5 Red Flags You’re Sabotaging Your Finances

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Ep. 209 5 Red Flags You’re Sabotaging Your Finances

Let’s explore the hidden ways we self-sabotage our finances – especially the external systems and tactical mistakes that keep us stuck. If you’re making decent money but still feel broke or stressed, we’ll talk about the real reasons, from poor bookkeeping and missing cash flow plans to investing for the wrong reasons and trying to do it all yourself. Join me as we blend mindset, habits, and step-by-step strategy to make your finances truly unstoppable!

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Podcast Key Points

00:00 – Simplify Money, Build Unstoppable Finances
04:12 – Benefits of Percentage-Based Budgeting
06:55 – Mindset and Strategy System Essentials

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The Reality of Your Financial Systems

If your financial systems are a hot mess behind the scenes, there’s no mindset shift in the world that can save you. So we’re gonna fix it together. This episode today is for you if you feel like you’re making decent money, but you still feel broke or stressed.

Maybe you feel pressured to keep investing or buying tools to, air quote, fix your business and or your financial records are scattered, nonexistent. What’s a financial record? Let’s get to it.

This is the Your Money, Your Life podcast, the show where I help female entrepreneurs go from stress and struggle to unstoppable. Here we blend step by step strategy, mindset work, and emotional regulation so you can create unstoppable finances, build an unstoppable business, and truly enjoy your unstoppable life.

It’s time to take my wisdom, my expertise to help you simplify money and go beyond the numbers. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Uncovering Hidden Financial Self-Sabotage

Welcome back to this miniseries on the hidden ways that we sabotage our finances and how to finally break free. Over the last two episodes of the next couple, we’re going to explore the real reasons why money might feel harder than it should. And it’s not just about how much you make or how well you budget.

We’re gonna look at the silent mindset patterns, the tiny habits that are draining your financial power, and the tactical mistakes that sneak up behind the scenes. My goal is simple, to help you see these patterns without judgment, reclaim your power, take small, meaningful steps towards unstoppable finances.

So whether you’re feeling stuck, frustrated, or just ready to feel more confident with your money, you are exactly where you need to be.

Let’s kinda recap. Two episodes ago, episode two zero six, we talked about mindset and how we our beliefs and our mindsets, how we self sabotage there within our finances. And then last week, episode two zero seven, we talked about financial habits and the small financial habits that we can kinda miss where we can get off there to sabotage our finances. Today, we’re gonna talk much more external. Last week was kind of the hybrid. Right? We had those small habits that we were building to help us with our mindset and the energy and those things.

Today is much more system strategy and decisions as well.

Common Financial Mistakes and Red Flags

So what are some of those common tactical mistakes that we see that are kind of like a red flag? You’re self sabotaging yourself within your finances. Don’t have a cash flow plan even if you are making enough. The second thing would be poor bookkeeping or no bookkeeping records.

The third one, we kinda talked about this a little bit last week, but the overthinking, investing into programs with the this is gonna save me mentality. The fourth one would be forgetting to plan for emergencies, dips in income, taxes. We’re not really having that goes back to almost, like, not having the cash flow plan. Right? And then the final one is trying to do all this yourself for far too long.

We had to start with the internal struggles that kinda show up in those things that we do there. But our external mistakes, they amplify what’s going on inside. Right?

So if we can get this on point, this that’s really why we need both. Right? We need the mindset, we need the tactical, and then we need the emotional regulation. Because you can’t mindset your way and have everything fixed. You can’t just outwork a strategy and have everything fixed.

Balancing Mindset, Strategy, and Emotional Regulation

And there are people, I’m sure, that create success with just focusing on one. But is it long term success, and is it true success? We would have to define what success means. Okay?

The point here, we’re gonna work on the strategy to support the emotional safety. So if you don’t have a cash flow plan, why don’t we have a cash flow plan? Why don’t we have something in place?

Part of the reason that I love percentage based budgeting and both my budgeting system for the personal and the business, so that’s budgeting simplified and prosperity simplified, both of them are percentage based budgeting systems because they scale with you. Because if you don’t know where you would spend the money if you got the money, you’re not necessarily gonna get the money because you don’t know. There’s that unknown there. Fear of the unknown showing up. Right? And, again, you can say that sounds crazy, Aimee, but your mind is designed to protect you.

Investing Wisely and Avoiding Overwork

So we have to help it feel safe with the strong strategy so that you feel emotionally safe. The overspending, thinking me, this investment’s going to save me, that kinda goes back to feeling like there’s something wrong with you. And, unfortunately, that’s been a tactic that kinda works, marketing. But there’s something wrong with you, you’re broken, but that’s not true.

There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken. You’re exactly where you need to be. Sure. You can make shifts in your business that might unlock new levels. And, yes, that sounds amazing. That’s great. Do that.

