2/11 - Downtown Women's Club DWC+ Teleclass - Creating Wealth from the Inside Out with Kathleen Burns Kingsbury

1. Are you ready to change?
By Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, Founder, KBK Wealth Connection
Financial change happens in the same way as any other behavioral change
such as stop smoking, decreasing bingeing or restricting. It takes time,
commitment and insight to make lasting change in any behavior. First, you must
look at what is being gained and what will be lost. When you adapt a new way
of acting you also lose something in the process. For instance, if you stop
smoking, your health will improve in the long term. Over time, you will notice
being able to breathe better and being able to do more aerobic activity with
less effort. But in the short run you will feel anxious, miss lighting a cigarette when
life gets stressful or sharing a smoke with a friend. Overall, not smoking is healthier
for all of us, but it is important to know that those who quit feel uncomfortable at
first, grieve the loss of this coping strategy and may miss it for some time to come.
So what can you expect if you decide to change your money habits? Chances
are you will go through a journey that includes mixed emotions, confusion, and
discomfort before you end up with clarity. This is what makes developing new
habits and saying good bye to old ones so difficult. You may want to balance
your checkbook each month but when the statement comes in the mail you
have automatic thoughts such as “I don’t deal with my bank account now.”
Puts you into auto pilot. So you don’t open the statement, it sits on the counter,
time passes by and eventually the next month’s bank statement arrives in the
mail and you have not gotten to last months yet. If this story sounds like you, be
kind to yourself. Lasting change takes time and is a slow process. It involves
moving forward, slipping back a few steps then moving forward a little further
next time. It is not linear, but a back and forth journey with the end result being
integrated learning and new healthier behaviors.
Two researchers at the University of Rhode Island, James Prochaska and Carlo
DiClemente,, conducted in-depth studies of how people change habits and
eventually developed the Stage of Change Model. This model was developed
by looking at how smokers were able to give up their cigarettes. Since its
development in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the Stage of Change Model has
been used by many healthcare providers to assist clients in recovering from
alcoholism, drug abuse and eating disorders with great success. The Model can
also be applied to financial change.

2. The Stages of Change Model highlights five distinct steps to modifying behavior.
These are pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and
maintenance. Each stage and how it applies to changing your relationship with
money is described below.
Pre-contemplation
If you are in pre-contemplation then you are seriously thinking about acting
differently with money but you are not interested in getting help. You may have
money scripts such as “I don’t spend that much.” “I am too young to worry
about budgeting and saving for retirement.” or “I just want to have fun and not
worry about money.” No matter what the thoughts, you are defending your
current financial behaviors and at this point are not ready to make peace with
money. You are very unlikely to get help in the form of therapy, coaching or
financial services. Other people such as your partner, roommate, parents or
friends may pressure you to stop carelessly spending or tease you for being stingy
and cheap, but their requests fall on deaf ears as you do not see your habits as
problematic. If you received this book as a gift and are still uncertain why, you
may well indeed be in pre-contemplation.
Caitlyn is a great example of a young woman in the pre-contemplation stage.
She works in healthcare and makes a decent living but has trouble buying food
and necessary items for her new house. Her husband, Steven, gets mad at her
for being “cheap” and they often fight about money. Unlike many husbands,
Steven is not upset at Caitlyn for spending too much; he is frustrated by her
spending too little. “I just wish she could treat herself more and have fun
decorating our new place.” Caitlyn sees him as the one with the problem as she
is not ready to look at how her low self-worth and restricted eating tie in with her
tight monetary control. Until she starts seeing the negative consequences of her
anorexic spending habits, she is likely to stay in this stage.
Contemplation
This stage of change is marked by ambivalent feelings. If you are in
contemplation, you are aware of your unhealthy relationship with money and
see this as a problem. But you have strong feelings, often fear based, about
changing and what this means for you and equally strong feelings about not
changing and how not taking action is “easier” and more comfortable. As they
say the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t. Thus, ambivalence
keeps you stuck in thinking but not actively taking action to alter your situation or
behaviors.
Many of my clients come in for money coaching at this stage. They are open to
help but are unsure about how to go about developing new ways of acting
around their finances. They may see the long term positive benefits of saving or
being more careful with expenses, but they know they will be uncomfortable
and possibly anxious in the short run. Thoughtful, curious questioning is the

