Go Away Inner Critic

OK, this one is going to be really personal, but if you know me, you know I'm an open book. Do you ever have something coming up that you completely fret over? Not just things like an exam, but you know, things like a medical appointment, credit card statement, or a car maintenance?

Here's what happened to me recently, I had my semi-annual endocrinologist appointment coming up, and let me know tell you, my inner voice was having these absurd arguements in my head with the endo leading up to the appointment. I was positively fretting that I'm not doing a good job with my health and have to therefore prepare to state my case in that appointment. So I laid in bed, night after night, having fake arguments. Yup, seems dumb doesn't it? Tell me I'm not alone on this behaviour. I had my appointment today, and do you know what happened? The doctor looked at my test results, looked at my meter and couldn't praise me enough on how surprisingly healthy I am and that I'll likely never have diabetic complications if I keep going the way I am. Gee, I'm so glad I spent many nights mentally preparing for something that not only never came to be, but never has and hopefully never will.

Why am I telling you this story? Because I see this all the time when it comes to our money, that little voice in our head is telling us that we're doing a really bad job managing our money, that we're not good enough and that we should feel bad about every single transaction. I spend a lot of client meetings telling people to stop beating themselves up because that's not going to encourage you to move forward. My financial planning processes include loads of fail safe strategies that allow you to fall off the wagon from time to time and I want you to be OK with that, because it's human nature. We absolutely cannot shoulder burden of perfection, forget it! I'm no psychologist, so curing these negative thoughts are not what I'm going to accomplish, but I am going to be your cheerleader and help you get on track financially so that whenever those little voices kick in, you can tell them to bugger off.