What if It Were Life or Death?

We all have different financial wirings. Some of us are spenders. Some of us are savers. Some of us are givers. We can also be a combination of two to three, but our wiring is quite real. I'm a giver and a saver. My wife is a spender. That's neither good nor bad....it just is. What we do with our wiring is where we determine our perspective of and relationship with money.

Conversely, most of us have a natural weakness, some more glaring than others. Some people struggle to spend; I call them hoarders. Some people struggle to give; that's some form of selfishness. Others struggle to save; that's called irresponsibility. Back to my wife, Sarah. She is a great spender and has a generous heart, but she struggles mightily with saving. She's not alone, though!

Many people struggle to save. There are many contributing factors to this type of wiring, spanning from nature to nurture. Many people were simply born that way and have been exhibiting those traits since the toddler stage. For others, materialism and instant gratification were modeled front-and-center for them as children. Then, there's a population of people who grew up with very little. In the casualness of the word "poor," they were poor poor. For a large stretch of their life, they had very little. This has created a behavioral undercurrent where they will quickly spend any time they come into resources.

I regularly meet with a couple that struggles to save. Both are wired as spenders. They love spending (and are active givers), but they would rather endure a root canal than save money. This has resulted in much stress, tension, and turmoil in their financial life. They have several large expenditures coming soon, and they have no plan to pay for it.

"We just aren't good at saving," exclaimed the wife. "It's just not something we can do."

I reframed the conversation. "If you needed $5,000 to perform a life-or-death surgery for your kid, do you think you could save then?"

"Of course we could! We would find a way."

The moment she said that, a sheepish look formed on her face. It wasn't really about whether they could or not, but rather what priority it played in their lives. Up to this point, they couldn't successfully save because it wasn't actually a priority. Will it become a priority for them? Only time will tell.

This is a good mental hack to play on ourselves. Any time we struggle to accomplish something and feel defeated because we "can't do it," reframe it. Ask yourself if you could achieve it if it were life or death. If the answer is yes, then it's a prioritization issue, not an ability issue. I'm not saying it will be easy or come naturally, but the prioritization piece tremendously moves the needle!

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