(This article was originally posted on The Voice Nook on Substack.)

Quick note before we begin: I’m hosting a workshop called Making Sense of How We Show Up, on August 22. There are still a few spots available.

This post grew out of my own wrestling with many of the questions we’ll be exploring together that day. If you’d like to learn more (or reserve your spot), you can find the details here. ❤️

 

So, yeah…that planner post sure struck a chord. 😁

I’ve been really enjoying all the conversations that it has sparked over here in my corner of the world. In somewhat usual fashion, there have been two main themes:

• Oh whew…it’s not just me!

• Uh…so, like…what do I do about it then?

In order to help answer that, I need to start by providing a little more context of why I was actually in the planner aisle in the first place.

What I couldn’t say in the earlier post, but I feel comfortable saying now, is that I was trying to find a tool to help me reconfigure my relationship with money.

I was feeling like if I could just find a fun, engaging, simple, adaptable, portable, organized, and perfect way to track money coming in and going out, I could finally feel like I’m ‘good with money’, like I’m somehow more responsible, capable, financially independent, and, dare I say, successful.

I got the idea from a brilliant coach friend of mine. And it is, in fact, a brilliant idea: Make looking at and interacting with your money fun and pleasurable. Money doesn’t have to be uncomfortable, or scary, or shameful. Yes, I am IN. Let’s make money fun!

So, here’s the sticky part:

I already bought a beautiful money planner. Two, in fact.

I also have multiple color-coded spreadsheets, a wave account for personal finances, a quickbooks account for business finances…AND the sweetest and most patient bookkeeper who – for literal years, has not only been tracking my finances with precision, but who has also been guiding me on my financial decisions, helping rebuild my financial life post-divorce, post-bankruptcy, and post-COVID.

It’s actually already fun to look at my money.

So, why was I in the planner aisle looking for another tool?

Well…um…because, no matter how many ways I track my finances, none of them have the power to change the way money moves into or out of my life.

What I finally realized as I was sitting in my car eating chips that day was that I wasn’t trying to organize my money.

I was trying to organize away my uncertainty.

I wasn’t looking for a planner…

I was looking for stability. I was looking for relief.

Oh.

Damn.

Sigh.

Ok.

The good news is that I saved $30 or whatever on a(nother) notebook with a calendar in it that wasn’t ever going to solve my problem.

The other good news is that now that I found the actual problem, I could start looking for a more aligned and effective solution.

To be clear, not every problem we face is a false flag.

At the same time, it can be really easy to mistake symptoms for root causes. So, if you find yourself repeatedly trying solutions that don’t work, it’s helpful to look past what’s immediately visible and start to dig a little deeper.

For instance, when my cash flow is tight or unpredictable, I have a tendency to jump right to: “I‘m failing.”

Wow. I love how there is just absolutely no room for anything else in there. It’s just me and my failure. As if I live in isolation with zero other conditions. Just me being shitty with my money.

It’s a wonderful narrative. It’s clean and tidy. It makes me both the victim and the perpetrator. It turns me into the sole explanation. It means that I, personally, must be fundamentally broken if I alone cannot fix the issue.

Mmmm. Chef’s kiss.

And yet, it’s total garbage.

Yay!

So you asked the question, “Uh…so, like…what do I do about it then?”

My answer is to get curious.

Not curious in the ‘I have to fix myself’ kind of way. Curious in the ‘what else is actually happening here?’ kind of way.

This doesn’t mean I don’t need to find solutions. It just means that “I’m failing“ is a terrifically incomplete diagnosis of the problem.

Because, like…how did “cash is tight” become “I’m failing”…which somehow became me looking for answers in the planner aisle?

That’s some exceptional emotional hopscotch. Good job, me. 🙌

The specifics of my emotional hopscotch are (maybe) for another day.

It’s the overall pattern that I want to highlight today.

When I step back and get curious, I realize that I’m just one small part of a much greater ecology. Yeah, I mean, I’m the one standing in the planner aisle. But when I start to notice the conditions I’m living in, the beliefs and stories I’m carrying, and the ways they’re interacting with each other…I can see more clearly how I got there.

We don’t live in isolation.

To truly understand ourselves, context matters. And it matters more than any of us tend to realize.

When we step back and realize we are not at the exact center we can see what’s actually going on…

What’s inside of me? What’s outside of me?

What’s mine? What’s not mine?

What am I influencing? What’s influencing me?

That doesn’t let me off the hook from taking responsibility for how I show up.

But it does give me much more awareness of what’s actually happening, which leads to more clarity and choice in deciding how I show up. It helps me choose the best tools for the job, which leads to more effective outcomes.

Which, over time, leads to more self trust. And more self love.

I can’t give a simple answer to what this might look like for anyone else. What I can say, though, is that my homework from this situation is to keep untangling my experience of uncertainty from the story that I’m failing.

That, I suspect, will be the first step on the path to stability and relief.

If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to reply to this post or leave a comment.

If you’d like help exploring your version of these questions, I’m available for 1:1 coaching, or you can join us for the workshop on August 22.

I look forward to hearing from you! ❤️