Do it now - Little Weeds Only Make Many Seeds (for more problems).
I didn’t start out as a gardener.
But I’ve learned a lot since becoming one in 2020.
The pandemic left me at home, staring at a boring yard. My mother-in-law - a fantastic gardener - took me out to the rural PA lands where we could still pick up a few new plants here and there. For the next three years, I spent my spring preparing, planting, and tending to my garden.
It went a bit sideways on me this spring.
I took on more responsibility at my teaching position, and I began this adventure of building my own financial therapy and coaching business. I scheduled my time tightly, made sure there was time for my family and my husband, and sank into the sheets each night. But there wasn’t time to get into the garden.
One day, as I brought my kids home from school, I looked up and saw flowers and plants growing in my garden. (The sentimental side of me says, “Some were like old friends calling to me to come outside.”) But I didn’t have time to get out there, or to weed the little things.
Recently, I went out to plant a few things I picked up from the garden center and brought them home.
I groaned inwardly as I saw that the little weeds had taken root, had grown, created ‘flowers,’ and had gone to seed.
“Fine,” I thought. “I’ll get these new flowers into pots, and then I’ll weed for five minutes before my conference call.”
I planted the flowers and turned around. I saw the weed and pulled….
And got a shower of seeds flying into my face.
It was a sobering moment. I knew that I had spent my time as responsibly as I could, but I knew something else was true at the same time: If I don’t weed early, I’ll be fighting the seeds - and thus, more little weeds - for the rest of the season.
I’ve previously said, “Look, look, always look.” I wasn’t ‘looking’ at my early spring garden, and so things came up, I ignored them, and they became worse.
This correlates to financial therapy in some interesting ways:
Like a warning call from your credit card company, saying that you’ve missed the last few payments.
Letting the medical bill languish in the ‘bills’ folder.
Telling yourself you'll get that email out to the angry customer another time - maybe tomorrow.
Ignoring the need for Term Life Insurance.
Spending the little emergency fund that you have, presuming that you’ll replenish it without having a plan to do so.
There’s something in us that says, “I’ll do it tomorrow, or another time,” especially when we’re doing other good and right things. Or it feels like it will take too long, so we need to set aside special time to get after it.
The truth is that I had promised my time to the outside yard in previous years. But when the time came for me to get out there and fulfill my responsibilities (the ones that I had knowingly or unknowingly committed to), I didn’t do it.
Instead, I said yes to things that seemed - and sometimes WERE - urgent (good things!) and then when I was too tired at night, I scrolled or watched TV. After all, I couldn’t weed at 10 pm, could I?
Today, as I write this, I’m going outside. I’ve got the tools, and I’ve planned to spend the morning taking out all of the prickly weeds, cutting out the wild strawberry runners, and putting down mulch and weed fabric where needed to hopefully keep things under control. It’s going to take a few hours - maybe four or five.
And, had I acknowledged what I needed to do, it might have only taken five, thirty, or forty-five minutes.
As painful as it is to really look at the little problems starting to raise up, once they take hold, they take far more time and effort.
But what is the payoff? Why not just ignore it and let it go?
1) Weeds can become trees, and neglected debt can drown you: As my elderly neighbor found out, if you ignore the little trees and neglect taking care of your yard, they grow into large trees and are a danger to your house (one that fell nearly took out a whole section of her house but missed by just a little!).
2) But on the positive side, when you get something done (gardening, paying that final bit of a bill off, coming to an understanding with the bill collector), you get a sense of relief. Dopamine hits your brain.
And in the example of a garden, I get to wander around and look at the beauty of creation. There’s also some evidence that serotonin increases (stress reduction!) when you’re around nature and plants!
So, get after that thing that has been weighing you down - and feel that sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and motivation — which will help you complete the next thing!
One other lesson is to keep a close eye on what you’ve already promised your time to: Did you sign up for that college class? Did you volunteer? Will taking on more work mean saying no to other things?
We often need to adjust our “yes” and “no” in a new season. More on how to do that in my next article.
Need someone to talk through the overwhelming things, the big weeds (or trees) in your financial life? I’m happy to help - feel free to contact me!
