Financial Wellness And A Side Of Vulnerability.

As we continue to explore the value of clarity, one of the things that has been on my mind over the past 18 months is my own financial health. Between 2020 and 2023 I dealt with some big, hard, expensive things in my personal life, while scaling my business on the professional side. The amount of mental and emotional energy going into the challenges in my personal life took all of my bandwidth. I was just head down, keep pushing forward. Scaling the business took a lot of financial resources as I built in anticipation of the clients that would come. And I was learning how to translate everything that had relied just on me into the hands and brains of my team. I didn’t do it well at first and there were a lot of fits and starts. 

With all of these dynamics, I didn’t have any space to assess or pay attention to the financial hole I was getting myself into.

Jump to Dec 2023 and my reality check.

For the first time in several years, I put together my personal finances in a trackable, reportable system. And it was bleak. More credit card debt than I realized, less income than I needed. I was constantly moving money between business and personal to keep things floating. And I was ashamed because this is what I do, for you, every day. How could I let things get so messy?  But I also felt resolved and hopeful for the first time in years. I knew what the reality was and now it was time to make a path forward. 

Financial wellness is only possible when we have all of the facts of our situation and we are honest with ourselves. For me, this meant tracking my personal and business finances at least quarterly in 2024. It meant enlisting professional help in tackling my credit card debt and getting a solid plan to move forward. It also meant being really mindful about what changes I made in spending and having consistent check-ins to pivot if needed. Now, over a year later, my debt will be paid off in July, the challenges in my personal life are addressed in a way that frees up my mental space and I have a solid path to business development and growth. It took a lot of work and was not always a fun process. But here we are!  And this month, we are going to delve deeper into these different facets of financial wellness and what that means for your business or organization and for you personally as a professional.

Please share your own journey or tips in the comments or drop us a line!