New Year. New Me. It Ain't Easy!

When the going gets tough, what exactly do the tough do? As a compulsive spender, the normal answer, shopping doesn’t work. As a person who’s trying to lose weight, neither does eating. Lashing out doesn’t work, crying might feel good for a minute but then what?

I have a very nasty habit of speaking negativity over my life. Could all of my “I’ll never have a man!” and “No one will ever marry me!” rants have something to do with my still being single? (If you ask my Dad the answer is yes!) Could it be that my thoughts of lack, brokeness and the focus on what I don’t have could be keeping me dangling in financial limbo?

I thought about that as we came into the New Year and I was determined to be more positive. Then, several days into the New Year, it happened. And it all started with an email from Paypal saying that they had charged me for something I wasn’t expecting. That one charge was about to wreak havoc in my struggling checkbook!

I was frustrated. I was truly trying to do better, yet something always came up.  “Why? Why? Why!!!”

But wait a minute; this is supposed to be a new me for the New Year.

I called the bank and told them to set it up so they did not pay anything I couldn’t cover. When I got to work, I canceled the Paypal service. These actions didn’t improve my finances but they did make me feel better. I was being proactive and taking charge. It felt good.

It felt so good that I decided that next I needed to be grateful. I had the gas I needed to get to my job. I was unemployed for nine months before I started, so a job was something to be grateful for. I had food in my house and my bills were paid - another thing to be grateful for.

In fact, when I got home, I numbered down a full page (28 lines) in my journal and came up with 28 things to be grateful for that very day. I felt really good by the time I fell asleep.

It’s not even a daily battle for me to stay positive. I literally have to take it minute-by-minute. Yet, if I ended up feeling like a felt at the end of a long bad day then it is worth it.