would not have enough money for something and And, you know, the thing is I'm standing here today still. I have a roof over my head, a pretty good lifestyle, you know, very comfortable, very safe. I really have no complaints. Of course, there can always be better. There can always be more and there can always be improvements, right? But through it all, after all these years, if after 20 years of thinking like there's not enough, I'm going to run out, you know, how am I going to survive? And I still made it. I'm still here. I've still put our kids through school and I've still put food under the table, you know, and it hasn't been a lot of suffering, I would say. Sometimes we had to tighten our belts. Yes, sometimes I had to say no to things, but, you know, I'm here. And so that has taught me that the money that I need somehow always finds its way to me. Sometimes at the very last minute, I would be stressing, but then at the very last minute, something shows up, you know, not necessarily in terms of money, but sometimes it could be somebody and an incident or things change or things get postponed or pushed back, or someone shows up with a generous gift or something, it just always somehow works out. And so I like to use this new story, right? That the money I need always flows to me in the most perfect timing. So you can find something that feels good for you, that you can align with and do this step five, which is really to align your stories and your beliefs about money with the vision that you have for your financial life. So that's step five. And then step six is to create it. So now that you can picture your dream life, maybe you have a vision of the kind of financial life that you want, you want to reverse engineer it. So I think sometimes people give up or think it's not possible because their vision or their dream life, their dream financial life seems so far away. And I know that was for me the same case because when I first started on that journey, you know, I wanted a very big dream. Like I wanted my six figure debt to disappear. I wanted to make like a gazillion dollars, right? And I wanted to do it by just doing things that I enjoyed doing. I didn't want to do things that would require effort and doing work or taking actions that will make me feel uncomfortable, you know, have to promote myself and be visible online and be on LinkedIn and post, you know, and write. So I think that sometimes we just need to break it down into much smaller steps. And, you know, so that that big dream, not that you can't reach it, but that you need to bridge it. So you can keep that big dream as giving you the general direction to head towards. But then what can you do today? So you got to go from that big dream and reverse engineer it and break it down into, OK, so what's the annual goal? What's the quarterly goal? What's the monthly goal? What's the weekly goal? And so what does that mean for me? today? What can I do in the next 24 hours is the time frame I like to use. I always start my day and I will journal and I will always set the intention for the day. What are the first things I'm going to do in the next 24 hours to work towards that dream that I have? And if you have done the previous steps, right, like I mentioned to you before, if you know where your money is coming and going, you have a vision of the kind of life that you want, you have a rough idea of how much that life is going to cost you. all the kind of time. We're not just talking about money because sometimes it can be in terms of your time and your energy investment as well. Once you have an idea of what all of that requires, then you can start working backwards to the smallest steps that you can take in the next 24 hours. Okay, so that's step six. And then finally, step seven, which is, I think, the most important step and really what made the biggest difference for me was what I call shift. Okay, shift. So this specifically I think is the thing that makes the biggest difference and the thing that a lot of financial advice does not address. In fact, they'll tell you to do the exact opposite thing. They'll tell you not to be emotional about money. But the irony is that money is an emotional topic, okay? So that's just the reality of it. So let's not try to do the unrealistic. If you talk about having an unrealistic financial goal, if you think millions of dollars is an unrealistic goal, well, to me, what's more unrealistic realistic is telling people to separate their emotions from their finances. It's not very helpful to me, if you ask me. So money is very emotional. People fight about money all the time. People get into divorce over money all the time. We feel anxious about money. Money can make us feel very worried and stressed out, or it can make us feel very relaxed and very generous. So it is totally emotions, right? So I would prefer to learn the skill of shifting that emotion so if let's say my financial situation makes me feel very stressed out and anxious and worried I want to know okay how can I drop that anxiety and worry how do I transform that energy because our emotions are full of energy right it makes us do things sometimes crazy things and things that we regret so I would rather learn the skill of transforming that energy from a nervous anxious worried energy into something that's a lot more productive something that's inspired that energizes me, that keeps me going to take those actions that sometimes we have to take to get to our financial goals, right? And how do we shift this energy? Well, when I started, I simply did something very simple. I just closed my eyes. And in the past, when I closed my eyes, all those fearful, anxious thoughts about not having enough money would enter my mind immediately and consume my entire mind, right? And attention. Well, bit by bit, like just with smaller little minutes, I started meditating. I started just learning how to focus on my breath in spite of the nervousness I felt, the anxiousness I felt. So I would just tell myself, okay, let me just pay attention to my breath, even if it's just for a minute. And sometimes a minute feels so long, then just do it for a few seconds. And it was bit by bit, day by day, step by step that I started practicing. It really is a practice, right? It's like really a muscle you need to work. You practice through repetition, bringing your attention back to your breath, calming yourself down. And so I started with simply just meditating. And then that led to often I would get ideas, right? Inspired actions that I want to take and ideas. And so after my meditation, I would write some of these ideas down, simple bullet points. And that turned into like a journaling practice for me. And so over time, I started meditating longer. I started journaling more. And it's now become my daily morning and evening habit. First thing I wake up, I would do that. And last thing before I go to bed, I would just do a quick small meditation. I also use subliminals. If you're interested in that, you can go, you know, just check it out. Subliminals. And also I use, I also have an evening journaling practice. So I started in my day sandwiching it with the meditation and journaling. And then a few years ago, I discovered MAP. And MAP has really been quite a big change for me because it accepts accelerated a lot of what I had already been doing in terms of the meditation and mindfulness because MAP is a lot more proactive. It's based on neuroscience. It works at the level of rewiring how our neurons connect, especially around the emotions. And so I started using that around how I felt about money and finances and to change those kind of negative, stressful, worrying, scared feelings around money. And I use the MAP method to give a few insights instructions to my mind to shift that emotion that the energy around those fearful feelings around money to shift that and transform that into something a lot more neutral at least for a start neutral and then over time a little bit more positive and more empowering and really more confident and resilient around my finances even though things can be very uncertain right because our external world is not something that we can really control but we can control how how we choose to respond to it, how we feel about it, and the actions we take, which are often a product of how we feel. And so that is how I shift my energy around money. So those are the seven steps. Step one is to own it, own your decision, commit to it. Step two is to master it, learn the basics of money, money management, personal finance, investing, and all that. Now step three is to organize it, have everything under one roof, on a dashboard, on a one pager, or somewhere, right? A spreadsheet where you can see it. Step four is to clear it. And so clearing it means about all those old disempowering money beliefs and stories that don't really help you to advance towards your financial goals and the kind of life that you want. Step five is to align it to get new beliefs and stories that actually align and line up with the vision that you have for your life, your financial life. Step six is then to create it. So that's about making a plan working backwards from your big goal and breaking it down, chunking it down into small daily actions that you can take in the next 24 hours. And step seven is to shift it, which is all about shifting the energy around the emotions that you have around money so that you're not consumed by all the negative, stressful, anxious emotions. And instead, you know how to shift it to transform it and use it more productively okay so that's those are the seven steps I hope you found it useful if you're interested to go a little bit deeper like I said go get my free guide it's at www.financiallyfreewoman.com forward slash rewire that's rewire because the guide's called rewire your financial life so yeah just I'll put the link as well in the show notes and I would love to hear what you think about it if you download the guide, you also have access to join the waitlist to my free experience session around MAP. So if you're interested and intrigued to experience what MAP is like, I have a link inside the guide that you can join the waitlist for the next time I'm opening up a live session. I call it the financially free woman formula. It really is the seven steps and then specifically with the MAP method, how to use the MAP method to help you to feel financially free. Okay, so that's all I have for you this week and I'll catch you again in the next episode. Bye.