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The Jesse Mecham Show

Atomic Budgeting Pt. 3: Becoming, Not Achieving

The Jesse Mecham Show

YNAB

Kids & Family, Education

4.71.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2020

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the third installment of the atomic budgeting series, in which Jesse applies the principles in James Clear's book Atomic Habits to budgeting and personal finance, Jesse discusses the concept of becoming the person who has the traits you wish to have.

 

Typically when we think of making personal change, we set goals and then a process to achieve that goal. Yet, once we achieve the goal (if we do), does the change we made to achieve it continue on? Are the new habits long-lasting, or do we revert to our old ways? Too often, the latter proves true!

 

As Clear says, "every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become." If you want to become a person who is smart with money, who is rarely stressed with financial concerns, and budgets with ease... then you must start identifying yourself as that type of person. Then prove it with your actions.

 

If you're a weightlifter, you lift weights. If you're a writer, you write. You cannot be the person you claim to be without doing the things that type of person does. Budgeting is no different!

 

Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, whinebers. My name is Jesse Meek and this is podcast number 435 for

0:09.8

whineb where we teach you four rules to help you stop a competitor to

0:12.2

paycheck, get out of debt and

0:14.4

save more money.

0:19.2

Part three of five.

0:21.9

We're talking about atomic budgeting based on James Claire's excellent book,

0:25.1

Atomic Habits. If you think James should be interviewed by me on this podcast you

0:31.2

should tweet at him or write him an email or a letter

0:34.9

handwritten with a very fancy pen like a Mont Blanc and you should tell him hey you

0:40.7

should be on the wine app podcast we'll let you grease the

0:43.3

skids and then I'll ride him really really casual like hey James I don't know I was

0:48.0

maybe thinking he'll never know he'll never be the wiser and we'll have him on

0:51.7

and it'll be awesome.

0:53.6

Because I would love to see him apply everything he's learned about habits over the last,

0:57.4

however long, apply that to managing money.

1:00.4

All right.

1:01.4

In the meantime, this amateur on habits will do his very best. Today, I want to talk about James idea that it's not, well, let's just say this, we're talking about becoming not achieving. It's a little bit of a jump from the goals. We talked about systems not goals. Now we're talking about becoming not achieving said goals. There are three layers of behavior change that James outlines in atomic habits.

1:23.7

You have outcomes, you have processes,

1:26.0

and then you have identity.

1:27.6

And last week, we talked about how the outcome

1:29.9

is not really the ultimate in driving behavior change because you can then

1:34.5

pay off all your debt and it's like yeah and how many of us have just gotten really

...

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