Three Steps to Financial Clarity

3 Steps to Financial Clarity: At Peace With Money

As the holidays set in and the mad rush of preparation begins to slow, you might find yourself with a little time to reflect on your year. Why not take the opportunity to reflect on your finances? Your money, much like all the other pieces of your life, deserves your attention, thought, and critical eye. This exercise is meant to lead you to financial clarity. By completing it, you’ll gain a better understanding of what you want from your money, and how to get there.

Step 1: Define Your Destination

What’s your destination with your money? What are you planning to do with it? Is there something you’re saving up for? You might have vague plans, a well-defined roadmap, or nothing at all. This is the step where you can dream and imagine that destination. If you already have one in mind, check in and make sure it’s where you want to go. Make sure you investigate any current money goals you might have to make sure they really align with your desires. If you don’t have any goals, think of some you might like to adopt!

Step 2: Drop Your Pin

Pinpoint your current location. In other words, figure out where you are now financially.  It’s time to get clear and honest about what you have, what you owe and where your money is going each month. Use this step as an opportunity to total up your expenses and debts and track your recent income. Leave no bill unturned! If you want further instructions on this step, I recommend checking out my article on creating a spending plan, specifically the section on analyzing your expenses. 

Step 3: Plan Your Journey

3 Steps to Financial Clarity: At Peace With MoneyNow that you know where you are and where you’re going, it’s time to figure out how you’ll get there. This is the step where strategy comes in. Based on all the information you’ve already looked at during Step 2, you should be able to determine what will help you get to your destination. Whether that’s saving more money, paying yourself first, cutting out certain expenses, increasing your income, or a whole host of other ideas, identify your moves and decide when you’re going to make them. 

This process may take you a little while to complete, but it will ultimately bring you to a place of much greater clarity when it comes to your finances. This exercise can be applied to personal finances but it can also be applied to your business finances. I hope this season of reflection serves you well.

If you need any assistance looking through your finances, I’m happy to help you reach a place of clarity. Schedule a call with me!

☮

Angela

By |2018-12-19T00:43:10-08:00December 19th, 2018|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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How to Start A Goal-Based Business

How to Start a Goals-Based Business: At Peace With Money

I want everyone to be able to align their business profits with their life goals. But, what does that really mean? You may have all kinds of life goals. Is it really possible to build a business that can help you bring them to fruition? The answer is a resounding yes.

Step One: Dig Deeper

The first step in any intentional process, like designing a business that supports you financially and fulfills you emotionally and spiritually is to spend some time thinking deeply. If you aren’t sure what your goals are, it’s time to figure that out! Envision your life in 5 years, 10 years – where do you want to be? what do you want to be doing? What are you most passionate about? Will starting this business help you get where you want to go?

It’s All Related

To help you think about how your life goals and your business are intertwined, consider this example. Let’s say Sandra is a talented jewelry maker, but she is also deeply passionate about dance. She wants to build a jewelry business that supports her and helps make ends meet. She also wishes to have ample time to attend dance classes, events, and begin performing live. By building up her business so that it runs profitably, efficiently, and provides her with a steady paycheck through the implementation of the Profit First system, she can have more time to put towards her dancing.

Even though Sandra is not choosing to monetize the very thing her personal goals attain to – dancing – she is making more room for it in her life by expanding her business and its capacity to efficiently support her. In this way, her business profits directly support her achievement of her life goals. Some other examples might include building a business that includes a lot of travel if you dream of globetrotting, or creating a business which is founded on ethical principles you’d like to see manifest in the world.

Often, I think we look at business as being a rather sterile aspect of our culture and lives – it’s just the way we make money. In fact, it can be the very opposite. It can be the vehicle for achieving your dreams and visions, whether directly through your business, or via expanding the profits and efficiency of your operations. Starting and running a business is inherently creative – what are you going to create?

If you find you need some guidance in working through the questions I bring up here, I encourage you to reach out. I’m always happy to talk with solopreneurs about how they can achieve their goals through their business. Click right here or on the Services tab up top to learn more about what I offer and how you can schedule a call!

For more reading and resources on this topic, I recommend my article, “What’s Your Money Why?” which touches on some similar subjects and may help you consider these questions more deeply.

☮

Angela

Image Sources: Florian Klauer  Amy Shamblen

By |2018-11-08T19:59:41-08:00September 24th, 2018|Categories: Financial Clarity, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Book Review: The One Thing

At Peace With Money: Book Review: The-One-ThingThis summer, I read The One Thing by Gary Keller (no relation), and my initial reaction was irritation. Essentially, the book advises us to focus on one big goal that you want to accomplish and then break that goal down into smaller time chunks.The goal is to do something small to work toward that goal every day. The key is focusing. That’s probably why it irritated me.

Staying focused is definitely something that I struggle with. As a business owner, as a wife and mother, as a person in today’s world of distracting gadgets – focusing is difficult!  It seems there is always a fire to put out, a need to be met. Always there is an idea that is nibbling your brain, or a rabbit hole to dive into and lose 45 minutes of your life. My reaction was about something I need to work on in myself rather than the idea the author presents.  

He also suggests scheduling that focused time into your calendar and protecting it – another challenge for me. On top of that, he debunks the idea of multi-tasking. This felt blasphemous to me at first. What mother do you know who does not pride herself on juggling multiple balls in the air on a daily basis!?! It seemed to me that Gary Keller was basically trying topull the rug out from under my life! This book made me so angry that I had to take a few months to calm down enough to even write this review.

