In Parts One and Two of this series we have defined the game that most of us play. “We all learn the game of money, in which the winner is the person with the most toys and the most money. And, of course, we want to be winners." We’ve also learned about the topics of suppressed negative feelings and divided parts.
Examples of Sabotaging Your Financial Freedom
In order to prove that we are winners we buy into the wealth game – the game that says that he who has the most money, the biggest house, and the most toys is the winner. We know that we have little chance of winning the game, but we play it anyway because inside we believe that if we do not play, we will be losers. We’ll do anything to get rid of the pain of losing. We want to prove that we are winners. We want to be accepted.
The problem with this game is that it is a game. It’s not a game we invented. We didn’t make up the rules. Somebody else made up the rules and passed them on to us through our parents and our teachers. And those rules probably guarantee that only those people on the inside – those who made up the rules - will probably win.
So wake up people. You’ve been duped. Let’s look at how many people sabotage not only their financial freedom but the opportunity for true wealth because of these rules. The most obvious way of doing so is to continue to play the traditional money game simply because, up to now, it was the only game you knew.
Stuck and Doing Nothing:
Eleanor attended a class to help her achieve financial freedom. Her first assignment was to calculate her financial freedom number, which she did. Her next assignment was to come up with five strategies for reducing her number. However, whenever Eleanor would come to class, and I’d ask her, “What’s your financial freedom number?” her response was always, “I calculated it, but I just cannot seem to remember it.”
When you know your number and you go to sleep thinking about how to reduce your number, then you’ll come up with many solutions that will help you reduce it. In Eleanor’s case, I asked her to write it down by her bed and then review it before falling asleep. That’s a simple step, right? But when I asked Eleanor for the results of that assignment, her response was always, “I forgot to do it.”
Why did this occur? Perhaps she wasn’t committed to financial freedom. Perhaps she was scared of financial freedom. Perhaps she didn’t believe that financial freedom was possible for her, so she wouldn’t try. Only Eleanor really knows the answer, but she certainly was an excellent example of someone sabotaging financial freedom. Perhaps a part of her was afraid to try because of fear of failure and so she decided to avoid failure at all costs.
Eleanor admitted that she wanted financial freedom and was stuck. Her position gave her a chance to find out why she was stuck. However, with some people, the situation is much worse because they are in denial.
Marshall was one such person. When the concept of financial freedom was explained to him, his reaction was, “most people can’t do it.” When certain types of investments were explained, which return 50% or more cash on cash and have almost no r isk, his response was, “That’s a fraud; it can’t be done.” Marshall is essentially afraid to do much of anything. However, he needs to be right about everything. As a result, his reaction to anything beyond his stagnant position is simply, “It can’t be done!” Do you know people like that? There are many of them out there.
Let’s look at anther example – Marco. Marco understood all of the financial freedom principles. Yet despite his best intention, he could not develop the simplest plan for moving toward financial freedom. He knew all the steps for getting to financial freedom, and he also knew at least ten different types of passive income. But knowing wasn’t doing! Marco could not translate his knowledge into action; he couldn’t take the first step. He could not commit to making it happen.
Marco’s problem was similar to Eleanor’s problem. He had no trouble remembering his financial freedom number, but he still couldn’t translate it into action. Again, perhaps Marco was so afraid of what it would be like to be financially free that he wouldn’t even try. Or perhaps he was afraid of failure. In order to transfer responsibility for any possible failure, he wanted someone to tell him what to do – to detail each step for him. And when that didn’t occur, he felt lost. Thus, he did nothing.
Bill had a plan for financial freedom that he knew would work, but six months went by and he had done nothing to alter his number. He did know why he was procrastinating. He just did nothing.
So what is Bill’s issue? It’s probably a belief problem and a motivation problem. He wants financial freedom, but he thinks that he might somehow be less of a person if he has a lot of money. Bill’s heard all the clichés – “money is the root of all evil…its easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven…filthy rich” etc. And perhaps, he thought, if he had money, he’d lose all his friends. Thus, part of Bill wanted financial freedom, but most of him wanted to remain a decent person and he thought money might change all of that.
The Compulsive Spender
Jenny was a compulsive spender. She was heavily in debt and really knew that developing financial freedom was the answer to her dreams. She learned her financial freedom number and decided that her first two steps were to only buy things when she could afford to pay for them and to eliminate her debt. What happened? Jenny wanted to do these things, but she kept spending and spending. She’d go shopping because she loved it. And then she’d see something in the store, and she’d develop an overwhelming desire to buy it.
Why would this happen? Jenny associated buying things with feeling good about herself, with being a winner. She experienced depression when she deprived herself as well as a huge internal conflict. Part of her said, “You’re good enough…just buy it.” And, as a result, Jenny could neither reduce her spending, nor her debt.
Next in this series we will cover some other examples of sabotaging financial freedom and how you are really playing a vital role in the creation of your own life.
From Van K. Tharp's newest work, The Little Book on Financial Freedom. Look for publication Winter 2004.
