What Is Your Emotional Account Balance?

The other day I was listening to the audio book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey and he spoke of a concept called an Emotional Bank Account. The idea is that, just like an actual bank account, deposits and withdrawals can be made.  Unfortunately, what often ends up happening is that we make too many deposits into someone else’s account, leaving our own account depleted, especially if we don’t have anyone making regular deposits into our account.

Now let me take it a step further.  Not only are you making all of these withdrawals from your own account and deposits into the accounts of others, but you have also given a few people unlimited access to your account, by making them an authorized user or giving them additional ATM cards. So now they can make withdrawals without your permission. Eventually, you find yourself not only empty, but overdrawn…and what happens when you don’t bring an overdrawn account to a positive balance? The bank begins to charge you overdraft fees. So now, you are in emotional debt.

Clearly I could go on and on with this analogy, but let’s not waste another moment on all of the things that can go wrong. Let’s spend the rest of this message looking at a couple of things that we can do to get out of this emotional hole.

1. Give 10% - This is the well-known concept of tithing that you will not only find in spiritual and religious text, but also in several business books as being one of the major keys to wealth and success. Now let’s look at it in terms of your emotional energy. It is ok to give some to help and support the people that you love, but limit it and give it where it is needed, appreciated and put to good use. When you do this, it is the equivalent of giving 10% of your income to your church or a charity. You will get it back multiple times over. When we give our emotional energy to negative people and situations, it’s like throwing your money in a black hole or a bottomless pit…It’s not coming back.
2. Pay Yourself First - We will bend over backwards to make sure everyone else in our lives has what they need first and then by the time that we do take a look at our own needs, if at all, it’s far too late. Give yourself a substantial cut of the energy that you need to be whole before you begin divvying it out to everyone else. Now that I have begun to practice what I preach, for me it is as simple as waking up, praying, meditating, taking six deep breaths, going to yoga class THEN starting my day, which usually consists of giving to others in some way or another. But by giving to myself first…and I would also advise last (like at the end each day), it is a lot less likely that my account will end up in that dreadful overdrawn status.

I think I will make this Emotional Debt topic a recurring one, because there is SO much that could be said about it, but for now I want you to just focus on and perhaps try out the few points that I hit on above.  As soon as you begin practices that will replenish your emotional bank account you will feel so much lighter and clearer. For me, just realizing that it was an issue was so liberating in itself.

So this week I encourage you to sit down and take some time to plan out your emotional budget. How much will you save? How much will you give away? How much will you invest? Where will you allocate your funds?  Make the commitment TODAY to get out of emotional debt. And remember, to start, it only takes one step.

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