Matt, Manager – breaking the cycle
Matt had struggled for a long time with his relationship to money. He earned a reasonable salary but felt that he repeatedly overspent, causing him to worry about money. He became secretive and would lie about his spending habits and outgoings to his wife, and he was fearful of bank and credit card statements. He constantly told himself that he was 'no good with money' - that he was intelligent and able to do many things, but dealing with money wasn't one of them. He experienced cycles of financial challenges, being rescued by others or managing to get himself out of it by living within his means for a period, but then would find himself losing control again, feeling powerless to resolve the issues.
He wanted help with planning his expenditure but, more importantly, how to break the cyclical pattern and start to feel more in control of this area of his life. He also wanted to review options finacially moving forwards and discuss some benefits he's been offered at work that he hadn't taken advantage of.
We’ve worked together for just over 6 months now and through a mixture of practical advice and ideas, reflection and encouragement, we’ve been able to help Matt work through the real issues that previously caused him to feel stuck. He now feels motivated and supported to adopt different behaviours. The turn around has been swifter and more comprehensive that he thought was possible. He’s amazed and how quickly a different mindset can feel natural and normalised.
"I began this journey after years of uncertainty and doubt over my ability to control and manage my financial choices. I blamed myself for the vast majority of issues that I experienced with finance and felt a heavy sense of guilt about the stresses and pressures this put on my wife, family and marriage. The worry and fear that I experienced prevented me from making the life choices I wanted to and held me back from being the person I knew I could be. I felt that I had confronted the issues before unsuccessfully and never got to the root cause or triggers effectively. I wanted to change that and make a choice to do and see things differently.
Though it feels like hyperbole - everything feels different now. I am cynical and very quick to doubt, but I now feel solidly rooted, confident and calm when dealing with finances. I am able to look forward and plan longer term. I am able to sustain pitfalls and set backs without fear, and I am confident that I can be honest and share concerns openly with my wife. This is nothing short of revelatory for me. I feel calm and stable, like I can confront challenges now without a sense of foreboding and critically I can see money as a resource, not a marker of failure. And I can be authentic with the people I care about.
I feel like the successes that I have had are becoming habits and more normalised and I genuinely do not feel like I'll lapse into bad habits and mind sets in the same way now. I'm confident about this. It feels anathema to me to allow the spiral to take hold again – which I take as a good sign.
I’ve been able to let go of a lot of deep rooted, limiting beliefs and get out of the mindset that over thought everything to the point that I was impotent to act. I even sleep better!"