By Brooke Walker / Guidely
Do you feel like money comes easily to others? Do you feel like you live life in “The struggle”? Does it seem like every time you increase your income you get another bill? Did you grow up hearing common sayings about money like….
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
You can be happy or you can be rich.
Mo’ money, mo’ problems!
Then it’s time to work on your money mindset. The intention for this blog is to help you understand what has been holding you back in creating the lifestyle you desire most, where you may have old habits, patterns, or energies that no longer align with where you want to be anymore. These patterns could have been subconsciously taught to you over the years, or you could have learned them from other people in your childhood through the experiences you had.
We are going to draw some attention to where you want to be, and look at what you have right now that isn’t exactly in alignment with what you want. In this blog I’m going to show you how to bring those closer together.
We’ll start with a quick practice. Read each word in the bullet points below and think of how it makes you feel or what emotion comes up for you as you read them. This will help you look at where you are versus where you want to be.
- Riches
- Wealthy
- Money
- Abundance
- Energy
Think about what comes to mind when you read these words. When we consider how we feel about the list of words above, often there are people or lifestyles that come to mind which can also bring up judgmental thoughts which are negative and we need to start turning that around.
For Example:
- Wealth: Sometimes, or maybe even often, there is a little bit of judgment around others who have wealth and riches that comes to mind. It’s important to notice the nuances between what we want versus assigning negative or judgmental thoughts towards people who have a lot of wealth.
- Money: The word money brings stress to a lot of people. It’s associated with what they don’t have financially. People think about their bills, a job that stresses them out, etc. We need to change our money mindset to thinking positive thoughts that excite us about the prospects of making more money instead of how much money we don’t have.
This is where we tend to send mixed signals into the universe about where we want to be, we want financial freedom but think about and focus on financial stress instead. We need to begin to shift these negative thoughts around financial abundance to more positive outcomes.
It is interesting that the words Abundance and Energy don’t have as many triggers as the words Wealth and Money. What was the thought or feeling that came up for you when those two words were mentioned?
Abundance and Energy can mean a variety of different things where Money and Wealth are pretty specific. A lot of our ideas and belief systems around finances came from somewhere else, like the verbal and non-verbal messages we got while growing up. If we don’t know where these old thoughts originate from then we can’t reverse them, so we need to start shining a light on these negative belief systems in order to shift them to something more positive.
I think that the idea of exchanging energy is pretty much misrepresented. There are a lot of people out there who are willing to give energy, but have a hard time receiving it. Most people who give more energy than they receive, usually have financial problems.
Money is a tool. It is no different than food. It can enrich your life and it can cause damage. The problem isn’t the money, it is the story you tell yourself about the power it has over you. You owe it to yourself and your family to be financially responsible and thrive. Most people have never been properly educated in how to obtain, save, and grow money. They may even suffer from feelings that they are not worthy of a plentiful amount of money.
What would it feel like to make decisions that were not financially based? What would it feel like to have your debts paid? What would it feel like to see a clear vision of your financial future?
- Imagine no anxiety about looking at your back account daily.
- Imagine putting your bills on autopay.
- Imagine excitement to support causes that align with your beliefs.
- Imagine feeling you are worthy to ask for more money.
We are going to flush out all the toxic emotions about wealth and I will teach you to fall in love with money. A loving relationship with money means you respect it, you know how to treat it, you value it, you save it, you appreciate it, and you honor it. Money will come racing to your account once you learn to love it!
Here are some questions you need to answer for yourself. You may want to write them down.
- What are your money goals?
- What can money do for you?
- What is your number? How much do you need to ask for in order to pay your rent, mortgage, food, gas, bills, household needs, and still have enough money left over to save and enjoy?
- Do you send mixed messages to yourself around money?
- What negative emotions and feelings do you have around money?
- What do you need to bring in to create what you need and want around money?
Writing down your financial goals, or any goals for that matter, should be like laying down dreams. Goals are things that inspire you, what you want your future to look like, things you want to do with yourself, your money, your family etc. Once you have written out your goals, look at them and see if you may be shrinking some of your dreams and aspirations due to an inner belief that you can’t aspire to anything that is beyond your present financial situation.
Are you shrinking your goals to fit your circumstances? Do you feel like the bigger goals are unattainable? If so, then know that these goals may be temporarily unattainable, but if it is a goal that is important to you, then you can slowly start working towards it while extending your expectations of achieving those goals within a 3 to 5 year timeframe.
You can start by changing your money mindset, finding a job that will pay you more, learn about investing small amounts of money that will accumulate after a few years.
Changing Your Money Mindset
Some simple ways to change your money mindset is to consider what money can do for you, as you think about what it can do for you, create a positive feeling around those thoughts.
Having money can allow you to:
- Become debt free
- Saying yes to your spouse and children if they want something
- Allow you to travel
- Create dreams
- Start a business
- Save towards retirement
Be specific about what you want. Your goals should be measurable, for example, if you want a house, what kind of house? What’s the price range? What kind of neighborhood? By what date can you see yourself being able to do that?
