(Missed part 1? HERE it is)
Start by Making a Decision to Make a Plan FIRST.
Decisions?!?
Why is it sometimes so hard to make a decision? I blame it on procrastination, a wicked habit that outplays the best of intentions.
When it comes to finances, most people I’ve worked with find procrastination to be the easy way to deal with it. It’s no fun, right?
But distractions and procrastination can be a coping mechanism when we use procrastination as a way to distract ourselves from important issues in our lives. It can provide a temporary escape, but ultimately leads to further stress.
There are many reasons we procrastinate, but when it comes to money, procrastinating about getting it under control almost always ends in more stress than you had in the first place.
Makeup mogul Mary Kay Ash once told a group of trainees that making a decision was the most important thing they could do to improve their lives. She coached them to say, “I have made a decision” to do this or that. It was a powerful affirmation that a friend of mine learned from Mary Kay and still uses today, decades later.
Trying doesn’t cut it. Saying, “I’m going to try to get my finances in order” is something you can say while you’re sitting on the couch watching Netflix.
Saying we’re going to “try” to do something isn’t a commitment at all! It’s another stall tactic, another form of procrastination. I speak from experience…
Saying, “I’ve made a decision to get my finances in order” is powerful.
So let’s do it!
Making the Decision
If you’re reluctant to make a decision to make a plan to pay off your credit card debt, it could be because you feel like you don’t have the best information on how to do it.
If you have a track record of not following through with plans like dieting, that could be holding you back from making the decision.
Of course, lack of cash is a common reason. As is fear in general.
Here are some tricks I’ve used to support my decision to pay off debt, in spite of my habit to procrastinate. They work!
1. Do some research, and some soul-searching, about how getting out of debt is affecting your life.
What’s your “why”? Simon Sinek did a now-famous Ted Talk about “What’s your why” and it applies to so many facets of your life. Here are some questions to get you started:
How will paying off your credit card debt move you away from where you are now?
Will you be less stressed out?
Will you feel less anxiety
Are you tired of losing sleep over it?
Will you feel less embarrassment or shame?
How will paying off your debt move you toward a different place than where you are now?
Will you be able to take a nice vacation without going into debt once your cards are paid off?
Will you be excited about having a higher credit score?
Will you feel more confident in your ability to manage your money?
Most people have a strong preference toward moving away from something or moving toward something. Do you know which motivates you the most?
For example, I’m highly competitive and am motivated by winning games and making good grades on tests (even at my age haha). So I knew that getting my credit score higher as I was paying off the balances would be a huge motivator for me. It was more motivating to me than moving away from the frustration of the score being lower than I liked.
Figuring out which type of motivation speaks to you before you make the plan to pay off your credit card debt will help ensure the success of your plan.
Which type of motivation works for you?
Moving away from the negative aspects of having debt that are affecting you now
or
Moving toward the positive aspects of not having debt in the future
It’s important to know this while making the decision to make a plan to pay the cards off because you will be reminding yourself of your goal every month as you’re reviewing your plan and your success.
2. Now you’re ready to make a decision that you’re going to commit to making a plan. Set up all of the details from the very beginning. Decide that it’s something that you’re doing and make it non-negotiable.
Once you’ve MADE THE DECISION, now it’s time to plan how you will hold yourself accountable.
WRITE IT DOWN!!! Do you like to journal? Are you a list-maker? Do you like to use apps to take notes?
Now is the time to start documenting your decision and your journey to pay off your credit card debt.
Author Julia Cameron, in her book “The Artist’s Way” talks about how writing something in your own handwriting (vs on a phone or computer) is like sending something from your hand to God’s ear. Whatever name you use for your higher power, write your decision, send it to that higher power, and start to think about the plan we’ll make in Part 3.
Above all hacks to keep myself on track, writing about it has worked better than any.
Julia Cameron recommends an old-fashioned spiral notebook, or a bound journal. The important part is that you write in it rather than keeping notes on an app or in a spreadsheet.
After you’ve made the decision to move forward with the plan, let your first entry in the notebook be about why you’re making the decision now. How will it affect your life? How will you feel once the debt is paid off? What’s the most motivating part of making the decision?
In the next post, we'll look at how to gather the information you’ll need to make your own unique plan of attack to get the balances paid off as soon as possible.
Don't know where to start? Book a FREE 30 minutes phone call with Karla HERE
Check out my video playlist on credit card debt here on my TikTok profile page.
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