Is Your Gut Lying to You?

Our financial reality isn’t always clear.

I had an interesting conversation with one of my long-term clients this week that I thought you might find useful. It had to do with her perceptions of how her biz is doing versus what her numbers actually are saying.

If you’re anything like everyone I know, then you may rely on what your gut tells you about how well your business is going.

What’s fascinating is that quite often, our gut is simply wrong!

This client of mine, who’s been in the design business for many years and has ridden various economic ups and downs, was starting to feel quite a bit of lack and worry around the impacts of COVID-19 to her business.

Sound familiar? The reality is that we’re all facing financial insecurities right now.

And for this client, she felt particularly susceptible to what she felt she was hearing from prospects and people she was talking to on social media, etc. She began mentally gearing up for a major downturn in her business, quite unintentionally. It was just happening. And her gut was telling her that things were going to get hard.

But here’s the interesting thing.

Just as she was beginning to express these concerns to me, I did a little recon into her numbers and was able to show her that we’re actually running some 50% above last year’s revenue at this point, and a whopping 250+% in profit. And that last month had the best revenue of her year so far, despite making adjustments in how she works with clients and moving to more online interactions (which she’d been worried wouldn’t be easy to do).

So while my client’s gut was telling her to brace for impact, her numbers show she’s actually navigating our current upheavals quite well.

This kind of disconnect between our perceived financial realities and our actual financial realities is incredibly common, and if we simply “go with our gut” we may be spinning and churning more than we need to, and we’re definitely carrying more stress than we should.

I’d like you to ask yourself where you’re actually standing financially as we continue navigating this unprecedented period.

Are you on the brink of collapse or does it only feel that way?

You may look into your financial reality and find it does indeed match what your gut is telling you. You may take a peek and find that, like my client, things are actually better than you imagined and that your business is running fairly smoothly.

Whatever the outcome of this investigation, I can guarantee that knowing your actual financial situation feels far better than wondering, assuming, and feeling uncertain.

Isn’t it funny how our perceptions mirror external stuff more than the reality sometimes? My recommendation is to take a look, recognize where you’re actually at, and keep swimming forward.

I hope this story helps you feel better about your current reality and encourages you to get a little cozier with your finances. Now is the time!

Sometimes you need an expert set of eyes in order to feel  good about your finances. Sign up for an audit to see whether your gut is in line with your numbers.