I go through periods when whatever is happening feels like an enormous struggle. I know I'm not alone in this phenomenon, but when I'm going through one of them I feel very alone and vulnerable.

I'm just coming out the other side of one of these experiences. This particular cycle was due to my upper front tooth going dead from the trauma of a fall I took recently. I thought I had "escaped" any real damage only to find my tooth aching and giving me distinct messages that all was not well.

I had to find and trust a dentist I hadn't worked with before because my dentist is still in the Bay Area. It involved a root canal that couldn't be done right away because of vacation schedules. I had to sit with the possibility of my smile, a major part of my personal sense of identity, being threatened by an unsightly solution.

I don't believe that we have to suffer when things make us feel upset, but I do think we need to go through tough times rather than around them. What I've learned to do is to talk with friends and colleagues who I trust to hear me and not try to cure me. My experience has shown that everyone at one point or another goes through dark times and many people can be compassionate and understanding for those moments in others. I've found those who can do that with me.

I mention all this because the theme of this newsletter is struggle. We all have our struggles and some can come from our financial lives. This article is about one client who I've been working with and who is coming out of years of money struggles to a brighter future. The article tells his story.

By the way, I had the work on my tooth done yesterday. The result is the same smile, slightly wiser, but not damaged in any way. When you see me next, you won't even see the difference.

You don't need to make struggle your life story. There is outside help you can seek to get you on the other side. If it's about money, I'm a great resource to tap and I love to help my clients transform that portion of their struggle into a more effortless and effective system. Give me a call or shoot me an email. We can explore how to lessen your struggles.

Until next time,

Susan

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Have you said that to yourself before? Why does it need to be so hard? These statements and ones like them are what I often hear from clients in my first contact with them.

We've made phrases about it seem normal: more month than money, robbing Peter to pay Paul, having the wolf at the door. We've created less than desirable solutions: pay-day loans (at exorbitant interest), credit debt, getting a month or more behind, and oh-so-many others.

What it all boils down to is a story of constant financial struggle. What is confusing is that it often happens to clients who are making good money. If someone were laid off or had their income reduced or had medical difficulties, it would be understandable that there would be money struggles, but how can it be happening to those making a good living?

Let me tell you Harold's story (not the client's real name). Harold was referred by another client. He said that he was sick and tired of "just making it." He was behind in taxes and had a large lump sum to pay the next month for the previous tax year. He had credit card debt and had had debt for as long as he could remember. He was self-employed and made good money, but not quite enough.

He talked about how he had to work long hours, never had fun, never took time off and how difficult it all was. Between the words, what I heard was he felt his work was "heavy."

I started to work with him to actually quantify what was  going on. We developed an overview of his expenses and started funding irregular expenses (including a tax account...he was able to pay off those taxes on time) so that he no longer had to use credit cards. He had the clarity he needed to see what was possible and how to arrange his income so that it worked better.

And yet I was still hearing about his struggles as the primary conversation. So I helped him look a little closer at his family history around money. It turned out his mother's money conversations, even now, were about what a struggle it all was and how she was so tired of it. His father's influence was less vocal and more from role-modeling that you have to work long hours to get any money when you're self-employed, and you have to do it all yourself.

When Harold explained this to me, I had him write a letter ( not to be sent) to his mother, thanking her for all the intangible gifts that she'd given him but that he was choosing to break the contract he'd accidentally been living by which said that he'd have to struggle in his money life like she did. To his father, he wrote something similar (again, not to be sent), but about the contract regarding self-employment being a sentence of unrelenting toil.

In both cases, we took time to describe how he would be different by breaking those childhood "contracts" with them. This technique helps to bring these things to the surface, and signal the unconscious mind that there's a new game in town.

I also had him monitor his own conversations with others. I asked him to practice not talking about work at all with his friends and family. If he did talk about it, I asked him to talk about his gratitude in being able to do what he wanted to do and make a good living at it. In essence I was asking him to focus on the other parts of his life that he was ignoring by focusing on the struggle surrounding his work.

We also looked at the income side, because he did need to make more money in order to reach his goals of savings for retirement and having savings safety nets in place. He had it firmly in his mind that he couldn't ask his clients for more money, and so he hadn't raised his rates in years.   I asked him to ask for a higher rate with new clients right away, and then we discussed how to do that with his existing clients.

 He was shocked that his existing clients didn't push back at all against the new rate. He started getting work at the higher rate and working more effectively in fewer hours. He made a contract with himself to take one full weekend off a month, and go do fun things, even though it might be during work hours. He stopped making deadline promises to his clients that were impossible and fueling his workload.

He will continue on this journey and see the benefits unfold, but even now you would not recognize Harold if you knew him before. His conversations are about the great things in his life, his clients are paying him better for the work he's doing and he's working more effectively than before. His income gets allocated in a way that pays monthly bills and saves for known expenses, and the debt continues to decrease.

Struggle is often learned and part of a family myth. You can choose a different story. I would love to tailor a program with you to change your family myths into "what used-to-be" and help you create more effortless and prosperous money chapters ahead.