SYTB 13: Say "Yes" To Your Budget

Never beg for funds again!

Yesterday, I introduced the question, “If I keep doing what I always have done, what will it cost me?”

I have had times in my life where I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was circling around and ending up in the same dark places, frustrating relationships, poverty, exhaustion and poor health. I have many times hung on to relationships past their expiration date, and it has cost me health, wealth and happiness to keep trying to swallow the bullshit that went with that. I just positioned myself in the old paradigm of boundaries, where I was trying not to lose my cool or whatever resources I had left. If I had to picture my life one year into the future from this paradigm, I couldn’t see myself living a different life, a better life. Instead, I saw myself in this same position, looking at my budget for energy and trying to think of ways I could avoid losing. I saw myself in the future counting on begging whatever creditors I might have left to lift me up so I could go on. It really is a beggar’s position.

It’s time now to shift from that old paradigm of focusing on what Master Prosperity Teacher, Edwene Gaines refers to as the “creditors can’t eat me, creditors can’t eat me” mind set. That old focus was on who is coming to get me and take my stuff away. I needed these big walls around whatever scraps I had left to barricade myself in.

Unfortunately, this is the way we have taught boundaries up until now, as a defensive mechanism. It’s erecting a prison around yourself to keep people out by forcing yourself to say “no” all the time. It’s so narrow and limiting.

We have to break out of that mindset and learn to be better with our budgets, so that we are earning from our investments. We’re spending energy to make energy.

We’re going to do some great exercises today to get into this new boundaries mindset. Not only that, we are going to look objectively at the costs of the new way versus the way we’ve been doing it. We are going to see if spending the same way will bankrupt us in a year and how small changes in just the direction we take might improve our prospects.

Are you ready? Yes! Of course, you are. Let’s say “yes” to our budget!

Let’s say it’s a year from now. You have been honoring yourself. You have been seeing people in your life for who they are and not who you want them to be. You have been treating them accordingly. You are spending your time, energy, money and attention on pursuing what you truly desire rather than what you have been settling for. You are saying “yes” to yourself and your wants. You can now say, “no” almost involuntarily to bullshit. I don’t know what your end goal is, but I would imagine a year of pure, unbridled devotion to your desires might put you a big chunk of the way there if not over the top.

Be conservative, though.

What could you imagine is the least you could do if you started saying “yes” to your boundaries and focusing on what you want inside them and expanding that sphere of achievement for the rest of 2022? Take an honest inventory of how your sleep might improve, your diet might improve, your physical appearance might improve, your love life might improve, your friendships might improve, your relationship to your children might improve, you finances might improve, your confidence might improve, your relationship to time and your relationship to energy might improve if you dedicated your efforts to saying “yes” to boundaries in each of these areas of your life for a year. Write it all down. Be specific. If you can’t decide between forecasting a wild improvement or a meager one, find something you believe is realistic. OK?

When you write it down, again, forecast in the present tense positive.

For example, you might write:

“After a year of dedication to what I wanted inside my boundaries, I have attracted seven more friends this year that resonate with my core values. These friendships fuel me and inspire me. This fuel gives me energy to get more done each day. I feel more self-love than I ever have before.”

That is an example of one area of your life. Make a detailed and complete list of how this may affect all the other areas you can imagine as well in the same manner.

Now, compare this new list, even the minimum of what you might reasonably accomplish to the generous list of what you are getting now. Remember we wrote down our list of what we gained doing what we are doing in the most generous terms. We shared our gratitude in Lesson 11 thinking of the ways our defensive choices may have been a benefit to us. Go back to what you wrote in your journal from Lesson 11 in gratitude, thanking yourself for protecting you from legitimately bad stuff. So this is generous list of how your ego (or your inner accountant) had protected you up to today versus your meager and practical list of what your life could look like a year from now if you stopped playing defense.

Ask yourself, as much as I am grateful for all that lead me here now and all those wins, can I afford to keep doing that? Can I afford to forfeit the possibility of the list I wrote today coming true for me in a year from now? Can I afford to not spend my energy doing a few routine exercises and shifting my perspectives? Is it time to start looking at boundaries as offensive rather than defensive play? I’m talking offensive in terms of advancement and gaining points on the field, not in terms of offending people. When I say “defensive,” I am speaking in terms of trying not to lose what points you have. It is interesting that we often view our own personal advancement as some kind of infringement upon someone else, though. It’s as if staying small and devoting ourselves to others in a way that costs us our own advancement is somehow virtuous. I think that’s something to notice. If it rings true for you, this might be a prompt for you to do some extra journaling. While doing that exercise, ask yourself what more you might have to offer others in a year if you said “yes” to your own personal advancement versus what you have to offer if you spend the next year giving others your all.

Please, write what comes up for you. Compare and contrast what you are spending your energy on now and what you are gaining now versus where you could be spending your energy and what you could gain in a year from now. Honestly, ask yourself, “If I keep doing what I have been doing do I stand to gain more or lose more?”

A lot of people refer to the place they are coming from as their “comfort zone.” I think that’s a misnomer. In fact, if you were honest about your current relationships to time, work, health, parenting, family, energy, yourself, others and money, you might realize that not all of those positions are comfortable for you at all. If you needed to take a course on boundaries (which we all objectively do), you could probably be a lot more comfortable in your life, especially in a year from now.

From this perspective, that first step, that first confrontation, that first pivot or that first change that felt so big might start to feel easier. You are taking steps already. The question isn’t whether you should take another step. The question is: what direction are you moving? Are you moving up the hill, further along in the gutter, down by the tracks, into the doldrums or out into the fresh, clean air? It’s all just a choice, and you are always making choices. If you weren’t, you’d never feel fatigued. If you’re tired now, you’re making a choice that got you where you are. It’s not an accident. It’s not a coincidence.

We already said “thank you” to ourselves in Lesson 11 for getting us where we are today. I hear so much about the value of shadow work, like it’s the only thing in personal growth. People just obsess a little on the importance of shadow work. But, “Ye, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall not set up camp there.” Maybe, battling and facing the shadows has been productive, but the time is coming to move on. Maybe if you’ve looked hard and long at those lists, you see your time has already come. Collecting what you got from the past experiences, hurts, vulnerability, childhood and trauma is wonderful. Isn’t it time now to start collecting the lessons from loving relationships, light work, joyous solitude, peaceful and harmonious family interactions, vibrant health, adventurous vacations, beaming confidence, indulgent self-care and utter receptivity?

What I am saying is there is more than shadow work, and it’s yours for the taking. You just have to move in its general direction.

What action step in the right direction will you commit to taking today?

For accountability to yourself, I highly recommend you share your action step in the comment section below.