peace

Do You Know What You Really Want?

/ Yvonne / Leave a comment

One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is simply this:

“Do I know what I really want?”

Most people would answer that question with confidence.

“I want financial freedom.”

“I want less stress.”

“I want more time with my family.”

“I want to get out of debt.”

“I want to retire someday.”

Those all sound like great answers. But if we slowed down and looked at the way we actually spend our time, our energy, and our money, would our daily choices tell the same story?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked with someone who tells me they’re exhausted. They desperately want a better work-life balance. They miss their kids’ ball games. They want to take a vacation without answering work emails every ten minutes. They dream about slowing down.

Then their employer offers overtime.

Without even thinking about it, they say yes. Again. And again.

Now, before you think I’m criticizing overtime, I’m not. There are times when working extra hours is necessary. Sometimes it’s how you keep the lights on. Sometimes it’s how you build a safety net. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with working hard.

But I do think it’s worth asking a deeper question.

Why did you say yes?

Was it because your family really needed the income? Or because somewhere along the way, your lifestyle slowly became more expensive than your paycheck?

Was it because you’re working toward a meaningful goal? Or because you’ve become so accustomed to earning that extra money you can’t imagine saying no?

The answer isn’t always obvious, and that’s exactly why it’s worth exploring.

Our financial decisions are rarely just financial. They’re emotional. They’re habitual. They’re often tied to beliefs we’ve carried for years without ever questioning them.

Many of us spend our lives chasing things we never stopped to ask if we actually wanted.

We chase promotions because that’s what successful people do.

We buy bigger houses because that’s what everyone around us seems to be doing.

We fill our schedules because busy people must be productive people, right?

We upgrade our cars, our phones, our wardrobes, and somehow convince ourselves that this next purchase will finally make life feel complete.

Yet somehow, despite earning more than we ever imagined we would, we still feel anxious.

We still wonder why peace seems so hard to find. This exact thing happened to me.

I’ve often wondered how many people are living someone else’s definition of success.

Maybe that’s because we’ve been told from an early age that success always looks like more. More money. More stuff. More accomplishments. More recognition.

But what if success actually looks different for you?

What if what you really want isn’t a bigger paycheck?

What if what you really want is dinner around the table with your family?

What if you don’t actually want the corner office (and all the responsibilities that come with it)?

What if you want margin in your schedule so you can coach your daughter’s softball team or finally take that mission trip you’ve always talked about?

What if you don’t need a bigger house? What if you just need more contentment inside the one you already have?

Those questions can be uncomfortable because they force us to examine whether our money is supporting our priorities or competing with them.

Our calendars and bank statements are incredibly honest. They reveal what we value, even when our words say something different.

If someone looked at nothing but your calendar and your bank account, what story would they tell about your life?

Would they conclude that faith is important to you?

Would they see that your family comes first?

Would they believe that peace and health are priorities?

Or would they see someone who is constantly chasing the next thing, hoping it will finally be enough?

I don’t ask those questions to create guilt.

I ask them because I’ve had to ask them of myself.

Life has a way of putting us on autopilot. We get busy surviving. We make decisions without thinking. We repeat habits because that’s what we’ve always done.

Before long, we’re living a life we never intentionally chose.

One of the things I love about Scripture is that God consistently invites us to examine our hearts. He isn’t nearly as interested in appearances as He is in our motives.

Jesus talked about money often, not because money was the point, but because it reveals what we treasure. It exposes where we place our trust, where we seek security, and sometimes even where we’re trying to fill holes that only He can fill.

Shopping is a great distraction but it can’t buy peace. No paycheck can purchase contentment. No promotion can replace purpose.

Those things come from knowing who you are and living in alignment with what matters most.

Financial coaching isn’t just about creating a budget or paying off debt. Those things are important, but they’re only part of the picture.

Real financial transformation begins when you become clear about the life you’re trying to build. Because once you’re clear about what you truly want, your financial decisions become much simpler.

Not always easier, but clearer.

You begin saying yes to things that support your priorities and no to things that don’t.

You stop comparing your journey to everyone else’s.

You stop buying things to impress people whose opinions don’t actually matter.

You stop believing that more is always better.

Instead, you begin building a life that reflects your values instead of your impulses.

So today, I want to leave you with the same question we started with.

Do you know what you really want?

Not what culture tells you to want. Not what your neighbors have. Not what social media celebrates.

What do you want?

Because if you don’t answer that question intentionally, the world will answer it for you. And before long, you’ll wake up one day wondering how you ended up living a life that doesn’t look anything like the one you were hoping for.

Your money is a tool. Every dollar you earn is an opportunity to move closer to the life God is calling you to live.

The question is, are you using it to build the life you truly want…or the life you accidentally drifted into?

What Are You Still Leaning On?

/ Yvonne / Leave a comment

Have you ever watched someone walk on crutches?

At first, they serve an important purpose. They provide support while an injury heals. They keep us from putting too much weight on something that’s still fragile. But eventually, there comes a day when the doctor says it’s time to let them go. Time to trust the healing. Time to begin putting weight on that leg again.

