EPISODE 262

Getting back on the mindset bandwagon

All month we’ve been talking about money mindset habits and creating supportive routines to attract more and grow your business. 

But, if you’ve fallen off the wagon with your money habits… don’t worry, welcome to being human.

This happens to everyone - especially around this time of year, when January motivation has worn off and life has well and truly kicked in.

So in this week’s Chill & Prosper, I’m talking about how to gently get back on track with your money and mindset without shame, guilt, or needing a dramatic fresh start.

We cover:
✨ why you don’t need a “perfect” time to start again
✨ how all-or-nothing thinking keeps people stuck
✨ simple, incremental habits that rebuild momentum
✨ why perfectionism is often the real sabotage
✨ and how compassion creates more progress than pressure

You don’t need to apologise. You don’t need to catch up.
You can just… start again. 

And if you know you thrive with structure, accountability, and someone helping you spot your blind spots, the best place to restart and stay on track is inside Money Bootcamp.

That’s where we do the deeper work when motivation dips or money blocks pop up. You’ll get the training, support, and community to keep moving forward - not just when you feel inspired, but all year long.

Join today to take part in this month’s live coaching call and work with me throughout the year. Click here to find out more and join. 

xx Denise

P.S. If you’re tired of restarting alone every few months, this is your sign. Money Bootcamp gives you a consistent monthly checkpoint so you don’t slip back into old patterns - you grow past them.

Prefer to read?

Here's the transcript for this episode:

 Hey, gorgeous. It's Denise here and on today's episode of Chill & Prosper, we're talking about what to do when you've fallen off the wagon with your money habits.

Okay, so, this happens to everybody, and I think especially at this time of year where, you know, we're kind of, well into Q2, the momentum excitement of like, the January New year energy is really worn off. You know, I know for us, you know, like the school holidays always come and we're just like, oh, no, it's April school holidays.

What what are we doing? And I don't know, it just feels a bit weird right now. Depending on where you're at in your year and what country you're in. Sometimes in April, there's the start of the new financial year in some countries. I know, you know, when you live in like a cold country, and it might be like the start of spring, and you feel that that kind of spring renewal energy for us in Australia, we kind of, go a little bit into autumn as all all over the place, all over the shop.

So what today's episode is about is, reminding you and hopefully bringing you gently back on the wagon without feeling like it has to be a really big deal or a really big thing. Right? That you have to like, I don't know, wait for the start of the new year or any, I don't know, anything like that.

So don't forget to that. We have, some great resources for you in this too. So, if you go to denisedt.com/mar it will give you, some resources around that. And, Yeah, yeah, I'll talk about that in a second as well, because I'm just, like, all over the place myself.

Oh, yes. I know what this one is, too. It's a, a 30 day money mindset journal that you can use not only in March, but in April as well. And, really help you to build that consistency with some really simple money rituals. Okay. And you can use this 30 day journal not just for this month. You can use it for, every single month.

Right. So we've designed it that at the start of the month, you can you can just do it again. Okay. So denisedt.com/march. It just happens to be that we're doing it in March. Okay. But you can use it for April as well. All right. So let's talk about these these rituals and these habits, that we use all of the time.

Just to kind of get you back on the wagon. But also these are things that you can do that are really sustainable and really help you to build that energy. Okay. So now I teach this stuff, right? And I have been in the personal development world for a long time, even before I kind of did it professionally. At school, I was obsessed with personal development, and I used to kind of bring my friends together and we do journals and we call it being brave, and we write journals.

And I remember a friend of mine said, but my parents always read my diary, so I bought her like a locked toolbox to keep her journal in. And I swear to God, her parents thought that I was dealing her drugs. And, you know, I came from like a single parent family. And I think they were just like, oh, who is this Denise and what is she teaching our child?

And it was literally we were writing goals down and I was like, this is what I learned watching Oprah yesterday. Let let's write a gratitude journal. And, then when I was at university, I joined a leadership club and I would run weekly seminars, and it was called Isaac, if anyone was in Isaac, and then I'd always go to personal development seminars in my 20s and 30s.