3. cornerstone of coaching and with support I have seen many individuals move
from contemplation to the next stage, preparation. Ultimately, they shift their
thoughts and feelings about money and find that healthy financial behaviors
eventually follow.
A woman in one of my business coaching groups identified her self as in the
contemplation stage of financial change. She knew she needed to develop a
personal and professional budget but week after week she did not take action
on this goal. Her common money script was “I just know I will always have
enough money.” This belief was distorted as she often complained of not having
enough to pay her mortgage or her car payments. Despite support from her
fellow members, she remained in contemplation throughout the year and half of
the group’s existence. She thought a lot about changing her relationship with
money but took no real meaningful action to address her precarious financial
situation. For her, like many individuals, thinking about change may be a life
long process.
Preparation
If you are reading this book, doing the exercises at the end of each chapter and
actively talking to those in your life about money, you have made a
commitment to change and you are firmly planted in the preparation stage.
Also known as the determination stage, this time is marked by statements such as
“I will do better managing my money” and “My money situation is serious and I
need to get my spending under control.”
Debbie is a great example of this stage of change. She came into to see me for
money coaching when she was being chased by the Internal Revenue Service
for back taxes and several credit card companies for unpaid balances. She
knew her situation was dire and she was determined to get her financial life back
on track. What she did not know was how to do it and how to manage her
feelings in the process. The amount of debt she was in and her feelings about
the money she owed were both overwhelming. Each time she sat down to pay
bills she would panic and emotionally shut down. Her bills continued to go
unpaid, the notices kept coming in the mail and her situation worsened. When
she hit rock bottom she called me. In our work together, she examined her
money scripts, her family history of spending to manage emotions and worked to
actively change her money thoughts and behaviors. Together we developed a
plan to help her get out of debt one bill at a time. By the first month, she started
to truly believe she could change and be free of her money woes.
Action
Most of my clients want to be in action mode from the start of coaching as this
stage involves actively using techniques such as debt reduction, budgeting,
conscious financial planning and believing in your ability to make positive shifts in
your financial life. However, we need to work through the other stages of

4. change in order to truly be in meaning action. Maybe you are here now or
maybe you need to work through the other stages to get here. Either way,
action feels good and is the goal of working through your feelings about taking
better care of you and your hard earned money.
Research shows that you will spend less time in this stage than any other. You
may stay here six months or one hour. The amount of time is not important. What
is vital is that reach a place were you are actively engaged in taking steps to
transform your relationship with money into one of mutual respect. Similar to
making changes in your relationship with food, financial recovery is a slow
process that has many twists and turns along the way.
Maintenance
Once you alter a bad money habit you need to successfully avoid temptations
or triggers to re-engage in it. This step is called maintenance and the primary
goal is to maintain the new status quo. You can do this by being conscious
about your money habits and reminding yourself daily of your progress. Write an
affirmation or belief statement about your relationship with money and post it
somewhere where you can see it daily. A visual reminder keeps your intentions
in the forefront until the new behaviors become old hat.
At this stage, it helps to anticipate problematic money situations and develop
ways of coping with each one before they occur. I encourage you to make a
list of triggers such as people, places, seasons and moods that may quickly
evolve into problematic money situations. Holidays and special occasions are
often tricky times for overspending, so beware. Being sad, angry and lonely can
make retail therapy look like a good option. Remember to deal with these
feelings before hitting the mall. No matter what the trigger, if you have a line of
defense before you enter the hot spot, your chances of maintaining your
progress is greatly improved.
The Slippery Slope of Change
Relapse happens. Yes, similar to working through eating and body image
concerns, slipping back into old unhealthy behaviors is part of the process. This
does not mean to throw in the towel and go on a buying spree. What is means is
if you slip do not beat yourself up. Instead pick yourself up, dust yourself off and
get support as soon as possible. Together with a therapist, coach or trusted
friend, look at the money scripts or triggering events that contributed to your slip
and learn something from your temporary back slide. Only through learning from
your money mistakes can you cope differently going forward. Remember a slip
does not have to be a complete slide. True relapse only happens when you put
the blinders on, stick your head in the sand and become unconscious in your
money behaviors.

5. Celebrate
Celebrate your money triumphs along the way. Design a ritual to commemorate
your victory and remind yourself of our hard work. This celebration will be fun
and help you integrate this new behavior into your money lifestyle going
forward.
Debbie and I celebrated in her session each time she actively paid down her
credit card balances or cancelled unnecessary expenses such as subscriptions
to business clubs that were no longer applicable in her current profession. By
sharing the victory and acknowledging the learning that resulted she was able
to integrate these new habits into her current and future relationship with money.
For her living consciously in all areas including food, family and finance was life
saving.
Homework: Take a minute and think about a time in your life when you
changed a behavior. It does not need to be related to money. Maybe you quit
smoking, started exercising, quit swearing or started a new meditation practice.
Now write about how you changed this behavior. What was your habit like
before you wanted to change? What triggered a desire to change? Was it a
person, place or thing that moved you to let go of this unhealthy behavior
and/or start a new one? What was it like when you first started the process of
change? What made it difficult? What parts of doing something new were easy
or motivating? Lastly, how did you integrate this new behavior into your life in a
lasting way?
By looking at how you have changed other habits, you will learn something
about how you can change your relationship with money. It is important to
identify and acknowledge what stage of change you are in and what feelings
will likely arise from trying something new with your money. Ask yourself the
following questions and really be honest with your answers. What would you like
to change about your relationship with money? What stage of change are you
currently in? What are the advantages to developing a new money habit and
what are the drawbacks to shifting? What can you do to address your
ambivalence around change?
DWC Special Offer: Creating Wealth from the Inside Out Teleseminar
Four, one hour sessions taught by Kathleen Burns Kingsbury aimed at inspiring
and motivating you to live a more financially wealthy life. DWC members
receive this workshop at deep discount of $77, regular fee is $277. Why not take
what you learned today on the DWC call, save $200 and invest 4 hours of your
time to change your money mindset and achieving the wealth you want in your
life! For more information, contact info@kbkwealthconnection.com or call the
office at 508-297-1212. Remember to visit our website and sign up for our blog
at www.kbkwealthconnection.com/blog.