There are two stages between Education and Action

In Jennifer Koretsky's book Odd One Out (The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD) she lists the four stages in order to make true lasting change in your life. The four stages are:

1.  Education

2.  Awareness

3.  Reframing

4.  Action 

The problem that many ADD adults have when trying to make financial changes is that they take action without properly going through the other stages of change. Many people who want to make financial changes start by trying to educate themselves. There are two main pitfalls that happen during the education stage. People get overwhelmed with the vast amount of financial information and stop making progress toward their goals, and people map out an unrealistic action plan based only on the education that they did.

Being overwhelmed can derail any goal, the key is to make your goal specific enough so that you can limit the scope of your education. For example it is a lot easier to educate yourself about getting out off debt, than it is to educate yourself on improving your finances.

The other pitfall of going from education directly to action can be even more detrimental than taking no action at all. When developing a financial action plan it is important to understand your strengths and weaknesses in regards to your financial behavior (Awareness). For example if you did not have any issues with impulsive spending, but did have issues with actually paying your bills you would want your action plan to focus on changing you bill paying behavior.  Instead of focusing on not paying your bills you could focus on how to increase the likelihood of paying your bills on time (Reframing). This could involve getting someone else to support you, paying bills when you are at your mental peak, or automating some of the bill paying steps. By focusing on all of the stages of change you will be more likely to make progress with your financial goals.

Comments

[Jennifer Koretsky]

John, I think you've accurately described what happens to adults with ADD in many areas of life. When we want something or decide on something, we want it NOW! It takes some time and effort to learn how to approach behavior change or problem solving in a new, slow-and-steady way. I love the way you took the 4-step change process and applied it specifically to money!