Until then, I became a life coach. And then it's been my job forever. And I still fall out of this all of the time as well. And there are times where I think, oh my God, am I practicing what I preach? Oh my God, I've fallen off. You know the things that I preach like money tracking or affirmations or EFT.

And what can happen is shame, avoidance, guilt, imposter syndrome. And I think sometimes we feel like it's a really big deal to get back in it, onto it. We feel like it's a really big like we have to atone. We have to wait for a perfect time. Like the new moon. When Mercury retrogrades over the start of the month, the start of the quarter, and it just starts to go well, it may well, it's too late now.

I may as well start, you know, on the first of the month. Oh, it's too late now. May as well start the first of the quarter. Oh, it's too late now. I may as well wait till January. And I'm just like, no. Right. And this is especially true if you've fallen off things like, in your business that, you know, you should do, like sending out a weekly newsletter or your podcast and it becomes like this, this pressure, you feel like, oh my God, I've been away for so long.

What am I going to say? How am I going to come back? And you feel like, oh my God, I need to write this big apology. And it's like, no, you don't. You can just literally start again. You can start afresh. And if you're a perfectionist like I am, it, you might even, really stress about things like, affirmation journals or goal journals because you don't want to even wreck the pristine page.

Or you go, oh my God, I haven't, I haven't filled in January and February, and now we're halfway through March or the end of March. I can't start now. I can't start in April. I have to go and fill in all those things. Same with money tracking. You know, I talk a lot about money tracking in money boot camp, and people will be like, I'll just start again next month, or I have to go and go through all my expenses and catch up, you know, and you go, no, you don't.

You can literally just start now. Even if it's incomplete, even if it feels weird. You don't have to apologize. Okay? So you can just. It happens to everyone. Life gets busy. We have energy dips. You know, there's, external circumstances, kids, animals, caring, responsibility, chronic illness, all of these things. And you have to be gentle and kind to yourself.

Okay. It's just part of the rhythm. So we can't, have this all or nothing thinking this year. Okay? Incremental approaches. Okay. Is going to be the best way to do it. Now, if you've missed an episode that I did in January, which I filmed on the same day, this one more in the same show. If you go back, you, go back and listen to the idea of incrementally upgrading stuff.

Okay, that might be a really good one to revisit instead of setting big goals, making it all or nothing thing, you do it incrementally. Okay? So progress over perfection is so much better. So let's just reset okay. So go and download that 30 day workbook at denisedt.com/mar.

That's fine. It doesn't matter if it's the end of March. It does matter if you're listening to this in April and just do one of the prompts, you know, like just do one of the days, you know, track one day of income, do it today, even if it's halfway through the day, you can just start it. There's no goal place.

There's no money tracking place, making sure you're doing it perfectly. Okay. And just a reminder to you if you're, if you get stressed about the idea of money tracking, it's not replacing your accounting. So it doesn't have to be perfect. It can be imprecise, okay. Because the idea around that is to, have gratitude and to attract even more doesn't have to be perfect.

You could just do one for today. Okay. I'm going to help you do this right now. Okay? So put your hand on your heart. I'm going to do one affirmation, okay, I serve I deserve to say that out loud I serve, I deserve, I serve, I deserve great. We've ticked off one money. Have it like affirmations. Brilliant.

It doesn't have to be a huge, big thing. Okay. You might, be really, really stuck. You can do one form of decluttering. Okay? And I'm going to give you such an easy one that you can do right now that everyone can do. Pick up your phone if you have it. Okay. Go to you could go to your photo app and you can delete one recent photo.

Okay. And a really good place to start on this is you can go to your screenshots folder, and you can just delete a couple of things and you might go, what is that got to do with anything? Now, if you've been following me for a while, listening to my podcast for a while and you've heard me talk about manifesting, I say that we always start with decluttering when it comes to manifesting.

