How financial change actually sticks
A five-module self-paced program developed by Dr. Erika Rasure, PhD, CFT™ · Chief Financial Wellness Advisor, Beyond Finance
Why this curriculum exists
Most adults trying to improve their finances already know what to do. They know they should budget. They know they should save. They know they should pay down debt. The challenge isn’t knowledge — it’s the behavioral, emotional, and nervous-system patterns that determine whether financial strategies produce lasting results.
The Financial Wellness RESET™ Curriculum was developed to address exactly that.
What the research shows
The curriculum is grounded in peer-reviewed research from psychology, behavioral economics, and financial therapy. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that financial stress measurably impairs the cognitive bandwidth, impulse control, and rational decision-making that financial strategies require. A regulated nervous system is foundational for consistently implementing sound financial guidance.
Financial therapy research — published in journals including the Journal of Financial Therapy and Contemporary Family Therapy — consistently identifies emotional patterns, inherited money beliefs, and identity-level factors as the primary determinants of sustained behavioral financial change. Lasting change comes from addressing the emotional and psychological substrate alongside the practical financial strategies.
That research is the clinical foundation of the Financial Wellness RESET™ Curriculum.
Self-reported behavioral results from the clinical approach behind the curriculum, measured across more than 10,000 Beyond Finance program graduates:
What makes this curriculum clinically distinct
The Financial Wellness RESET™ Curriculum is the only structured financial wellness curriculum that:
- Was developed by a practitioner holding both a doctorate in Personal Financial Planning and the Certified Financial Therapist™ designation — one of a small number of practitioners in the country to hold both credentials.
- Begins with somatic and nervous-system recentering before any practical financial content — consistent with findings in financial therapy research linking nervous-system regulation to sustained behavioral change.
- Is grounded in the clinical programming of a leading financial wellness and debt consolidation company with a documented, measurable behavioral change outcome across 10,000+ graduates.
- Addresses financial transformation as an identity process rather than a behavioral modification process — consistent with current research in financial therapy and identity-based behavior change.
Most financial wellness resources — apps, courses, books, advisors — start with what to do. This curriculum starts with the conditions that make doing it possible.
The five modules
Each module of the curriculum maps directly to one pillar of the Financial Wellness RESET™ Framework. Each guides learners through four levels — awareness, understanding, application, and a personal deliverable. Most learners complete the program over 6–10 weeks at 2–4 hours per module.
Recenter
Module 1 teaches learners to recognize survival mode and return to a state where intentional financial decisions become possible again. Chronic financial stress activates a nervous system response that overrides the planning and decision-making functions any financial strategy requires. Recenter creates the internal conditions that make every other module possible.
Examine
Module 2 helps learners identify the inherited beliefs, emotional patterns, and money triggers shaping their financial behavior today. Most financial habits are emotional patterns inherited from family, culture, and society rather than rational choices. Examine is where learners stop being run by their old money story and start writing a new one.
Simplify
Module 3 brings focus and structure to learners’ financial lives so the right decisions become the easy ones. Decision fatigue from unnecessary complexity — too many accounts, competing priorities, daily choices — drives avoidance and abandoned intentions. Simplify removes that complexity and focuses energy on one financial priority at a time.
Empower
Module 4 builds financial self-trust through accumulated evidence: small, repeated, captured financial actions that become too substantial for the “I’m bad with money” story to dismiss. Most people who struggle financially don’t lack knowledge — they lack self-trust. Empower addresses that directly.
Transform
Module 5 consolidates the work of all four preceding modules into a conscious, articulated financial identity that learners can name, live from, and build on deliberately. Behavior change without identity change is fragile — Transform is where that fragility becomes strength.
About the curriculum developer
Frequently asked questions
Continue with the RESET™ Framework
Take the assessment
Find out where you stand across all five RESET™ dimensions in about four minutes.
Explore the framework
The clinical foundation of the curriculum — five pillars, peer-reviewed research, documented results.
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