When I was growing up, all the kids in my neighborhood used to get together during the summer days to play wiffle ball. I admit I was a bit of a tomboy and LOVED playing backyard ball. We’d play for hours until it was too dark to see or until someone’s mom yelled “Supper!”.

I have to say, I was pretty much the star hitter. I batted left-handed and could hit that wiffle ball pretty far. Granted, the fact that I was the oldest kid in the game probably gave me an advantage, but it still felt pretty good to the star hitter.

As I got older, my eyesight started to get worse. (In fact, I ended up getting glasses in high school.) As my eyes got worse, so did my hitting.

I started striking out. A lot.

It was so frustrating because I loved playing, but I just couldn’t see the ball coming at me from that side anymore. I hated feeling like I couldn’t control my hitting so I decided to do something about it. The way I saw it, I had another option - I could just learn to bat right handed. And honestly, that’s what everyone else did. Right-handed hitters were much more common. So I set my mind to learn to bat right handed.

But boy it was hard, and I just could not figure out why. Everyone else said it was easy, but it took me a long time to get the hang of it. Plus I just felt frustrated because I was missing out on crucial game time. When you’re 12 and it’s summer and you aren’t playing, you are just missing out completely. In Maine summer is a merely a count down to winter. Being out of the game was a crisis for a 12 year old. But I stuck with it, and after hours of practice, and drill and repetition, I did manage to learn to bat right handed.

So why was it so hard? It was hard because it felt so unnatural and it wasn’t what I was used to. It took a long time to learn to bat right handed because in reality the hard part was learning NOT to bat left-handed. Just as much as I was learning a new thing….I had to let go of another thing that I was far more comfortable with. Plus I had to do all this in the middle of the season. It’s not like there is off-season training in Maine for 12-year-old wiffle ball players.

Sound familiar? After reading and writing on the forums for over a year now, I’m convinced that there are two main reasons why people have a hard time with YNAB.

#1. Learning YNAB isn’t hard, but UN-learning the way you were managing your money is.

Think about it. About the time you come to YNAB you’ve probably been handling your money one way for a long time…maybe decades. That’s a fairly strong habit to break. Habit means routine, routine means stability…sort of. I’ve heard it said it takes 21 days to create a new habit. When you are feeling frustrated that’s a long time.

#2 When people come to YNAB, they are in some type of a desperate financial situation.

Let’s be honest, no one looks for a budgeting or financial solution if your money situation is just dandy. Often folks are in crisis, stuck in overdraft, mired in credit card, in danger of losing their homes. That’s a bad time to have to learn a new skill.

It’s like learning to swim while you are drowning. Can you imagine how hard that would be? Of course, it’s definitely worth it. In fact, if you’re drowning, it’s imperative that you keep kicking.

But honestly, if you had to learn to swim while you were drowning, you’d take all the help you could get. If someone threw you a life preserver, you’d grab for it wouldn’t you? I’m sure I would have learned how to bat right-handed much sooner if I’d had help or instruction.

So to those of you who may be new to YNAB, don’t be afraid to reach for a life preserver. There are lots of people on the forums ready to throw you one. There’s no question it’s hard to learn this when things aren’t going well financially, but we’ve all been there and are glad to help.

Batting right-handed did increase my batting average and learning to manage your money with YNAB will definitely increase your bank accounts.

Keep swinging.