The Inevitable Journey To Debt Freedom

The following article is a guest post by Taynia from The Fiscal Flamingo.

If you’re interested in submitting a guest post for A Disease Called Debt, I’d love to hear from you!

Please contact me with your topic idea and I can send you my guest posting guidelines.

If I buy this [insert expensive object of desire here], will it pull me closer to my dreams or push me further away?

If you are an emotional spender, ask yourself this question every time you spy the newest gadget, to-die-for cardigan, this week’s celebrity magazine, a new blogging tool guaranteed to bring in more traffic, or perhaps just a banana split.

Be honest with your answer.  Sometimes it will give you permission to buy your little goodie.  But the majority of the time, the answer will be your purchase will push you further away, which means it’s time to walk away.

Introducing:  The Concept of Inevitability Thinking

I first heard about Inevitability Thinking from Laura Roeder, as a methodology to grow your business.  Immediately I realized how instrumental this could be for those struggling to ditch their debt.  I did a little more research and found Eben Pagan…

“If you set up the conditions so that the thing you want to have happen is inevitable, it shifts your thinking. Creating conditions so that something will happen itself is very different from trying to make the thing happen.”

Inevitability thinking says stop with the practice of setting lofty and unrealistic goals.  If you owe $50,000 and make $25,000 a year, are you really going to be debt free in 12 months?  Possibly, but unlikely.  It’s more likely that you are setting yourself up for failure.

Rather, define the conditions you need to meet to make your result inevitable.  Identify the challenges you’ll meet along the way and create a plan to enable you to master those challenges and ultimately wrap your arms around your dreams in a big bear hug.

The difference between inevitability thinking and goal setting is with goal setting you define something that needs to be achieved. You lose sight along the way, resulting in burnout and failure.  With inevitability thinking you train your mind to solve a problem. You create a scenario to of success.  You build the roadmap and set yourself up to win the gold medal.

Let’s say your goal is to start a charity for helping feed homeless animals after a storm.  (If this is your dream, I love you already).  But you can’t even start until you are debt-free.  So you’ve got to figure out how you can make debt freedom inevitable.

This might be your plan of attack:

You calculate the amount of money you need to pay off each month.  Then determine the steps to make sure you have that money in the bank.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s say you decide you need an extra $100 a month in income and $50 extra less in expenses.

Mystery shopping appeals to you and after some research, you find you can earn on average $12 per shop.  So you need to do around 2 shops a week.  (I’m rounding here.)  To get an average of 2 shops per week, you’ve got to apply for at least 4. Put on your calendar each Sunday you’ll apply for 4 mystery-shopping jobs.

Congratulations.  You’ve put your plan in motion.  Do the same for your expenses.  Figure out where you can trim the fat and any time you’re tempted, ask yourself that question from above.

If I buy this [insert expensive object of desire here], will it take me closer to my dreams or further away?

You’ve just made it inevitable for you to make $150 extra dollars per month to put towards your debt.  Tada, you are on your way to starting Haven for Homeless Hounds.

So I challenge you to define where you want to be in a few weeks, months, years, decades perhaps. Then figure out what you need to do so that getting out of debt and becoming the person you designed is inevitable for you.

For Disease Called Debt readers, my Crystal Ball worksheets are available for download below. Because looking into your future is always more fun with a pretty worksheet!  These are straight from my Debt Free for Life Program. I hope they help to make your journey to debt freedom inevitable.

• Crystal-Ball-Worksheet-Six-Months
• Crystal-Ball-Worksheet-Three-Years

Bio:  Taynia (pronounced with a long a, rhymes with pain-ya) is the founder of The Fiscal Flamingo, a sassy website dedicated to helping emotional spenders navigate their journey from debt to decadent. When she’s not rallying big spendahs and turning them into dynamite savers, she designs blogs at The Skinny Mermaid Design Studio.

Related posts:

• Which debt should I pay off first?
• Staying positive whilst paying off debt
• How to stop wanting stuff that you can’t afford

*Sourced by The Fiscal Flamingo – The Thinker