Guest post by Naomi Veak, coach for Women's Cohort starts June 15. Register here.

At the age of 44, I feel better and more optimistic than I have in years, and it all started with personal finance.

A year ago, the story I told myself was one of false starts, could-have-beens, and unrealized potential.

The only clear vision I’d ever had for myself was at the age of 28, when I decided to become a teacher.

After three years of accumulating additional student loan debt, and a year scraping by on an income of $1200/month as a teacher’s assistant, I only lasted six years teaching middle school.

I left teaching with a low self-esteem, created by the irrationally high expectations and minimal support teachers in the US contend with, while doing one of the most demanding, complex jobs I’ve ever had. You either develop military-strength coping mechanisms, or get beat down, like I was.

Even after getting hired at an education technology company and then promoted to training manager, I still self-identified as someone incapable of fully defining or realizing their life aspirations. In short, although I appeared successful on the outside, I felt like a failure on the inside.

Then a friend off-handedly mentioned a finance course.  I don’t even know exactly why I registered, but I did. I thought maybe I’d learn how to budget, or something equally tedious, but I also felt like I would never have enough money...so what the heck, I’ll sign up.   

I hadn’t a clue what magic was about to happen.

Did I learn how to budget? Yes. But not only did I design a budget that works for me, I got empowered to live within it because my money has a purpose.  

Astonishingly, what I learned in the course cascaded success and confidence into other parts of my life.

Coincidentally (or was it?), I started the course a couple months into what I told people was a year-long “experiment with sobriety.”

At the time, on top of my other self-esteem issues, I considered myself a lifelong drinker.

This self-imposed year of sobriety had many reasons behind it, but one was to  give my brain a much-needed break from all the hard work it did keeping me within the lines of “gray-area” drinking (not an alcoholic, but much more than a social drinker). It wasn’t easy to keep me in this zone, as I have alcoholism on both sides of the family.

I began the first lessons in the course, not suspecting that I what I was about to learn wasn’t just about finance, but about myself.

One of the truths  I uncovered was that my mindless/habitual purchasing and mindless/habitual drinking had a lot in common-- they both favor short-term gratification over long-term goals, and both came from beliefs I had about myself that I hadn’t ever thought to question.  

Slowly, I came to realize my life path wasn’t as inevitable as I thought. I had a choice.

I was intrigued by this, but I still wasn’t convinced enough to actually change my behavior. Change is hard!

I knew I theoretically could choose to be mindful with my spending but I didn’t really want to. Just like I could choose to not drink, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that, either. I was already arguing with myself about how I could break my one-year sobriety experiment by slightly changing the rules to make it “only in the U.S.”.

That’s when I had the most profound shift of all.

It started when I learned the significance of the abstract concept: money-earned.

It shows up in our bank statement, but what is it? What money-earned represents, is the hours of our life spent earning it.

Every week at work, I trade what should be my most precious resource--time--for a paycheck.

The thing is, if money is equivalent to the life hours spent earning it, the logical conclusion is that I should respect and value that money, right?   That only makes sense, though, if I respected the hours of my life.

Back to my self-identity. What kind of person was I? Was I the kind of person who respected their own time? The kind of person who respected their life.

The lessons led me to think deeply for the first time about my values, priorities, the part external influences have played in shaping all of this, and even my ego.

Most importantly, I started to see my future self as someone who DID value my own time. This was the person I wanted to be.

I asked myself: Why am I accepting an existence where I spend most of my life-hours at my job to earn money, only to spend the rest of my life-hours in some kind of sluggish haze? Is this truly what I want?

Once I changed my motivations and the way I wanted to see myself, my behavior change naturally followed.

With the same income, my husband and I were able to save, pay off debt, and invest more-- like our pot of money magically grew.

And by the time I started Financial Freedom 2, I’d decided. I didn’t have to wait a year-- my  “experiment” was over, because I was done drinking.

Self-assurance from the financial education gave me momentum to make even more changes towards living a more authentic life, aligned with my true values.

After several years of becoming less physically active, I enthusiastically began running again, and completed a few races, including an off-trail adventure run in the mountains.  I recently stuck to a diet (even on vacation!) and lost 10 lbs. My husband and I started a morning meditation and journaling practice, an evening gratitude practice, and have grown closer as a couple.

These kinds of results should be expected. Why?

Small successes in one area can lead a person to have increased confidence that they can face problems and be successful in other areas.

“If I can do this thing I never thought I could do, what else can I do?”

In other words, challenging one self-limiting belief can open up the potential for all kinds of bold, exciting changes in your life.

I am optimistically curious about what new ideas will continue to be introduced to me, as I flexibly envision who I will become.

I recently received a promotion and raise at work, and I’m so excited to accelerate the rate I pay off my student loan, I even dreamed about it last night.  

Everyone has their own story; this is mine.

Financial freedom can help you find yours.

By joining the Financial Freedom course, you will have your chance to discover your own alternative ideas and beliefs, and maybe even find your own choices you never knew existed.

The next Women’s Cohort of Financial Freedom 1 starts June 15, and I’m the coach.

This is the same self-paced, 2 month-long course I took that changed my life. There is no set schedule-- you log in at times that are convenient to you, and engage in an online discussion of the material with a group of supportive women, including me. I truly hope you will join me.

(left 2017, right 2019)