You want to change your life?

So, you are wanting to change your life? How badly do you want to change your life? I'm assuming when you say you want to change your life, you mean you want to change your life for the better. Right? You want to improve your circumstances or make your life better, financially, right? There are a lot of people online who are promising to do that for you, ASAP. All you have to do... .is... drum roll please, send them some money! And voila! You will be able to concretely better your life just by giving them $100 bucks. Oh, sorry. Not $100... $99. Because $100 would raise questions. $99 sound... friendly. Special. Like it is not so bad... it is not $100. And in return for your hard-earned money, they will fix all your financial problems. And if they don't... if the program they offer you fails... well, it must be something you did or didn't do. Right? Because it can't possibly be the fact that they are scammers who just took your money and changed nothing for you and the only thing that took place is their life changed for the better because they got your money along with who knows how many other peoples'. So, the first step I would say to change your financial life for the better is to stop hoping for a miracle and start facing the cold hard facts of life. Nobody out there has a magic formula to make your life better for you. Nobody - except for one person.

Now the good news is, the one person who CAN change your life for the better is someone you know intimately. Better than anyone else on the planet. You know this person better than all their friends, their relatives, their sisters, brothers, spouses, kids, everyone. You know this person better than ANYONE - because this person is YOU. You are the only one who has the power to change things for the better. Nobody else. Nobody else has the power to make changes for you, regardless of what they offer. I happen to think that my budgeting program that I offer is pretty amazing. I think it has worked wonders for my wife and I and we use it to plan our finances from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. But guess what? It I may be somewhat crude here, despite how great I think it is, it may not mean di$$ to you if you are not determined to make it yours and use it to make necessary changes in your life that only you can make. Here is the bottom line. There is nothing I, or anyone else can give you that will make your life better. I can give you a tool to use, that has worked for me, but it only worked for me for one reason and one reason only. Because I was damn determined to make it work. I took on a total drill sergeant attitude and if I felt like skipping one week and not update my budget, I would remind myself that I was failing myself and my goals I set out and I was not going to achieve what I wanted because I was not prepared to do the work needed to get it done. I may or may not have used expletives at my image in the mirror.

When my wife and I initially sat down and started using this budgeting tool, I thought for sure we would get divorced. I thought that the lack of ability we had to get on the same page would lead us either to divorce or she would ultimately put me in a coma because I was so mean about using the budget and being absolutely steadfast about having to make very very hard changes about how we spend money. Here is the thing. We were coming up short at the end of every 5 weeks. My budget is a 5-week program, and despite us working very hard, at multiple jobs, we were still coming up short. Why? Because I fu***d up. I failed to understand that just because I was on this drill sergeant mentality of making the budget balance every single day, my wife was not. She was far from it. She was not ready to be spoken to in that manner and she resented it. It took a LONG time for us to get on the same page and the reason for that is because it took a long time for me to understand that my wife is not me - she doesn't respond to life the way I do. My view on life is, if something doesn't work, bulldoze the fu***r over and start again. Just blow it up. Don't pussyfoot around. Get that shit done. Be aggressive and get it done! What is the holdup? In my view, people suck. People are out to get other people, and they are just... a lot of them... not nice. They need to be watched. I. Am. Watching. Them.

My wife on the other hand is nothing like that. She is more ... well, its ok to make mistakes, but look at the positives that happened. Look how hard they are trying! People are basically nice, and they try hard, and you shouldn't wish bad things on them. I'm driving down the highway and some idiot is driving badly, so I not only yell at them, but I also roll my window down so they can hear me tell them what idiots they are. My wife? No. Nothing like that. She is like, "honey, don't yell at them, maybe they are in a hurry to get to an important date, maybe their loved one is sick, and they have to go tend to them. Maybe the reason some things you say are bad, happen to you, is because you put bad out into the universe. Maybe you should be nicer, and nice things will happen for you."

So, in order for our budgeting sessions every week to get better, I had to start recognizing the fact that although there was a discrepancy between our spending and our budget, it will never get better unless I learn to communicate with my wife financially on terms, she will be able to relate to. Getting mad because we overspent did nothing but make her sad and not want to work with me and just leave. And it took a very long time for me to understand that, and it took even longer for me to control my thoughts and relate to her in a way that she looked up and said "oh, I think you are right, we do need to do better and I will try to help you and us by doing X Y and Z". And THAT is the beginning of change. That is when change starts happening for the better and when that starts, it will snowball into a better circumstance. Because in order for change to take place, one has to commit to a concrete plan and actually do things X Y and Z.

But in order for THAT to take place, the person you know better than anyone has to commit to X Y and Z because without those concrete steps, you will never get better. I don't care how many scammers you give your hard-earned money to in order to change your situation. At the bottom of every pyramid is you. If you are not ready to make changes for the better, nobody will be able to make those changes for you. Life is not a Disney movie and there is no Prince Charming or Suga Mamma coming to rescue you. You have to commit to concrete steps to take and they don't have to be big steps! You don't need to change everything overnight. Just commit to a few small BUT concrete steps. My journey started when I committed to trying to understand that my wife does not respond to hurrah stuff. She is not a marine. She is my wife. I married her because she is a nice, easy going, pleasant, beautiful person. Inside and out and I don't want to change that. She started her journey of working with me on our finances when I gave her the chance to see me as her partner and not her drill instructor. She doesn't respond to loud. She responds to partnership.

What do YOU respond to? What is it that you can say to yourself that will make YOU respond? Don't just give me $25 and enroll in my finance course and expect me to change you, it will not happen. Until you figure out what YOU respond to, you will never be able to change anything. When you do figure it out, if you let me know you are ready, I will be happy to share my budgeting course with you. For $25. Until then, I don't want your money. You won't be able to accept the course for what it is, and you will waste your time and mine and you will lose $25.00. But when you are ready, you will be able to make all the changes you need all by yourself, and you will just use my course as a tool to accomplish your first X V and Z.

Until then, look in the mirror and ask yourself - what do I respond to?