The other piece is the emotional connection that you place on your goals. The way this works is by imagining this goal actually happening:
- What would it feel like to be sitting in the front yard of your dream home?
- What would it feel like to be sitting in your kitchen and thinking about how to decorate your dream home?
It’s about creating an emotional connection to that experience, getting excited about it and figuring out a game plan to make it happen, even if it’s years out. The big piece that most people miss is the emotional connection to what they are trying to manifest. The emotional connection is really important because you can’t create the goal and not get emotionally connected to that future experience which includes having an action plan and creating steps on how to get to it. Action plans such as:
- What needs to be on your income statement if you have to take out a loan?
- What debts need to be paid off?
- Do you need to put money away, and if so how much per month in order to reach your long term goal? Again, what’s your number?
- What specialist can you have a consultation with in order to create a game plan?
Also part of the emotional connection is about being excited when you’re paying your bills. This minor shift of getting excited will change your money mindset and abundance.
Be excited that you can pay your bills. Be excited that you have a roof over your head, that you’re blessed to be able to make a car payment because that means you have a car. Find your gratitude that you have a safe space to come home to, food on your table, and that you are able to thrive regardless of whether or not it’s exactly what you want at the moment.
It’s All About Gratitude!
- Feel gratitude every time you pay your bills
- Feel gratitude when you get paid
- Feel gratitude when you give money
- Feel gratitude when you spend money
- Remove old thought and patterns
- Work towards removing debts that don’t bring you joy first
Start looking at what kind of personal spending is not getting you to your goals and shift it.
What Are Your Negative Thoughts About Money?
Do you have constant thoughts that money is hard to make, hard to save, hard to grow, hard to spend, hard to understand? These also shape your money mindset.
A great example of why changing your culture around money will greatly benefit you is Starbucks coffee. 20 years ago no one would consider spending more than 99 cents for a cup of coffee if even that.
Then coffee shops started sprouting up all over the place, including Starbucks. Today, if you’re only spending $5 on a cup of coffee per day, that would be considered the low end of what an average person would spend on a cup of coffee. So let’s break it down in numbers: If you spend $5, five days a week that’s $25.00 in one week. In one years time that comes out to $1300.00 which is a little over $108.00 a month.
So the question is: What else can you spend $1,300.00 on? That amount is a vacation, paying off debt, saving towards a goal etc. If you’re spending $10.00 a day towards coffee and breakfast, which is a very low amount in this economy, that’s $2,600.00 per year. In four years that accumulates to $10,000.00 just for coffee and junk food to go!
What I want you to understand is that most people aren’t taking a good look at what they are spending their money on. When you start getting aware of what you’re spending your money on and start controlling what you spend your money on, it eventually begins to work for you versus paying someone else’s bills like giving Starbucks $10,000.00 every few years.
What Were We Taught About Money?
- Money doesn’t grow on trees – The idea is money is hard to obtain.
- Money IS the root of all evil – Money has no power in and of itself, it’s a piece of paper and has no power. It can’t represent anything that you don’t personally put on it. People have done some amazing and wonderful things with money!
- Money doesn’t buy happiness – I would agree that it can’t necessarily buy happiness but it does buy comforts that we all need. When you have financial stability, you have more choices in your life, including helping others.
- You can’t take it with you – No you can’t but you can make it do a lot of good things before you leave.
- I would rather be happy than rich – There is a ridiculous belief that money will take you down a path of unhappiness. Happiness and wealth are not mutually exclusive, you can be both happy and rich.
- The best things in life are free – True. And money will allow us to have shared experiences through traveling with the people we love because we have the money to do it, education and being able to purchase books, courses, college, etc.
- More Money, More Problems! – This statement is just silly. It implies the more that you earn the more stress you will have. The inverse of this statement can actually be true if you are doing it right!
We are aligning on things that bring us joy and how money can help build those. The idea is that more money will help build more wonderful things.
Like I have stated, most people weren’t taught by their parents or by school how to spend money, how to balance money, how to invest money, put money away for retirement, how things like compound interest works, or how banks work. There are a lot of things we were never taught. Did you know that for every dollar you give a bank, they lend $12 out and make a lot of money off of that money?
The idea here is to create your own financial situation so you’re not depending on other people or institutions such as banks. Banks will never teach you about money. If they did you wouldn’t need them and they want you to be indebted to them since that is what makes them money.
Ask The Question:
Who do you need in your life that can support you in getting closer to your wealth?
Success leaves clues and if you are surrounding yourself with successful people, they will share their clues and you will learn much faster than surrounding yourself with people who are stuck in constant, self imposed, financial struggle.
Increasing your skills around money is what I do best. My purpose is helping you build your income, reaching your financial goals, teaching you how to take the steps towards financial freedom so you can create this version of yourself that feels empowered, excited, knowledgeable, and surrounded by the people that are supportive. I will support you in creating a reality that is focused on your dreams and financial goals. If this is something that is important to you then you can find me here.
