Need To Read Instead Of Listen? (episode word for word)

Are You An O.P.P Part 3 Transcript

[00:00:00] AttiQuewa: All right. Welcome to part three of this mini-series of how to minimize a money O.P.P. Now I'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there. That out of all three parts of this acronym. Perfectionism. Is the one that has a lot of us in a chokehold, including myself. And it is not trying to let go. Okay.

[00:00:25] Now we're not even going to dive too deep in the fact that perfectionism is one of the attributes of people who suffer with anxiety. I'm just going to leave it there in case you want to know where it comes from time to time. If you've been with me for a while, you know, I'm not shy about letting you guys know about my anxiety and depression journey and how it has affected, you know, my financial journey and how I've had to like go around it to minimize certain aspects. So we're not going to dive too deep into that, but I do want to just plant it right there that in case you wanted to know why you have a hard time

[00:00:59] you know, [00:01:00] doing things less than perfect. Anxiety could probably be the reason why. Okay.

[00:01:05] When it comes to money, perfectionism. There are a lot of layers that go into it and to prevent this from being a super long tip- I'm going to just keep it brief. But one of the biggest things, when it comes to it are the pressures that we face that we either are putting on ourselves or what's coming from external sources, like family, friends, society, things like that.

[00:01:30] Now, when it comes to my perfectionism, just, for example, there are a couple of things that I have done and am currently doing to help me minimize the amount of influence perfectionism has on my finances because if we're just going, to be honest, perfectionism is just procrastination and disobedience in a way wrapped in a nice little bow called perfectionism.

[00:01:54] So. Number one thing that I did was I needed to become a [00:02:00] little bit more aware of my tendencies. Um, you guys know if you've been with me for a while that I talk about, you know, some of my appointments with my therapist, and she let me know that sometimes. I have a habit of negative self-talk and once I started journaling and honestly if you're not a writer,

[00:02:16] Audio journaling does wonders. You can actually study yourself from a different perspective of, Hey, this is how I talk. This is how I look at things. This is how you know, I am looking at the world through my financial lens, all of that. And you can become a little bit more aware so you can tweak things as necessary. It's not going to be an overnight thing.

[00:02:37] It's definitely a journey. However, when you take that first step to becoming a little bit more self-aware you will help yourself minimize perfectionism.

[00:02:47] Second thing that I started doing was focusing on the positives. Now this is still a little bit of a challenge for me because, you know, we are our worst critic, right? We know what we're capable of, or at least we have an [00:03:00] idea of what we're capable of. And if we do anything less than the bar that we've set for ourselves,

[00:03:05] Oh man. It's just downhill from there. It doesn't matter if we rolled 50 boulders up the hill. If we had 55 that we were supposed to roll up and we couldn't get those last five, we're focused on those last five. It doesn't matter that we did mostly everything perfectly. We are still going to critique ourselves harshly for the last five that we did not do.

[00:03:29] So we need to focus a little bit more on the positives themselves. Yeah. I didn't get all five boulders up the hill, but you know what? I got 50, how many other people can say that they did that? Right.

[00:03:40] We need to stop fixating on the negative aspects of our life or of the things that we're trying to accomplish, because it doesn't get us anywhere.

[00:03:49] Third thing is going to be real hard. We need to allow ourselves to make mistakes. We are human. We are going to give ourselves [00:04:00] aneurisms if we keep trying to operate on a perfect frequency because this is not how things work. That's not reality. Heck, you see the life that we are currently living right now.

[00:04:11] As of the recording on this trip, we're still in a pandemic and there is a war going on. So. We have to allow ourselves to breathe a little bit. It's okay to make mistakes. You know the best way to minimize perfectionism is just to start and to do things. Because even if you mess up, you are that much closer to your quote-unquote perfect path or perfect decision for whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.

[00:04:37] Another reason why perfectionism has such a hold on us. It's because sometimes we don't create. Realistic goals and expectations for ourselves. A lot of times, the things that we are trying to accomplish are unrealistic. And the timeframe and in the circumstances that we currently have, right? So we need to focus on [00:05:00] creating smart goals. What I mean by smart goals is creating specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals.

[00:05:07] So specific being, oh, I want to save $10,000 by the end of this year. Measurable meaning. Okay. If it's January, that means I have to put away $833 a month until the end of December to make sure that I have that $10,000 saved. Attainable meaning. Okay. Well, based on my current circumstances and my financial circumstances,

[00:05:35] I have the funds available to allow me to put $833 away without it being a financial strain. Realistic meaning the same thing based on my financials, my expenses, the income coming in, and all that. It is realistic for me to want this goal. And is it timely? Absolutely because I said by the end of the year, if it's January, so by [00:06:00] December, I know that I'm going to have $10,000 in the bank. Right.

