You have come so far! It’s time for Stage FOUR…
Keep up the great work! As you go, make sure you talk to your mentor about your questions and thoughts. Meanwhile, here is your homework: complete Stage Four…
- Connect to others – find ways to help others fulfill their needs
- Keep attending to your own needs
- Reflect on the past when you find patterns affecting you today
- Define your ideology / beliefs and put them into practice
- Connect to your money – solidify your savings engine and save for your dreams (if you are still getting out of debt, double down!)
And here is exactly how to do that…
Connecting To Yourself And Others – Attending To Needs As Part Of A Regular Routine
Now that you can imagine the needs of others, it is time to make helping others a part of your regular routine. This could be as simple as regular coffee with your friends, where you take stock of what they need emotionally and support them in that way. It could be volunteering regularly at your favorite charity. It could be something completely new. If there is a particular group of people (veterans, homeless, children, etc) that you feel drawn to help, think about unique ways that you can help, that may not be covered by anyone else. The key is to make and maintain a regular routine of caring for the needs of others in a way that takes advantage of your unique perspective and gifts. Be careful not to fall into the trap of just giving money. Give your time, effort and creativity. Be there in person with the people you are helping, if possible. Connect to them in that space.
While attending to the needs of others is important, attending to your own needs is more important. Creating a routine for attending to your needs is a great way to make sure you do not neglect them. As humans, we have so many needs: mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, etc. It can seem overwhelming. Routines make it simple and easy to ensure that your needs are being met.
From previous effort, you should have a list of your needs in order of the following categories… something like this:
- Physical Needs – sleep, regeneration, exercise, sex, nutrition, hygiene
- Mental/Emotional Needs – intellectual activities, relationships, time alone
- Spiritual Needs – prayer/meditation, study, rituals, services, retreats, etc
- Medical Needs – services, doctor visits, etc
- Professional or Purpose-Driven Needs – training, knowledge, action
Now map these needs into real action on your daily or weekly calendar. Schedule in time for sleep, regenerative activities, time for exercise, eating well, hygiene and even sex. Schedule time for relationships, prayer/meditation, and everything else. You may find that there are optimal times of day for specific tasks. For example, if you are a morning person, you might find that language learning followed by meditation and then exercise makes a nice routine. The optimal routine is different for everyone. Experiment to find your best fit. Then, schedule it and hold it sacred.
If you do not make your needs a priority, nobody else will, and you will become unable to help anyone else. Being a martyr is not good for you and ultimately makes you unable to pursue your purpose. This body, mind and spirit must be maintained and sacred routines are one way to make sure that happens.
What routines will you experiment with? What order of things might be best for you?
Connecting To Yourself – Recognizing And Removing Negative Patterns
Humans are creatures of pattern. We fall into routines easily. Our behavior is no different. Some behavioral patterns are good for you. Consistently working out or consistently learning something new results in good things. However, If there are negative patterns in your behavior – if you do the same thing over and over in a way that hurts you, now is the time to recognize that and remove the root cause. Negative patterns can take many forms in many areas of you life, from finance to relationships, physical or health issues, parenting and more.
Step one is to recognize the negative pattern. Do you already know what it is? For example, is food what you turn to when you are stressed? Do you overspend your budget in certain areas? Do you not buckle your seatbelt and therefore put yourself at risk? Do you find yourself with abusive partners over and over? Do you cause your own demise at work, job after job? When something negative happens in your life, examine if this is the first time. Or does it seem to happen all the time? If it is a pattern, acknowledge that. If it is a one-time thing, acknowledge that too.
Next, examine the cause. The root of the behavior is often buried below layers of psychological excuses. You will have to dig to find it.