We start with making space, but not we don't do it just for that reason. Sometimes we do it because we need momentum. We need action. We need to cascade something. We need to feel like we can do something achievable. And so digital decluttering is such an easy thing because we use our phones all the time. Anyway, you've probably got it nearby to hand, except if you're driving and, you can delete an app, right?

And it's it is making space. It's creating something, but it's creating that momentum. And then you might go, it might give you the energy to go, oh my God. Okay, I'm going to declutter something a little bit more symbolic. I'm going to finally let go of that, product I don't want to offer any more. I'm finally going to delete that email that's stressing me out.

I'm going to it could be something really big. I'm going to fly that client. The stressing me out. Right. So, the idea of getting into these habits is creating that momentum. And I heard Will Arnett say this on his podcast, spotless. He said low hanging fruit is still fruit I don't like. Oh, yeah. Why do we think it has to be always this big, dramatic, perfect thing?

And we think we're only deserving of money in abundance if we are perfect and we do everything perfectly. And that is not true. That is absolutely not true. Okay. So it can be easy. It can be incremental. You can grab a napkin and, crusty old eyeliner from the bottom of your handbag and you can write down your goal, and that's that's fine.

You can use your phone, open up the notes app and write down your goal, because that is one of those, I think that's one of those habits that we are always told to do in the personal development world, right, of like write down your goals every day, write them down twice a day. And I have to admit, I do suck a little bit with that.

I do, and I felt a lot of shame about that for a long time of I am not deserving of more money because I'm I'm not a good goal setter. I'm not good at, I'm not good at meditating. I'm not good at those things. And I am so grateful for technology where I can go. I am just going to grab my, notes in my phone, and I'm going to write down a goal.

That's it. Even if it's one I've written down a million times before. And that counts as a really great money habit, okay? And it doesn't have to be big. You don't have to stress about ruining a perfect journal and finding the perfect pen, or writing it down in the perfect way. You can just say, my goal for this month or my goal for today?

Now all those tiny, little consistent things they do add up. And the reason why we do them is because it creates a positive upward spiral. When you feel good and you feel control and you can feel like you're doing something, you have more clarity and it becomes this positive effect, right? It becomes self-fulfilling where you go, oh my God, I might take a little bit of action today.

And the opposite is true. When we feel bad, when we feel behind, when we're blaming ourselves, when we're feeling, not good enough, then we don't take action. We stop doing the things that we know we should do, and then, like, nothing happens and we go, oh, you know. And then we start making stories about that. The universe doesn't like me.

I don't deserve success. And I, I totally understand with that. Right? So, let's take a quick break and let's talk a little bit about what resistance might be showing up for you at the moment and what we can do about that. Okay. Especially at this time, you know, kind of end of March April wave. Right. We can see that Q2 it's like, oh, I didn't hit all my goals.

You know, January and February. And remember, by the way, February was a short month. It was a short month. January. We're all still recovering from Christmas. February is like the tiniest month ever. March. We go now I'm going to get into it and then we go, oh wait, so I diet already and I haven't finished. I haven't done it.

All right. No, we can. We can set ourselves up for an incredible April. Okay, okay. So let's have a quick break and let's talk about some of that. Resistance might be coming up here. Hi I'm Beatrice, I'm a speaker, author and coach bringing the voices of those who have been silenced to the world, learning about the sacred money archetypes and finding out that, a maverick has given me the permission I needed to expand my business in nontraditional ways and in ways that felt right for me.

And most importantly, it has reminded me and keeps on reminding me that I'll always come out on top no matter what. Because that's what mavericks do. Thanks, Denise, for giving me, this wonderful experience and allowing me to expand in ways I could have never imagined. Okay. Welcome back. So, we are talking about getting back on track with your money habits, what to do if you're feeling blah, blah, blah blah about it.

