Patience, rest, receiving, finding peace. These themes have been coming up for me lately and I’m finally giving them space here. These states of being are so important yet they are rarely our default. The best part is that we have access to them every day, including in our finances.
In my experience, most conversations around personal finance focus on “hustle” or the work and potentially struggle of earning enough, making the “right” decisions, and sacrificing pleasure for long term gains.
Personal finance blogs are action oriented; do this, think about that, try it this way, and on and on. The podcasts are the same way and even I fall into this trap with the women that I convene. Yes, we are together in community, supporting each other and giving our brains rest from the constant internal chatter around personal finance. But we are still focused on the “do” not the “being” even though both play key roles in our success.
The doing and the being are not mutually exclusive, we just tend to focus on the doing likely because it is easier to find that information, make our to-do list, and start checking things off. The being, the resting, the peace, comes with perhaps more awareness and intention and thus can be more elusive. Without both though, we likely will find ourselves out of balance, burnt out, or lacking motivation and energy.
What does patience, rest, ease and peace look like in personal finance? And why is it important to find a balance between doing and being?
Rest in personal finance can be simple. Just as rest and ease can show up in small, meaningful ways in our day to day life, it has a way of doing so in our finances.
It’s the confidence in yourself from building financial literacy. It’s sleeping through the night because you know your rainy day fund keeps you safe no matter what happens. It’s a feeling of ease because you spend money in ways that light you up and align with your values.
In all these examples, being is paired with doing. You working toward building a rainy day fund helps you sleep through the night. Sleeping through the night gives you the mental clarity to push forward on your financial goals. Rest and action play off each other, like a dance, working together to create something more beautiful than one could create on its own.
There can be so much rest and so much peace in the world of personal finance and I want to lean into that more.
Find some rest. Find some peace. Because rest is necessary for us to truly thrive.
Let me know where you find rest when it comes to your finances.
In peace,
Your personal finance friend