Why, Why, Why? …
One great way to do that is to ask yourself the question, “Why?”, and to keep asking why until you reach the root cause. For example, the progression might look like this: why do I eat when I am stressed? Because it makes me feel better. Why? because it makes me feel cared for. Why does it make me feel cared for? Because my parents always would give me food when I was upset as a way to quiet me down. AHA! Now we have it. There was a pattern established in childhood that put the belief in your head that food is how we calm down. Cookies became the security blanket of anything stressful or upsetting. But now this pattern is harming your health, your self image, your opportunities, and so much more. But by shining a light on the truth, you will find that it dissipates. Now that you know the root cause, you can see that you need a mechanism to comfort yourself in times of stress. If you recognize how the pattern started, you can establish an alternate method of comforting yourself and slowly the urge to eat when you are stressed will go away.
Tony Robbins’s Parent-Centered Approach…
Another method that works wonders comes from Tony Robbins. In this method, you consider the question: which of your parent’s love did you crave the most? You surely wanted love and acceptance from both but there was one that you wanted it from MORE. Which parent was that? Then, what did you have to BE to get that love and acceptance?
Negative Emotions As The Root Of Patterns…
Sometimes a negative emotion is the root of your pattern. Practice recognizing and naming your feelings. For example, you may give your children too much for too long, ultimately harming their ability to create independence, all because you feel guilt about what they went through in the past.
When feeling guilt, shame, regret, sadness, or other negative emotions, ask yourself why you feel this way. Take the time to explore your reactions (do not suppress them). Keep asking why you feel this way until you get to the real root of the issue. Acknowledge your truth and remind yourself that it is all part of being human.
When negative emotions are fertilizing the roots of your harmful patterns, it is important to be compassionate to yourself. Regret, in particular, requires a lot of self compassion to heal. Remind yourself that you did what you could at the time given who you were and the circumstances that surrounded you. You are a different person now. Can you imagine sitting with that old version of yourself and offering compassion like a good friend? Work to let these feelings go, by shining a spotlight on them every time they appear, and offering compassion to yourself and anyone else involved. In time, these feelings will dissolve along with the patterns they cause.
Lastly, as you recognize unhealthy patterns, you will need to either replace them with healthy patterns or stop them cold. Rules help. Make a list of rules to operate by. It helps to have rules to remind yourself what to do in specific situations. What rules do you need to put in place to avoid falling into negative patterns?
Connecting To Your Ideology – Define Your ideology And Put It Into Practice
Your ideology is nothing more than a set of values, rules, beliefs and ideas that you use to make decisions. Every decision you make, if not based on emotion or subconscious beliefs, is ultimately based on your ideology. Your ideology can be a very emotional thing and it might be hard to distinguish between an ideological or an emotional root for your choices. It is OK for emotions and ideology to mix for now. At this point, the task is to focus on defining your ideology and putting it into practice in your life.
Try the following…
First, write down what you want your beliefs or values to be in these areas …
- Religion
- Politics
- Social / moral issues
- How you should treat others
- Food and nutrition
- Health and wellbeing
- Anything and everything else
Your list will start to get pretty long but just keep going. Even if it takes weeks to get your list together, it is worth it. Write it all down.
Next, ask yourself why you want these particular beliefs. Is it because other people (parents, friends, etc) have suggested (overtly or through their behavior) that these are what your beliefs should be? Is it because of your experiences? Is it to avoid negative consequences? What consequences are you trying to avoid?
Be honest about what you truly believe at this moment and why you believe it. Examine if you think those beliefs need to change or be updated in some way?
When you have your list, understand why you believe each item, and have made updates, it is time to aggregate them to the level of PRINCIPLES. Principles are not issue-specific. Principles are meta-beliefs. They are the reason behind several beliefs. For example, your beliefs might include that credit cards are evil and car loans are a bad idea and payment plans are also a bad idea. The principle behind all of these is that debt in any form is a bad idea; or you might say that the principle is that debt is slavery and you don’t want to be a slave. That is really two principles there… Debt is slavery… and I will not be a slave. The principle of, “I will not be a slave,” might have have spawned many other beliefs in your ideology all by itself. Principles are the root of beliefs.
