Two weeks ago, I turned thirty years old… I’ve been trying to publish this blog post ever since, and I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings. My intention a couple of months ago was to take a step back and actually celebrate all that I’ve accomplished so far in my life, but I don’t feel very accomplished.
I’d known for a few days before my birthday that I was going to be in a financial situation that I never imagined I’d arrive at after over a year of successfully being in business. I’m both sad and disappointed in how I allowed other things to distract me from further building the business and now I’m facing the music.
On the other hand, I’m extremely optimistic and feel like this is just a temporary setback, and that no matter what, I will come out of this with a much better understanding of the things I have to do to never be stuck again like this.
I can also say, honestly, that I feel quite proud of myself. Not for the bad financial decisions I’ve made, but for so many other things I did right. I could’ve chosen to skip the podcast recording, meetings, and even work entirely on my birthday, and stayed under the blankets, pitying myself for arriving at this stop in life where this srtback has happened. I could’ve cried, whined, and binge-watched twenty shows on Netflix and blamed it on being tired, anxious, or a million other excuses I’ve used in the past to allow myself to wallow in my own self-loathing and self-pity.
Instead, I woke up. Took my daughter to school, and went to the office. Recorded a podcast. I reached out to everyone who seemed interested in having a call with me and actually ended up speaking with three potential prospects.
It was stressful because as the day came to an end, the reality of the financial situation I was in became very clear to me: there was no miracle to save me on this particular day. I was going to have to suck it up and move on, and look for a solution outside of miracle-land.
I resolved that the next ten years would see me making better financial decisions, and I started off by letting go of the use of a buy now, pay later service that is convenient and handy when purchasing, but becomes stressful when the time to make payments comes along and I may not have planned for it – because out of sight is out of mind, especially with finances, until you get a message saying your payment is due in a few days, and you start scrambling to re-budget to accommodate it.
In the end, I celebrated with gifting my future self what I hope is one more step towards financial freedom!
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