00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on Episode 5 40 of the inspired Stewardship Podcast. I'm Paulsen from Kara. I challenge you to discover your true identity and calling so you can be empowered to live every day to the fullest. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott made her things are working well, sometimes is actually the most dangerous time. Because when that happens, we think we've got it. We've mastered that. Everything's perfect. I don't need any support anymore.
00:00:38 I don't need to keep doing the things that have gotten me here and before too long. You're right back where you started from. It's why I've had people that have gone through various programs to get out of debt. And they welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in. The inspired Searchie podcast will learn to invest in yourself,
00:01:11 invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world In today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about why your comfort zone isn't always your friend when it comes to your money, Why your comfort zone is so hard to leave and why your money and how you relate to it when you're in your comfort zone can really be a trap as we talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime?
00:01:56 Turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship dot com slash amazon when you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon, and a small commission will come back to support the show. If you enjoy the show when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship dot com slash amazon. Back on Wednesday's episode, we talked about your comfort zone when it comes to how you use your time,
00:02:23 how you're productive with your time and today we're gonna talk a little bit about your comfort zone when it comes to money.
00:02:31 Now it's a similar concept because they are both finite. Resource is They are things that you have limits around,
00:02:38 what you can do with your time and with your money. But they're a little different, too, and so we'll try to highlight some of the similarities and differences as I talk through this today.
00:02:50 So just like time, one of the reasons your tongue comfort zone convey be not your friend when it comes to your money is because as we build up habits,
00:03:02 we sometimes begin to become unconscious. Of those habits. We we stopped paying attention to what's going on.
00:03:09 You know, if you've got the habit of stopping at Starbucks every single day that you're spending that five or $6 on that coffee every single day that begins toe add up over time,
00:03:23 it affects your money. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not sitting here saying Never buy a Starbucks coffee.
00:03:28 I'm not even saying Don't buy a Starbucks coffee every single day. Instead, what I'm saying is the key is to be conscious and intentional in how you plan and spend your money.
00:03:41 You have to realize that at the end of the day, there's really only two sides to this equation.
00:03:48 There's the money side in terms of how much you have coming in. And then there's money side about how much you have going out.
00:03:57 It's what you do with the difference and how you look for that difference and manage it. That becomes important.
00:04:06 You know, if you do something smart with the difference between what you bring in and what goes out,
00:04:12 then you begin to have success over time with your money. If, on the other hand, you do something not smart.
00:04:19 With that difference than overtime, you begin to struggle. And for sure, if that difference is negative for long enough,
00:04:26 where you constantly spend Maur than you have coming in at some point in the future, that becomes a problem may not be today.
00:04:36 It may not even be tomorrow, but there is a point where you cannot continuously spend more than you make without running into issues without having the debt collectors calling without having someone reaching out to you and saying You owe me money and you need to pay it now and then running into a struggle with paying it.
00:04:59 The problem with our comfort zone when it comes to money is often we get into this pattern of behavior,
00:05:07 and we never even stop and think. Is this pattern in alignment with my values? Is this pattern in alignment with my priorities?
00:05:16 Is this not only good for me now, in the short term, not only short term pleasure or feeling good or getting something that I really want?
00:05:27 But is this sitting up me for the future? Success is this something that over the long term feels good and brings success to me and to my family,
00:05:40 whatever success looks like for you, and that's part of it, too, defining what is success for you?
00:05:46 What should it look like? Toe? Have a good relationship with your money? Does that include giving to charity?
00:05:53 Does that include tithing? Does that include spending money on certain things like, Ah, value based thing that's very important to you and your family?
00:06:01 Like I don't know, private school for your kids. None of these things are inherently good or bad,
00:06:08 but what happens with our comfort zone? So we get trapped into these patterns and we never stop to think about it.
00:06:15 We never interject and interrupt our patterns enough to identify whether or not this is actually something we want to be doing.
00:06:27 Instead, we just go through life day after day. It's off to work. I go because I o I o i o and you end up being trapped.
