Does this sound familiar to your own experience of exercise? This is also a pretty good metaphor for our financial lives, especially a financial life that is improving step by step and is aimed at balance and success. Let's take this metaphor a few steps further. Strap on your heart rate monitor and let's get moving.

As with exercise, the steps towards financial conditioning can be summed up as follows:
1. Intention
2. Consideration
3. Decision
4. Preparation
5. Action
6. Resistance/Conversion
7. Success

Regardless of whether you are trying to build your financial well-being or get into shape, it all begins with intention.

Several years ago, I was severely overweight, sedentary and a classic workaholic, devoting six to seven days a week at work. I decided that if I, as a financial life planner, was to talk to my clients about life balance, I would need to discover that for myself. Getting healthy was one area where I could take control and make substantial change. I set the intention to make time for consistent exercise. This might equate to coming to terms with living in financial chaos and deciding that you've had enough. Time for a change!

The consideration step in my goal to get fit began with a drive to the local health club, a place I pass every day. I chose this place so I couldn't use the excuse that it was inconvenient. I walked directly to the club manager and said "I need a trainer, one who is experienced, professional and will focus on my goals." He suggested a trainer and we discussed the details of membership including costs. Before I left, we set up a preliminary session with the trainer to see if we clicked. From a financial standpoint, this is the step where you consider the parts of your financial life that need work. You can do this by making a list of the positive and negative aspects of your current financial situation.

Driving back to my office, I considered the information I had gathered, including the look, feel and convenience of the gym coupled with my need and desire to get my health into balance. It was time to make a decision. Am I in or out? In order to make progress towards a goal, the answer invariably needs to be an emphatic YES! Let's go! My lack of exercise, like many people's lack of financial control, was hurting my family and me. Think about how a change in your financial life will affect those around you. It's time to decide on a new path of responsibility and control.

Preparation, whether we're talking about an exercise program or financial fitness, requires doing whatever is necessary to put yourself into position to improve your current situation. For the gym, you might need a new pair of sneakers, and in my case, a heart rate monitor (and of course, matching Under Armor shorts and shirts). Getting your financial life in shape might require preparing a detailed financial inventory or an accounting of all spending. It's all in the preparation, both physical and mental. Your head must be in the game, fully engaged and focused on your success.

Action is active; like meeting the trainer for the first time. He started me slowly and carefully. First stop was the stationary bike, where I was instructed to pedal for five minutes at moderate pace. After five endless minutes, he checked my recovery rate on the monitor, which didn't seem to want to move in the right direction. He looked at me woefully, "Not good, dude!" Uh-oh, I had my work cut out for me. "Don't worry," he continued, "I will set up a program where you will see progress, little by little. If you follow it, you'll see how well you'll do!" He was hopeful and encouraging, yet firm and expectant. In the same way, a good financial planner will help you begin by making small meaningful changes in your habits. For example, you might begin by speaking with your family about ways to control household expenses.

After that first session with my trainer, my initial feeling was resistance. Was I facing the impossible? Should I accidently run over the heart rate monitor with the car? I have a history of failure in getting myself into shape. What would it take to change that history into one of shining success? The answer came to me after pondering two questions:

What will I look like and how will I feel when I achieve my goal?
Is failure an option?

Addressing these questions allowed me to convert my fears, doubts and resistance into a resolute believe that this was a "must." At this point, I knew that my health, happiness and success depending on making exercise a consistent part of my life. Failure was not an option. Creating real change can be difficult and stressful, but not as stressful as maintaining the status quo. Instead of looking at change as an impossible task; remember that the time of discomfort will pass. Compare your current financial situation with the one that will result from your changes. Think it, see it, feel it! This visualization will help convert your frustration and fear into motivation.

Success is the process of actualizing the steps consciously, continuously and courageously. Success does not happen one time. Success occurs every time you work on your plan, whether that is to show up at the gym or pay off a little more on your credit card debt. In other words, success is a process, not a final result.

A few years have gone by, and I am again thirty-five minutes into a spin session. The familiar voices continue to speak to me in various volumes and tones, tempting me and encouraging me in their normal sequence. They make me smile. As I watch my heart rate quickly recover, I can't help but remember that first session on the bike and how long it took my heart to recover from even five minutes of exertion. All the miles I've pedaled since then, all the challenges, resistance and success, have brought me where I am today - 85 pounds lighter and in many ways a new man: the man whom I, for many years, dreamed in vain to be. It's never a straight line. I've put on a few pounds and had weeks where my workouts were nonexistent or feeble. But, I know the salty taste of success! And I keep pedaling.