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Last week, we admitted that financially, we often do things we don’t really want to, and neglect things we want to do. But that isn’t the end of the problem. We keep acting this way, bringing the patterns of our past into the future. How can we break free?
First, we need to recognize that the past doesn’t determine the future. As Michael Hyatt says, there’s a big difference between “I didn’t” and “I can’t”. One is a statement of fact; the other is a limiting belief. Why do we hold these limiting beliefs?
One reason is that we don’t analyze the actual decisions we made. We simply wallow in the guilt over them, without understanding what led to those decisions. As a result, we don’t equip ourselves to make different decisions in the future.
Another reason is that often these decisions are made without intentionality. They’re made based on emotion, and those emotions are based on thoughts that we can’t even remember now. So we fall into the same traps over and over again.
How do we break that cycle? The key is stewardship fundamentals, the “blocking and tackling” of managing well the resources that God has put in our possession. It’s tracking our earning and spending, understanding our net worth over time, and planning where the money will go.
Podcast host James Lenhoff helps us think through why we keep making the same mistakes (or overcorrect and make the opposite ones!) and how to get our stewardship back on track.