Life has a funny way of getting in the way of your best intentions. 

Work, school, kids activities, home improvements, family obligations.

The list goes on and on.

And when life gets in the way, it’s easy to find that you’ve been ignoring your finances for a while now. The question then becomes what should you do about it.

You could choose to sit there and continue to beat yourself up over it.

Or… 

You could try to do everything you haven’t been doing all at once to catch up.

And yet, neither of these are very good options! 

Here’s an example to help show you why:

Let’s say you decide to start working out more and tomorrow morning is day one. 

Is sitting on your couch tonight shoveling down leftover Halloween candy while bemoaning your past workout failures going to help you make it to the gym tomorrow? Of course not. But laying out clothes to wear and putting your car keys out by the front door might.

Now let’s say that despite working out zero days over the past few months, you set a goal of working out five days a week to start. In your first week, you end up working out three days – aka three more than you have in the past couple of months! – and yet you feel bad because you didn’t hit your goal of five days. Care to guess what happens when you feel bad about not hitting your goal? You’ve made it easier to throw in the towel and land right back on the couch where you started.

When you’re trying to rebuild a habit, start with small, actionable steps. Then focus on incremental gains, not unrealistic goals. 

Remember…

1. Beating yourself up over past failures is a waste of time and changes nothing.

2. Use small, actionable steps to get started and help you build momentum.

3. Don’t try to do it all at once and burn yourself out in the process.

All you need to do to stop ignoring your finances is to start again. Start with small steps, build some momentum, and before you know it, you’ll be well on your way towards greater financial comfort and confidence.