Practical Applications

But somehow, this morning I woke up thinking about this book again. A practical example to apply his basic techniques popped into my mind. Let’s say you want to save $30,000 to buy a house over the next 5 years. That sounds like a lot of money to save and a crazy goal! But if we break it down to saving $6,000 this year and saving $500 each month which means saving about $17 each day, it becomes manageable. To reach this goal, we ask, what’s the one thing we can do today to get that started? Perhaps you open the savings account. Maybe you start a side hustle and allocate all the income to that goal. You might start saving your cash in a money jar to deposit at month end. Maybe you resolve to pack your lunch.

The One Thing Book Review: At Peace With MoneyWhat’s important is getting started by taking some action today to make the goals you have for your future turn into a reality.  That is a lesson I can take from this book.

I might have to work on my focus, and reexamine my views on multitasking. However, I do feel I stand behind the ultimate message of this book: get clear on your goal, focus on it, and work towards it every day. If you do that, you will achieve what you’re after. Whether that’s saving for a house or starting a business, this is an important reminder in how we approach our financial goals. If you need an accountability partner to help you get started, please feel free to reach out.  I would love to help you reach your goals (and I promise not to forbid you from multitasking!)

 

☮

Angela

Image Sources: Squidhub, Bonehead Business

By |2018-09-12T02:27:30-07:00September 12th, 2018|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Check In With Your Goals – Time for a Review

Check In With Your Goals: At Peace With Money

Time to review your goals.  Only four months left in 2018, can you believe it? It’s certainly flown by for me, which is why this week I want us to take some time to reflect on our goals. Many of us set goals at the beginning of each year.  You may have set some goals for your business that you have since been working towards. It’s been a while since January, so now’s the time to check in!

The Review

Review your goals and begin to reflect on your progress for each one. Now, here’s the tricky part: don’t get caught up in what you still need to do. Instead, it’s important to spend a good chunk of time reviewing what you’ve already done to reach your goals. If you feel like you can’t remember everything, try going back month by month. If you use a day planner, flip through it and scan your old to-do lists. Chances are, you will find you’ve done quite a bit of work towards your goals, no matter how close you might be to completing them! Take some time to reflect on the work you’ve done, and congratulate yourself on this work. Celebrate your achievements so far! Being a self-starting solopreneur is hard work. If you’ve done the work, you deserve to cheer yourself on once in a while.

While you’re having this victory party for yourself, now may also be a good time to map out what you hope to get done during these last three months of 2018. By reflecting on what you’ve done up to this point first, you are able to clearly see the pace you work at. With this in mind, you can set realistic expectations for the next three months, rather than trying to cram in too much work.

My Check-In

You may remember that I set a goal earlier this year to be mindful by enjoying what’s right in front of me. I want to share a little check-in of my own on this goal. That way, you can see how it’s going and be inspired to reflect on your own goals.

I’ve been doing a couple things throughout this year to stick with this goal. Every weekday, for 10-15 minutes each morning, I’ve been writing in my little gratitude journal. During my morning walk, when I reach the top of our road, I cross the street to take in the view of the Monterey Bay for a few minutes. In this way I’ve been able to appreciate the place I live more fully. I also notice changes in the season and the forest, and even the subtleties of the fog cover.

Check In With Your Goals: At Peace With MoneyI’ve also been trying to practice a technique for grounding my memories. The way this works is, when having a good experience, you try to capture the memory by taking in all the sensory details. Notice how your surroundings smell, feel, sound, and taste. Paying attention to these details has helped me appreciate them more. I learned this technique from Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas. It’s a great read, and I hope to do a book review on it soon!

For more resources on reviewing your goals, I recommend this video series by Muchelle B. on Youtube. I hope this post inspires you to check in with your goals, celebrate your hard work, and be mindful of your capacity as you finish out the year. Remember to enjoy your business, and your life! If you find you need some help setting goals, especially for your business, check out my services page or set up a discovery call with me!

☮

Angela

Image Sources: Brooke Lark, Amy Shamblen

By |2018-11-08T20:14:03-08:00August 28th, 2018|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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The Power of a Seed

The Power of a Seed: At Peace With MoneyI am about to take off on a bucket list trip: I will be riding a motorcycle 1,400 miles to Sturgis, South Dakota.

Three years ago, my husband and I went to the Sturgis motorcycle rally for the first time. I rode on the back of a Harley we rented for the trip. My husband has been riding motorcycles all his life, but this was a big trip for him to take on at that time.  While we were in Sturgis that first year, I saw a lot of women riding bikes and found myself wanting to do the same. These women planted the first seed of inspiration in my mind. My husband has actually tried to teach me to ride before, but it usually ended in disappointment and a few choice words.

After going a second year to Sturgis as a passenger, I again saw lots of women on bikes. I noticed that these women weren’t particularly large or strong, or even necessarily young. They were a lot like me. That’s when I decided thatif these women could ride Harleys and other large bikes, I could too. Upon returning from that trip, I completed my local motorcycle safety program and got my license. We bought a Honda Rebel 250 and I set a goal to ride my first 500 miles. Then I set my sights on a bigger bike, more mileage, and a longer trip. Three years ago in Sturgis, my friends took a picture of me sitting on a red Indian motorcycle, just as a joke. This week I’m going to be riding my new red Indian motorcycle on this trip.

The Power of a Seed: At Peace With Money

I’m not recounting this story simply to tell you that I’m a “badass biker chick”. I’m also a 52 year-old mom that makes a living as bookkeeper and finance coach. But I am a badass because a seed was planted, which I started to believe in and nourish. I set some goals and accomplished them one at a time. Now, I’ve achieved my dream. 

If you are struggling to make a change or believe in your goals, I hope my story can inspire you this week. Whetheryour goals are business related or purely personal, I want you to remember to take one step at a time, and know that you can get there eventually.

☮

Angela

Image Sources:  Guilherme Veloso, JanFillem

By |2018-09-17T04:55:00-07:00July 30th, 2018|Categories: Money Mindset|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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