Are there underlying principles that are common to your beliefs? What principles are the overarching guides? Could you use principles for your ideology instead of specific rules/beliefs?
Principles give you a more general framework for making decisions and a shorter list of items in your ideology. Dozens of beliefs and rules might boil down to just a small number of principles. Principles also play another critical role – they highlight our inconsistencies and hypocrisy.
Are some of your beliefs in contradiction to your principles? List your beliefs in one column and your principles in another. Do you have any principles that are in conflict with each other? Do you have any beliefs that are in conflict with one of your principles? How can you update your principles and beliefs to eliminate contradictions and inconsistencies? Lastly, can you put your principles in priority order? Are some more important than others? At the end of all of these exercises, you should have a comprehensive list of your principles, in priority order, that you can use to make better decisions at your job, in the voting booth, at the grocery and everywhere else.
Understand that your ideology will evolve with you and that is a good thing. Be ready to update your ideology as you learn and experience new things and perspectives.
Connecting To Your Money – Solidifying Your Savings Engine
In Stage Three, you made some very important things: a list of all your debts, a plan to pay them off and a spend plan or budget that would make the whole thing work. This spend plan, and your ability to stick to it, is your SAVINGS ENGINE. It is time to solidify it for the long term.
First, if you are not yet out of debt (that can take time), increase your efforts. Get a second or third job, cut back further on your expenses, sell everything, and do what you need to do to put more towards your debts. Run, do not walk, out of debt as if your life depends on it – because it does.
Second, if you are debt free (good job!), it is time to think about the funds you will need in the future and save, save, save. Only you can define your goals, but here are some examples…
- Going back to school for a degree
- Having children
- Becoming financially independent
- Putting kids through college
- Remodeling your home
- Buying a home or second home
- Paying off your mortgage
- Moving to another city or state or country
- Buying a car or new piece of technology
- Retiring early
- Traveling the world
- … get creative!
You are sure to have near term goals and long term goals. Goals should be reasonable, in the sense of being achievable in this lifetime. That being said, do not dismiss an idea just because the only way you know how to do it is too expensive. Get creative. Find ways that cost less. You can make your goals very reasonable and very achievable.
For example, you may want to save up to send your kids to college. Do they need an expensive out of state school? Probably not. Do you need to pay for ALL of it? No. Decide how much you will pay and be very specific. For example, if you have many children and cannot realistically pay for four years for all of them, you might offer to pay for two years for each of them, being very specific about what those two years will include. This is just one example. Understand that your goals may not look like anyone else’s and that is OK.
Keep a list of your goals where you can see them every day. Keeping track of your goals makes you less likely to sabotage your progress.
The savings engine – your monthly spend plan that includes consistently putting money towards debt and then towards goals – is the key to achieving any goal you can define. If you can consistently save a minimum amount per month, then you will eventually meet your goals. Consistency is they key. Your savings engine (or debt payment engine) should be a critical line item in your monthly spend plan – a number that you track and report to yourself each month. How much did you put towards debt or save up for your goals? Can you do more? As the saying goes, “What gets measured, gets managed.” So measure your progress. You will find yourself automatically pushing harder to do more.
Consider prioritizing your goals based on what will happen first, or what is most important, and tackle them one at a time, just like you did for paying off debt. Dave Ramsey’s baby steps recommend that saving a 4-6 month emergency fund, and then saving for children’s college and retirement should be important enough to be at the very top of the list. You are sure to have other goals beyond those.
Investments may help you put your savings engine in overdrive. Although investments are not without significant risk, over the long term, they can be a powerful component of your savings engine. When saving for retirement and other goals that are at least 5 years away, consider working with an investment manager, or getting smart on investments yourself, to make your money work harder. Compound interest is the key to major long term wealth and financial independence. A good financial manager, or your company’s retirement plan administrator, can help you send money directly into a retirement account from your paychecks as part of your dedicated savings engine. Read up on Dave Ramsey’s methods and recommendations for more ideas and advice.