I think life works the same way.

We all have crutches.

Some are obvious. Others are so woven into our daily lives that we don’t even realize we’re leaning on them anymore. They often start as something we truly need. They help us survive a difficult time, protect us after we’ve been hurt, or simply help us make it through another day. But what was once temporary can slowly become permanent if we’re not careful.

That’s when a crutch stops helping us heal and starts keeping us from growing.

I know this because I’ve had my own.

There were times after my divorce when fear was understandable. I was rebuilding my life, raising my children, trying to find work, and learning how to navigate a future that looked nothing like the one I had imagined. There were plenty of reasons to question whether I was capable of starting over.

Those feelings weren’t wrong.

But had I continued to let fear make every decision for me, I would have remained stuck in a chapter that God never intended to be my whole story.

The tricky thing about crutches is that they rarely look like excuses. More often, they sound perfectly reasonable.

We tell ourselves we’ll start the business when life settles down. We’ll work on our marriage after this busy season. We’ll finally get healthy when we have more time. We’ll become more involved at church when work isn’t so demanding. We’ll deal with our finances when we make a little more money.

Sometimes those reasons are legitimate. Life is hard, and there are seasons when simply getting through the day is enough.

But sometimes we have to ask ourselves a difficult question.

Is this obstacle still protecting me… or has it quietly become the reason I’m no longer growing?

That question has challenged me more than once because the truth is, familiar feels safe. Even when it keeps us stuck.

I see this happen every day in my work as a financial coach.

People often come to me convinced that money is the problem. They believe everything will finally fall into place once they earn a bigger paycheck, receive a promotion, or get out of debt. While those things can certainly make a difference, they’re often not the root of the problem.

I’ve watched people receive raises only to find themselves living paycheck to paycheck less than a year later. The income changed, but the habits didn’t. The emotional relationship with money didn’t. The beliefs they carried about themselves didn’t.

The crutch wasn’t their income.

It was believing that more income would solve a problem that actually required personal growth.

Money has an incredible way of revealing what’s happening beneath the surface.

Someone tells themselves they can’t save because they don’t make enough money. That may be true, but sometimes it’s easier to believe that than to examine the spending habits that drain their paycheck.

Someone else says they’ll start budgeting next month. Then next month becomes next year.

Others tell themselves they’ll invest someday, pay off debt someday, ask for the promotion someday, or finally chase the dream they’ve carried for years.

“Someday” can become one of the strongest crutches we ever lean on because it gives us permission to delay becoming the person we know we’re capable of being.

The truth is, our financial habits usually aren’t just about dollars and cents. They’re often connected to fear, confidence, identity, and past experiences.

If we soothe stress by shopping, more money usually means more shopping.

If we struggle to set healthy boundaries, we often find ourselves spending money trying to keep everyone else happy.

If we believe we’re “just bad with money,” we’ll unconsciously make decisions that reinforce that belief over and over again.

Our bank accounts don’t create those patterns.

They simply reveal them.

The same thing happens in every other area of our lives.

We stay in jobs that drain us because the unknown feels scarier than the familiar. We avoid difficult conversations because silence feels easier than conflict. We postpone taking care of our health because life is busy. We convince ourselves we’ll spend more time with God after things calm down, even though life rarely slows down on its own.

Our crutches may all look different, but they usually have one thing in common.

They keep us from taking the next step.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Some people are carrying incredibly heavy burdens. Grief, illness, divorce, job loss, caregiving, and unexpected hardships are real. This isn’t about pretending those struggles don’t exist or suggesting we should just “try harder.”

It’s about honestly asking whether the thing we’re leaning on today is still helping us heal or whether it’s quietly become the reason we’ve stopped moving forward.

One of the things I love most about Scripture is that God rarely gave people the entire plan before asking them to move. Noah built before the rain came. Abraham left home before he knew where he was going. Peter stepped out of the boat before he experienced the miracle.

Faith has never required certainty.

It has always required a willingness to take the next step.

Maybe your crutch is fear. Maybe it’s perfectionism. Maybe it’s believing you’ve missed your opportunity. Maybe it’s the story you’ve been telling yourself for years about why your finances will never change, your marriage will never improve, or your dreams are simply too far out of reach.

Whatever it is, I want to encourage you to ask yourself one simple question:

What would my life look like if I stopped leaning on this?

You don’t have to have everything figured out. And you don’t have to sprint toward the finish line.

You just have to be willing to take the next faithful step.

That might look like creating your first budget instead of avoiding your bank statements. It might mean applying for the job you’ve convinced yourself you’re not qualified for. It might mean having the difficult conversation you’ve been putting off, asking for help, going back to school, starting counseling, or simply believing that your past doesn’t have to define your future.

Small, faithful steps have a way of changing the direction of an entire life.

After all, the goal was never to spend our lives walking on crutches.

The goal was always to heal, grow stronger, and discover that with God’s help, we’re capable of standing, walking, and eventually helping someone else who’s still learning to take those first uncertain steps.