Don't forget to download the workbook. Okay, so it's a 30 day money mindset journal that you can use each and every month, and you can literally just start it today. It doesn't matter. You might be listening to this at the very last day. I don't even remember how many days there are in March. Or you might be listening to this in April.

That's totally fine, right? Just download it to any state.com/march. You can use this each and every month for the rest of the year and just pick one little thing that might help. Okay. So let's talk about some of the resistance that might be coming up. So if you are in my money boot camp you know we talk a lot about sabotages okay.

And this this is what I want you to think about. This idea of, the idea is not for you to create perfection this year or find a way to be perfect or do everything perfectly. It is about looking for your recurring sabotages. Okay? Because these are the things that will derail you the whole year. And your sabotage, might be you just don't want to look at stuff, okay?

You don't want to look at your bank account. You don't want to look at your sales figures. You don't want to look at your conversion statistics. And sometimes people have this story that if I look and if I want it too much, then I won't get what I want, okay. And that might be related to a really old story for you.

It might be related to, you know, a disappointment you had on your ninth birthday where you really, really wanted a present and you didn't get it, and you made a decision in that moment. If I really wish and hope for something I want, I will always be disappointed. Okay? And you might go. What are you talking about?

Denise, this is the work. This is the excavation work we do in Money boot camp, right? We look at where your stock, what your sabotages are, what's what origin stories it's related to. And this is the work that will make a difference to you. Okay, you might go. I'm really struggling with sending out invoices. You know, I'm really struggling.

We're talking about my prices. I'm really struggling with money boundaries with my clients. That might be related to an old story where your grandma said, you hush, you're not there to talk about money. It's so disgusting. And as a little kid, you just went, oh my God. No, let's talk about money. So now, as a grown up, when people say, oh, how much do you charge you, you're not connecting it.

But every part of you is like wanting to vomit because you go, no, no, no, I'm not. Let's talk about money. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope okay. And so that's the resistance that will derail your business okay. And so that's the stuff that you have to work on. And it might be a really, really simple thing for this month.

The only personal development you do well for the whole year even is to go. It's safe for me to talk about money. It's safe for me to talk about money, obviously. Come and join us in money boot camp. If this is something that you want to fix forever. Right. Come and join us and excavate that stuff and find out all your other little sabotages.

And you can find out information about that at denisedt.com/bootcamp. Okay. Make this the year that you come and join us. But it could be just that simple affirmation. It's safe for me to to to talk about money. And then you could go. It's safe for me to send invoices. It's safe for me to enforce.

Enforce my cancellation policy. It's safe for me to chase up customers. It's all around that same thing of it's not okay for me to talk about money. Okay, so that could be, that could be your upgrade. And I do have some suggestions for you, too, in that March workbook. And it, it just I really like that affirmation, by the way.

It's safe for me too. It can really create some good, like, awareness. It could open up some real rabbit holes as well. But it is about being compassionate to yourself. Okay? You don't have to do this alone. You. You're not the only one who sabotages yourself. You're not the only one who feels shame and imposter syndrome and, no amount of money fixes thatBy the way, you might think, oh, no. Well, if I just made more money, then I'd feel better about it. And unless you really look at the root cause of some of your money issues, the money is just like a Band-Aid on top, and you'll still sabotage it. It's just the numbers will be different. They might be higher.

Okay, so, Yeah. You're not alone. You're not weird. You're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you, okay? And even two, you know, I'm a multi-millionaire. I don't mind telling you that. And I've made a lot of money over the last couple of years, and I still get stuck in shame. Imposter syndrome. I'm not good enough. And I have to say to myself all the time, you know it.

It is safe for me. It's safe for me, to take time off. It's safe for me to not be perfect. It's safe for me to make mistakes. And that, that's the same stuff I would have said at the start of my business. And the same stuff I have to say now. Right. And so I know sometimes people don't believe me at that, about that, about how you will be the same as you go through your journey.