00:06:40 And then what happens? A lot of times you begin to feel a calling to something different. You begin to recognize that you don't love your job.
00:06:47 You don't really want to do what you're doing. There is something else that God is calling you to do,
00:06:53 and money becomes a barrier between doing what you are called to do because you can't afford to do the thing you're called to do.
00:07:05 The truth is, I think oftentimes that's what that passage about the love of money means. That's how we get trapped into that relationship,
00:07:14 where money becomes our security and our God instead of God. But the truth is, it's hard to break those money habits.
00:07:22 It's hard to leave those patterns. It's hard to do the hard work of finding out what we do.
00:07:31 I mean, the budget isn't hard. The truth is, you can Google how to do a budget.
00:07:35 You know, people come to me all the time and say what I need is a budget. Well,
00:07:39 that's quick and easy. We can set up a budget, nothing flat. The hard work is actually living to that budget.
00:07:45 The hard work is identifying the wise behind the budget so that it becomes important enough and relevant enough and enough of inhabit and ingrained into your behavior that you live to that decision without even thinking about it.
00:08:02 And just like time, what happens is you built up habits over time you've built up these neurological pathways that have laid down over years,
00:08:12 and now to form new paths and new habits is an incredible challenge, and it's so hard to do it.
00:08:21 This is why you know breaking in forming habits becomes a pattern. It becomes something that's hard to do.
00:08:28 It's why it's an industry. It's why coaches exists, because a lot of what we do is coaches is help.
00:08:33 People identify those patterns that they want to change and then help hold them accountable to that change. It's less about me coming in and saying this is what you need to do,
00:08:45 and it's more about me helping you uncover what you need to do for you that's very different. Sure,
00:08:56 there's tools and there's techniques, and there's things that I have access to because I'm a coach and I can inject those and help you identify which ones work and which ones don't and which ones are best for you.
00:09:10 But you've got to do the hard work toe. Leave your comfort so no one else can do it for you.
00:09:17 And the truth is, even if you're in your comfort zone and doing everything right, even if your money is working for you,
00:09:24 you've got money coming in. You've got money coming, going out. You've got a budget. All of these things.
00:09:29 Everything's firing on all cylinders. Your comfort zone can still be a trap because you still need to step back from time to time and re examine what you're doing.
00:09:41 You still need to take a close look at it and make sure that it remains and alignments. With your priorities and your values,
00:09:49 you still have to work on communication. One of the tools that I put in place for a lot of clients is having a weekly meeting,
00:09:57 and it's not unusual for after awhile for clients to stop doing it they've had success with it. It's been working and then they step back and for whatever reason,
00:10:09 they get busy. Life gets crazy and it kind of starts dropping off the radar. And inevitably, when that happens,
00:10:17 they fall back into old patterns of behaviour and begin to have stress and strain again. I've seen it time after time after time because our comfort zone,
00:10:28 when things are working well, sometimes is actually the most dangerous time, because when that happens, we think we've got it.
00:10:35 We've mastered it. Everything's perfect. I don't need any support anymore. I don't need to keep doing the things that have gotten me here and before too long.
00:10:44 You're right back where you started from. It's why I've had people that have gone through various programs to get out of debt,
00:10:51 and they've done it and sometimes they've done it three or four or five times. It's never stuck because they keep falling back into the old habits because they haven't really changed the fundamentals and they haven't been able to make it stick.
00:11:11 And then I've seen other clients where they've worked and it has happened. It has worked. Everything has fired on all cylinders.
00:11:18 They've made riel lasting change. Sometimes they stick around and continue with me for long periods of time, not because they haven't done the hard work,
00:11:28 but because they find that accountability becomes part of what supports them. And other times people move on and I check in with them six months or a year or two years or five years down the road.
00:11:40 And everything's still working perfectly because they've made the hard work and the lasting change to get out of their comfort zone with money and do something that's hard.
00:11:54 But is oh so worth it. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship Podcast.
00:12:07 As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen. But act on what you've heard and find a way toe Live your calling.
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00:12:48 your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact world