10 Tiny Habits That Keep You Broke

It's not the big mistakes that keep most people stuck, it's the tiny ones. The small habits that you repeat every day without even thinking. They're quietly draining your bank account, limiting your options and keeping you in the same place month after month. If you're new here, hi, I'm Nisha. I'm a qualified accountant and a former investment banker. And in this video, I'm breaking down 10 tiny habits that keep most people financially and professionally stuck and what you can do instead to move forward. Starting with number one, not having a portfolio career. According to the IRS, the average millionaire has seven income streams. Not just one job, seven different ways money flows in. And I can't stress this enough. During my nine years in banking, I watched or saw so many people who I worked closely with lose their jobs overnight. Their income stopped immediately, but their mortgage payments, their kids' school fees, their bills certainly didn't. They continued. Having just one income stream puts you dangerously close to having none. So if you haven't already, start thinking about how you can build a portfolio career, meaning how can you monetize the skills that you have right now and the income that you have to build more streams of income. Maybe freelancing work, consulting on the side, some investments, digital products, starting content creation or a personal brand. So next time you're wondering how to earn more from your job, also ask yourself, what's the next income stream that I could start building from what I already have? That question might actually be more important for your long-term security. Number two, playing the status game. We've all fallen into this trap, buying something not because we need it or even really want it, but because of how it makes us look to others. That's the status game. I played it for a very long time and I can tell you it's a financial quicksand. And what I noticed during my own financial journey is that the purchases that actually brought lasting happiness weren't the ones that impressed other people. They were the things that I'd still want to buy, even if nobody else knew that I had them. That's really the test of value. If you think about it, when you're spending Alliance with other people's expectations instead of your own values, you're basically using your hard-earned money to buy their approval. And that's a pretty expensive subscription with diminishing returns. So a really simple reality check for your next purchase, especially if it's stretching your budget, is ask yourself two questions before you buy it. Is this helping me build the life that I ultimately want? And secondly, would I still want this if no one else ever saw it or knew that I bought it? Those two questions just cuts through the noise and gets to what really matters. By the way, if you're finding it challenging to figure out what you truly value versus what you think you've been conditioned to want, I've put together a free financial life design workshop. It's 75 minutes and we do practical exercises both before the workshop and during the workshop that help you align your spending with what genuinely matters to you. Completely free. Link is in the description. Number three, having a cluttered finances. What's interesting about financial clutter is that it creates the same kind of stress as physical clutter, but somehow we don't recognize it as quickly. When your money is scattered across random subscriptions, forgotten bills, and there's no real system, it's not just annoying, it's actually affecting your brain. Studies show that physical clutter raises your stress levels and makes it harder for you to focus on any given task. Financial disorder does the same thing, but arguably with higher stakes. When you don't have clarity on what's coming in and going out, even the smallest financial decisions start feeling or becoming very overwhelming. And then the big financial decisions, you have no idea how to even go about them. Should you take that trip? Can you afford to leave that job? Is now the right time to move? Without knowing your true financial picture, you're essentially making these decisions blindfolded. So if you're feeling like your finances are cluttered and you want some clarity on how to go about some important decisions in your life, the first thing is track everything you're spending. I have a video right here which walks you through exactly how to do that in a very, very, very simple way. Secondly, automate your bills, savings, and investments so you're not constantly playing catch up. And third, just schedule a weekly 30-minute financial cleanup. Use this time to check through your bank statements really quickly, cancel any unnecessary subscriptions, adjust your spending for the week going ahead. Super quick, really small steps, but can make a huge difference. Next, we have treating life as a pie. There's this age-old idea that success is a zero-sum game and there's only enough space for one person or that someone else's success somehow limits your own. And when you have this scarcity way of thinking, when you see someone win and you think, oh, why is that happening? That's just, that's my opportunity now going down the drain. That is scarcity mindset in action. On the other hand, someone with an abundance mindset could look at the exact same thing and see it as proof that doors are open. And in fact, it just motivates them to reach similar or even greater heights. If you think that there's only enough room for one person, it will show up in so many ways. You'll talk yourself out of opportunities without even realizing. You won't take the shot because you think someone else has a better chance of scoring. You won't do the presentation because you don't think you have anything interesting to say. And you get so caught up in this spiral of envy and jealousy that it steals away momentum from you taking action. And these feelings are very, very human. They're very, very normal. But how you react to them, it really is what makes a difference. Every time you get this sense of envy or jealousy, take that as really valuable information. Or it's kind of like an internal compass pointing you into the direction that you want to go in. And the only way you can turn that feeling into something good is by putting it into action straight away, using it as inspiration to take your first step towards that direction. Number five, paying the convenience tax. One of the biggest silent money drains I see all the time is what I call the convenience tax. All those little fees and surcharges we pay just to make life a little bit easier. Delivery fees when we're too tired to cook. Rush shipping because we didn't plan ahead. ATM charges when we need cash really quickly. The list goes on and on. And what's worse is these fees become invisible. We're so used to paying a little extra for convenience that we don't even question it anymore. But these are the exact same fees that over time really compound. Instead of just accepting and paying the convenience tax, you want to instill habits and use tools that help you plan and save money automatically without having to rely on willpower or using shortcuts. And that is where I wanted to also introduce today's sponsor, Revolut Business. I've been using Revolut Business for years now and it's completely changed the way I manage the financial side of my business. I work with clients and freelancers across different countries and different currencies. And so having a simple way to send and receive payments in the different currencies has saved me hours of admin and a lot of unnecessary costs. Revolut Business lets you hold and exchange over 30 currencies at the interbank rate, the same low rate banks use with each other without the usual additional or hidden fees. Everything in Revolut Business is handled in one app from international payments to expense tracking and team cards, which means less time juggling platforms and more time focused on growing the business. If you want to give it a try, you can sign up using the link here or also linked in the description. And if you add money to your account before the 30th of April, 2025, you get a £200 welcome bonus. This is one of those tools that you can use to avoid the cost of convenience tags adding up. It not only gives you back your time, it gives you back your time, energy, headspace and money. Moving on to number six, playing follow the leader. I was recently speaking to Robin and he's a business coach and kind of like a mentor to me. And he recently said something that really stuck with me. He said, to stand out, you need to step away from what is actually working for the crowd. And it hit me because so often we are taught that the best way to succeed is to find what's already working or what's already worked and follow that path as proof. It's proof that it works and there's clearly demand for it. The risk you face by doing this is that very often you're stepping into a very crowded space and in crowded spaces, it's much harder to stand out. So whenever you're building something new and you feel like you've hit a bit of a brick wall or you feel like there's some friction in succeeding, ask yourself, what can I do differently to what everyone else is doing? How can I market this differently? How can I position this in a way that no one else has? What niche can I lean into that sets me apart completely? Because the goal isn't just to fit in, it's to find a space where you can't be easily compared. He specifically talks about this in a way when it comes to marketing your business and I'll leave a few links to his videos here or below as well. I mentioned so many things in this video. I'll link everything below. Number seven, thinking you already know it. This one might sting a little, but only because it is so common. One of the easiest ways to get stuck financially, professionally or personally is to believe that you've got it figured out. So often the most successful people in the room are actually the ones who are asking the most questions because they know growth doesn't come from having all the answers. It comes from learning and being curious. Being unteachable, on the other hand, it's like locking the doors to your future and throwing away the key. You're shutting out all the feedback, all the ideas, all the lessons that could actually move you forward. And that is the biggest obstacle you could put in front of yourself voluntarily. A quick gut check to know if you do this is when someone gives you criticism, whether it's through a one to one or a friend pointing something out, do you get defensive or do you pause and think, OK, this is hard to hear, but is there something in here that I can learn? Criticism can either be constructive or destructive. It's up to you to decide who the person who's giving you advice is and what experience they have to give you that advice and then understanding whether you want to see this as something that could be constructive and really help you in the long run or destructive. And in that case, it might be something that you just need to put in through one ear and out the other. The point I'm trying to make is you don't want to just completely lock yourself to all sort of feedback because chances are you may miss something that is going to propel you in the right way. Number eight, always spotting the problems. This one is a habit that I've definitely caught myself falling into, especially more so recently. You've got an idea. Maybe it's learning a new book, starting something new. But before you even take the first step, your brain fires off a list of reasons as to why it won't work. Not enough time, too risky, whatever fails. It's negativity bias, our natural tendency to give more weight to problems than possibilities. It's wired into us, which is why it's so easy to find what might go wrong and so easy to get stuck. Now, every time I find myself thinking of a problem for a situation, I have to ask myself, OK, what is the solution here? What is the solution to the problem that I have just outlined? The small change just unlocks a different part of your brain. It's the part that solves, that creates, that experiments, because problems will always be easy to spot, but solutions take practice. And the solutions is where you move forward. Number nine, watching someone else's ladder while climbing your own. We're all guilty of this. Social media makes it so easy to forget your own progress. One moment, you're super proud of what you've achieved. And then the next, you see someone on LinkedIn announcing their promotion or someone else on Instagram posting beach photos from a place that you can't even pronounce. And then suddenly you feel behind within a split second. It's just become so easy. But the more time you spend focused on what others are doing, the less time you have to climb your own ladder. And they say comparison steals joy, which is 100% true. But even worse than that is that it steals momentum. So not only are you stuck in a place of comparison and feeling unhappy, you're also not able to climb out of that unhappiness because you're wasting time focused on what someone else is doing. The solution that I've found for this is really curating what you're feeding your brain, whether it's a social media feed, the books you're reading, the podcast you're listening to. Really curate and filter what goes into your brain and make sure it's not making you feel like you're constantly having to compare to what other people are doing. Number 10, only spending time with people who are just like you. There's a psychological principle called the pain change threshold, which is that we only change when the discomfort of staying the same outweighs the fear of change. Using an example of earnings and money, if you're always around people who earn the same as you or less, that discomfort might never come. You stay stuck not because you're not capable of more, but because your environment doesn't challenge you to want more. This isn't about cutting people off. It's about expanding your circle to include those who have gone further. To do things that might trigger something in you in a way that will push you and motivate you to do the same. Because when you're regularly exposed to the kind of energy where someone is a few steps ahead of you, your mindset starts to shift. And it's in those environments where you start to see what's possible and what you can start doing too to make more life fulfilling and to change things that might not feel bad, but don't feel great either. So that is it. 10 tiny habits that keep most of us stuck and how to change it into something that can free us. If you like this video, you'll also enjoy this video right here. It's about things that I started doing and implementing to make sure I didn't waste my evenings after work and started using them to move closer towards my goals. Thanks for watching. See you there.