Because we do think and this is part of the perfectionism sabotage. We do think that there will be a perfect version of ourselves, and they will be the ones who will be deserving of the money. They'll be the ones who will make the money. And you have to go, no, I'm I'm that person now. Okay. So actually, I used to do this visualization, a couple of different visualizations, let alone one was I used to go visit my future self in her big fancy house and I'd be like, you know, I'd visualize myself walking up and this is a bonus in the In Money bootcamp, by the way.

So if you haven't done this, go to it. I visualized myself walking up to this amazing house and like, you know, opening the door and, like, seeing this perfect version of myself and and getting her to show me around the house. And then we'd sit down and I'd say, give me advice. And the future version of me would always kind of say, you know, just relax and just chill and just, you know, do it incrementally in your old, totally fine.

And one time when I did the visualization, it like flipped and I was on the other side of the door. It was so weird that it happened like that. And I opened the door and I was like, oh my God, I am her. I am that version. And so then I was like, oh, I'm still thinking that there's two versions of me because almost whenever I'd go visit, I'd be like, oh my God.

She's like, look at her perfect hair and her perfect rich lady clothes. And I still had this version of myself of like, oh no, I have to dress a certain way, I have to be a certain way. And even, you know, now myself, living that life right, of being that multi multi-millionaire, it is imperfect. Some days I do have nice hair and nice makeup.

Most of the time I don't, you know, like, you know, I'm wearing my just my skin, my sketches that are like super old that I always like. These are my just random daggy shoes that I wear to dancing or just around. And they've got like the fake laces in them. And I remember one time I was at an airport in the line, and I saw all these like older middle aged men wearing their khakis and, khaki pants and they cargo pants and they're like belt clips and we're all wearing the same shoes.

We're all wearing the same Skechers. And I think when I used to go visit that, like, future version of myself, I'd be like, oh, she definitely would wear high heels and like, gold jewelry and she's so fancy. And so when that flipped and I was on the other side of it and I almost tried on that body, I decided to do a different meditation where I would like, have two versions of myself, and I'd look at her and then I would like, look at me and I would, like, jump into her body like a ghost.

I know this sounds right away, and I'd be, like, trying it on like a coat. And then I'd realize I'm like, oh, that is me, that is me. Now. There's nothing that she knows that she does. That is so perfect that suddenly she won the lottery and she won the mindset lottery, right? She was suddenly deserving of it

She clicked over it. It came from the daily upgrades, the daily affirmations, the inner work of like, I'm okay, I'm good enough. The imperfection of that right? Not being perfect and realizing too, that it's okay to have negative thoughts. What you're trying to do is just crowd out some of those bad things. I don't think there's a human being on the planet that constantly just is perfect in word, thought and deed.

It's impossible even narcissists who think that they're amazing, they're not doing all the things that we think that we have to do, and we're putting so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, right. And I what I want for you this year is to I want you to surround yourself with people who have what you want, whether that's being an author, being a 6 or 7 figure business person, being a podcaster.

And so whether that is tapping into those networks, joining those communities, joining, working with those mentors, because I want you to see the humanity and the normalization of those things. Okay. And then you can go, oh my God, I can do that. I can do that too. And you can have compassion for their humanity, and you can have compassion for your own.

And so, you know, tap into those to those communities, even if it's just like, okay, I want to write a book this year. So every podcast I'm going to listen to for the next month is going to be about writing a book, because that will just get you into the vibe of it. It will get you into that normalization of it.

And that can be your habit. Right? And you'll hear people talk about, you know, I write every day, or I do, like 200 words before breakfast, and then you'll get inspired to adopt those habits for yourself, because I think sometimes we really have this scattergun approach of like, I just have to be perfect, but we don't know what that means

We don't know what that looks like, and we don't know what it would actually help us achieve the goals that we say that we want. Right. And so we can target that by a little bit of monkey see, monkey do, and making those things normal. Right. Obviously, if you're in money boot camp and you haven't been in the community for a while because you've been thinking, oh no, I've fallen off the tracking band wagon or I've fallen off the affirmations thing, just come back in, do one comment on someone else's post, right?