[00:06:03] So we need to be a little bit more mindful about creating goals that are smart.

[00:06:08] It is okay to dream big. It is okay to have astronomical goals. However, we need to be able to downsize a little bit and take everything in baby steps or bite-sized pieces so that we can meet those really huge goals. If we bite off more than we can chew that pressure that is weighing on us currently, it's just going to become a lot worse.

[00:06:32] So. Breathe. Have large goals, but break it up into chunks so that it can become attainable for you. And you don't have to stress out as much.

[00:06:43] Then.

[00:06:46] Second to last thing that I'm going to mention is focusing on impact and meaning over perfection. Right? So how long, or what is the impact? That you are going [00:07:00] to have, if you sit there stuck because you can't figure out the perfect solution and your finances are still the same, especially if you have goals for your children, your children's children, and, you know, so on and so forth. If you said, you know what, I want to have a million dollars invested by age 65, but because you're so fixated on investing in the perfect funds, the perfect stock, and you never start investing to get that experience at all,

[00:07:28] the impact is going to be. Astronomical and not even in a good way, because you waited so long that you may not be able to, you know, invest a million dollars by age 65 or have that amount invested by age 65. Right. So we need to focus more on impact and meaning over perfection. Because. Done is better than perfect. We can always tweak and scale things if we need to. But if you never got started, you don't know what you need to do, or you don't know [00:08:00] what doesn't work. You don't know what works.

[00:08:03] So you need to figure out what the impact is. I will also give an example. Let's say today, out of all days, I was supposed to record these tips, right? I know that there's somebody out here, even if it's just one person who will benefit from this mini-series. If I said, you know what?

[00:08:25] I don't feel my best today. You know what. It's raining outside and I'm tired. I don't feel like it right now. You know what? I'm just really not in the mood because circumstances are just not perfect today. I'm not going to record. I'm not going to get these tips out. What type of impact would that have had on my audience on you? If you didn't get these tips, especially if you're finding them helpful, right?

[00:08:55] Done is better than perfect. The format that I have these [00:09:00] tips on, on my blog right now. They weren't ideal. They weren't what I wanted to do, but because I knew there was going to be more positive than negative than getting it done better than having it perfect on the first time around.

[00:09:16] It made my decision a lot easier to just keep it moving. Right.

[00:09:20] And then last, but certainly not least. Y'all know that I am a huge advocate. Of mental health and going to therapy. Perfectionism again, like I said, it's something that is an attribute of anxiety. A lot of times we all have some sort of trauma in a way we all have gone through something in some sort of way, but you won't know fully what your blockages are until you talk to someone who can help you untangle all that mess that you've gone through.

[00:09:52] Going to therapy for me has been the best thing that I've ever done for my business and best thing I've ever done for my finances on top of, you know, other [00:10:00] aspects of my personal life. I know a lot of people think that going to therapy is expensive. I promise you. It's not. There's so many therapists out there that work on a sliding scale, especially if you're paying cash and don't have insurance,

[00:10:12] a lot of jobs have benefits that will allow you to go to therapy for free. Even if it's just for 18 sessions, it's a good starting point. You want to be able to have those hard conversations, do the hard work. So later down the line, you're not still trying to figure out why you haven't been able to move forward because perfectionism has gotten in the way,

[00:10:32] which ultimately means that there's something on a deeper level that has stopped you from moving forward. So. I would urge you to take a couple of these things that I talked about in today's tip and try to implement it so that you can minimize your money perfectionism because done is better than perfect. And you want to make sure that your money is working more for you than against you.

[00:10:55] And your money can't do anything for you. If you're sitting there stuck, because you're trying to figure out the perfect [00:11:00] solution and the perfect path.

[00:11:01] Now I hope you found all three of these tips, helpful. If you want to give me any feedback like I mentioned before, feel free to text me. If you want to take your money journey another step forward, and you want to get ongoing and consistent help within a group full of like-minded women. You're going to want to check out my wealthy women's lounge because you're part of my text club.

[00:11:22] You actually have the ability to test it out for seven days with a $7 trial. And if it's a good fit for you,

[00:11:29] we would absolutely love to have you. So go ahead and check out the link down below. You'll have all the information on the lounge page, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out as well. Talk to you later. Bye.