Cycles. A series of events that are regularly repeated in the same order. Have you ever thought about how many cycles you’re simultaneously going through in your life? How many goals have you missed out on achieving because you can’t get out of your complacent mindset? How many times have you told yourself you were going to be better about your health this year only to get bored with the latest diet gimmick you picked up? Think about it, the resolutions we make at the beginning of every year are breeding grounds for cycles. Negative cycles are the destroyers of our dreams.

You can find cycles all over the world of personal finance. Generational cycles, poverty mindset cycles, and one of the most common sequences is the cycle of incurring credit card debt only to pay it off and gain it back again. Understandably some people do have healthy relationships with credit cards, and they may not deem this as negative behavior; however, the average credit card debt in American households is almost $7000. While this credit card cycle is one of the most common is it also one of the easiest from which to break free.

Credit cards provide easy access to money. They give us the ability to purchase items instantly without money leaving our physical wallets or bank account.

Read this: Are you committing Financial Sabotage

Whenever you swipe your credit card, you’re restarting the cycle.

I spent many unnecessary years in the credit card cycle yet I was too busy trying to build a life I thought I was supposed to have based on trends from social media and triggers from my immediate environment. Before I knew it, I’d racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and I honestly had nothing to show for it. I even remember receiving one of those payoff loan flyers in the mail and going to the institution and taking them up on their offer. While I can’t remember how much the loan was for or even how much the interest rate was what I could tell you is that I took that money and paid off several credit cards only to find myself back in the same boat many months later.

To live the life that I knew my creator prepared for me, I needed to break the cycle. I had to change my mindset, come up with a game plan for action, and commit.

One of the first things I did was confront the compulsion I had to want to swipe a credit card knowing good, and well I didn’t have the money to pay it off immediately. To change my mindset I also had to think about everything that I was unable to do because I had to pay a credit card bill on something that I’d purchased, and probably no longer used.

MY DEBT WAS ROBBING FROM MY FUTURE TO FILL MY PRESENT.

To pay off my credit cards, I used the debt snowball method and started paying them off in order of the smallest balance to the largest balance. The snowball method is a method that’s great if you need small wins to help you stay motivated. If you have credit cards with high-interest rates that are killing you, you can employ the Debt Avalanche instead where you list your debt from highest interest rate to lowest interest rate regardless of debt amount.

I then cut the card up and removed myself from all email list where I had a credit card. So that I wouldn’t get pulled back into the cycle, I needed to detach from the very sources that were dragging me into to spend.

In this last and final step of breaking this vicious credit card debt cycle, I had to tell myself I meant it. I didn’t want to fall the victim again. One thing we have to remember is that no matter how bad we want it, breaking cycles doesn’t happen overnight. There were many occasions where I passed up events, shopping, and almost anything where I had to spend money. To break the cycle, I had to be laser focused. By keeping our eyes on the prize, we were able to pay off over $12,000 of credit card debt and card payment debt in less than five months.

We broke that cycle.

Now that I’ve learned my lesson over and over again I only use one credit card for purchases. I mainly do it for the reward points, and I make sure the balance is zeroed out at the end of every month.

Think about what cycles you have in your finances. Are these positive or negative cycles? What actions can you take to break free from the ones doing you the most harm?