If you're not in Money Boot camp, come and join us. You know, come and join us for the live call this month. You don't have to be perfect. And sometimes I think it's it's like that mentality of I have to clean before the cleaner comes. You might be thinking, I have to be perfect and sort out all my money issues before I join Money Boot camp.

I have to, sort out all of my money before I hire an accountant or bookkeeper, or hire an assistant to help me. And it's just that it is just that perfectionism thing was so hard on ourselves. So you're allowed, you're not behind, you don't work, and you're allowed to do it right now and just stop. Okay? So don't forget, to download the workbook denisedt.com/mar

I don't care when you're listening to this. So you can still do it and you can use it each and every month. Right? And at the start of the month, I'll try and remind you about that of going, hey, it's out of month. Start again. Start afresh. Okay, so I've got one final thought for you after the break.

Don't go away. I'll be back in a second. Hi, I'm Aileen Adamson, owner of your money sorted. Helping teachers to maximize their money. I first discovered Denise with the book get Rich, lucky bitch and. Oh my goodness, what a game changer that has been for me. Through that, I discovered that I actually had a poverty mindset. I've always been really good with money and good with the figures, but I could never understand why I felt so horrible about money and why money always made me feel what it.

And through that book, I was able to realize what the biggest problems we are and the fact that my mindset was the biggest problem. Denise, I cannot thank you enough for that. Okay, so my final message for you is talking about this perfectionism. And I think this is the thing that really derails so many of us. We're waiting to be perfect.

We're waiting to lose weight before we take the photos. We're waiting to feel like we've got that next certificate before we're allowed to write a book or a podcast or start a business. And the world does not need your perfection. I really need you to hear that. The world doesn't need your perfection and, there is a customer for every, part of your journey.

Okay? So you don't have to be, a master of all the things you'll master in your lifetime. You don't have to have all of that now. And let's take a really quick example of a book. Sometimes people go, I'm not experienced enough to write the book. The book. Right? And I go, how many do you think? How many books are you going to write over your lifetime that can only be written at different phases of your life?

And I often think of one of my first books, Lucky Bitch. And sometimes I cringe and I want to change it all because it was written, you know, I was like 30. I didn't have any kids. And, you know, I think it's it is a little bit naive, right? It's a little bit cheeky in parts. It's like, not necessarily the energy of myself now is, you know, a woman in the mid 40s with three kids and I've seen, you know, and I want to go back and change it, but it, it is a gift that I wrote that book at that time in my life.

Because sometimes people need that energy and I can't give them. I can't give them that exact energy from where I'm at right now at heart. I can't go back and replicate it. And it is useful. Right. And so you might think, I don't know everything yet, but that's not what people need from me right now. They might need your version of your book or your podcast where you're at right now, even if you think, oh my God, I'm a beginner.

Some people need that beginner energy. Some people might just go, oh my God, she's just a little bit ahead of me, or that person is so relatable because they're not perfect. And that's what you might be missing out on by waiting for the right time and and being so hard on yourself, thinking it has to be perfect and procrastinating.

You're really missing out on, capturing where you're at and giving someone else hope that they don't have to be perfect either, right? That's that's my message for you. No one wants to buy your perfection. And actually, when my business gets too fancy, imperfect people go, it's not relatable. And I'm like, I have to remind myself that, right?

Because I put that pressure on myself, too, of going, it's not ready. It's not perfect. I know exactly. Okay. So go forth, do the thing. Do it imperfectly. Go forth, start getting on that, tracking that abundance bandwagon. Give yourself permission to get back on it right now, because, you know, Q2 is going to go really quickly as well.

It really well, okay. So, don't forget to download denisedt.com/mar, you know, or come and join the seed money boot camp as well. If you, if you know that you need that real boost of energy, to go into the next quarter. Okay, I love you. Thank you. I'll see you in next week's episode of tune.