But not investing from a there’s something wrong. This will save me. On the opposite side, we feel like I have to do it all ourselves. Right? If you’re trying to do it all yourself and not getting support or just getting AI support, yes. I use AI as well. Like, it can be a great tool, but that’s not that’s not fixing it. Right? If we feel like we have to do it all ourselves, it’s not working, especially if it’s something that’s not your strong suit. That’s, again, pushing through the energetic. We don’t want to do that.

Let’s see. What else do we talk about? The no cash flow plan. And it doesn’t have to be super detailed. I think this is where a lot of people feel like it has to be zero, zero based budgeting, which essentially means every dollar has an assigned thing.

Flexible Budgeting and Planning for Fluctuations

With percentage based budgeting, we do that, but there’s categories, and it’s fluid, and it’s flexible, and it fits life. It’s not about fitting you in this box. You can have a cash flow plan, a cash flow strategy. You can have a budget. You can have these things, and it helps you plan for tax season. It helps you plan for dips in income.

Because as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and even as a w two employee, I experienced this. You are on an income roller coaster. You have highs in your income. You have lows in your income, and that’s okay.

We have to work on, like, the energetic piece there, the mindset piece and not making that mean anything. But when those lows points come in, if you go back to the feast and famine cycle because you haven’t planned ahead, we need a better strategy. We need a better system.

Comparisons, Mindset, and Community Support

We’d also could talk about, like, what beliefs are being put on you. What meaning are you assigning these things? There’s no meaning on it, except for the meaning that you assign it. Who cares what Joe Smith down the street thinks?

We don’t know where he’s really at. We see the highlight reel for everybody else, and we compare our behind the scenes to the highlight reel, and we don’t realize where people are actually at.

And even if even if they’re in that much better of a spot, why does it matter? We’re focused on you and your strategy, your finances, how you feel that when you take your kids to the park that you’re really secretly stressed about money because in the back of your head, you’re like, am I doing enough? It’s why we gotta have the systems in place.

Cash flow system, bookkeeping slash budgeting system, this is where month end execution lab comes in. Making sure that you’re making time for the things that you need to. The other part of that is trying to feel like you have to do it all yourself. There is so much information on Google and YouTube. I know it. And it’s great. It’s out there. There’s plenty of information. Yeah. I put out this podcast once a week. Right? But you don’t have to do it all alone.

Taking Action and Building Better Financial Systems

And what I found is when we prioritize the money and when we make this a focus and we work on it, everything else works out because we spend so much energetic, mental, emotional time and space worrying about that and feeling like I’m not good enough for somebody to pay me, not worthy of somebody paying me. What do they do when I don’t deliver? All of those thoughts that are running through our head, and we can mindset our way out of it.

But when it comes down to it, then we look at the energy piece. Like, do you really mean it? Do you know that? Do you know that? Or is the nagging voice in the back of your head showing up? When you put the strategy in place, it helps with the nagging voice in the back of your head because you’ve got this here. It’s a whole process.

We needed to rewrite the beliefs. We need to rewrite the mindset. We need to change the small financial habits, and then we gotta look at our systems and our strategies. And if we feel like we have to do it all on our own or we don’t wanna have that cash flow plan because we don’t wanna look at it, then we gotta go back to the first couple episodes. Okay?

Alright.

Your Next Steps for Financial Confidence

What is one area that you need to that you wanna get better at? What system do you wanna get better at? Is it your budget slash your cash flow? Is it your bookkeeping? Or is it in your decision making and making sure you’re making aligned investments, not from a this is gonna save me?

Alright. And if you’re ready to take what we’re talking about even deeper, check out the link in the show notes below. You’re gonna find ExecutionLab. That’s the monthly space to stay grounded and keep momentum going for just $9 a month. And then, of course, if you’re ready for real transformation, the unstoppable experience is my high touch twelve month group mentorship designed to help you fully embody your financial power.

No matter where you’re at, there’s a space for you to create lasting change, and I’m here to support you, to walk with you. I’ll see you in the next episode. We’re gonna wrap this up with more tactical slash action plan. The fourth episode here in our uncovering where you’re self sabotaging yourself with your finances. We’ll see you

Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money, Your Life podcast. I’ve got a special gift for you for sticking around to the end. And if you’re tired of your finances being a mess, this is for you.

What if you could take charge of your money without feeling overwhelmed? Even if you’re not a numbers person, even if you just don’t know where to begin, even if you don’t have the time, even if you failed in the past, and even if you don’t wanna sacrifice your lifestyle.

Take messy action and finally make progress with your finances without feeling overwhelmed, pinching pennies, or staring at a spreadsheet for hours with the fourteen day money mastery action plan. And when you use coupon code podcast, I’m gonna give you 40% off. Just visit aimeecerka.com/action and grab the fourteen Day Action Plan for less than $20

Alright. Talk soon.