Although we love to gossip about money and power, real talk about money will shut down a conversation about as fast as talking about how you’ve gotten so familiar with your haemorrhoids you’ve named them.
Talking about money just isn’t as socially acceptable as speculating on the latest goings-on in your neighbour Darcy’s bedroom.
Money is something we should be teaching in school because it’s such a crucial part of life.
Instead, we’re actively discouraged from talking about it.
Because somehow, real talk about money makes you seem gross and greedy.
Let’s put the BS aside.
My relationship with money revolved around the belief that there’s never enough for a really long time.
I grew up in a single-parent household and, though we never went without important stuff, we always seemed to be a step below my two-parented friends in terms of financial freedom and social status.
After getting married and joining my husband’s family business, we struggled to make ends meet and had many days when we just didn’t have enough money for food.
Later hubby and I started our own business, which didn’t work out, leaving us with over 60k in debt that we couldn’t pay – the whole thing ended in debt collection and 10 years of crawling out of that hole.
The day I realised that I needed to work on my money mindset was when my there’s-never-enough attitude had spilt into every last nook and cranny of my life.
We were finally debt-free and had moved from a one-bedroom to a two-bedroom apartment with our 2-year-old. We finally had some space to breathe, both financially and physically, and I had even quit my job to work on building a business full-time.
What did I have to be so sad about?
Life was good! Why did I still feel like there was never any hope of me ever being anything but piss-poor? I was convinced that I’d never succeed with my business (or in life) and felt hopelessly useless as a person.
That was my never-again moment.
Never again did I want to feel like I had nothing, like I had no options, like I was a hopeless failure who was doomed to fail no matter what.
I realised that the problem wasn’t in my circumstances. It was inside my head.
And a long journey to unpack decades of having an entreched scarcity mindset and unravelling my own worth as a person began.
The lessons I learned about myself were so amazing and so life-changing that I go back to them regularly. I’m constantly working with my money mindset and re-evaluating my beliefs around wealth all the time.
And I see a huge difference when I lapse and fall off the bandwagon.
Even for a little while. I start falling out of alignment with money and getting caught in quick fixes that are like sugar highs and bandaid solutions that don’t support my personal or business growth at all.
To me, a good money mindset is much more intricate (and much more important) than simply a collection of practical financial tools like tackling debt, budgeting and getting organised with your money.
Why? Because the tools for managing your money don’t change.
But the challenges and inner demons you have to face on this journey are always evolving and changing as you grow.
And it doesn’t matter where you are in the evolution of your financial attitude, healing your relationship with money is a necessary first step whether you’re rich or poor.
Healing your relationship with money.
You need to realise that money isn’t the enemy.
How you see money is.
Money is a tool which is neither good or bad. It is what you make it.
It’s not something feel anxious about or feel envious of. Neither is it something to be afraid of or secretly despise. And you don’t need to cling to it out of fear that it’ll never return if you let it go.
To heal your relationship with money you need to dig deep into your subconscious and find out what your current relationship with money is.
Think about how you treat money:
- How do you talk about money? What words do you often use?
- How do you feel and act when you have money?
- How do you feel and act when you don’t have money?
- What do you believe about money and how it works in the world?
- What did your parents tell you about money when you were growing up?
- How do you carry those lessons with you today?
- Consider how money shows up in your life now. What does that say about your relationship with it?
When you’ve figured out what kind of relationship you have with money today, next you can understand exactly how you want wealth and abundance to show up in your life from now on.
How much money do you want?
Deciding how much money you want and becoming and maintaining your energetic alignment with that is your primary task from now on.
You don’t need to have all the answers at this point.
You don’t need to know where it’s gonna come from because you’ll find that out as you continue to travel on your journey.
Once you’ve decided how much money you want to make every month (or reach a certain point in your life, career or business) then the only thing left to do is to keep yourself focused on that.
Think about the amount of money you’d like to make every month:
- How would you feel when you have that amount in your bank account every month?
- How would you be different than you are now?
- How would you behave differently?
- Would you change habits?
- Would you think about money, life or wealth differently?
- How would you speak, dress and live?
What you’re doing is determining what having that amount of money looks and feels like.
Your thoughts ➡️ your habits ➡️ your actions ➡️ your reality.
Then you’ll start acting as if you already have it because I guarantee you, there are ways of thinking and behaving that you can adopt already. There are things you can do right now, even before you get the amount of money you want, that will support you to get into and stay into an abundant mindset.
The change that you want begins in your mind.
Because, though you can’t control your external circumstances, you can control your mindset and your micro-habits.
And it’s those micro-habits that will shape the bigger actions that go on to shape your reality:
Let go of ‘how’ it’s gonna happen.
If you got a dime every time you thought, “Oh, I want to make X amount of money… but how?!” you’d already be a millionaire.
But the how 👏 does 👏 not 👏 matter.
I know, I know, it’s hard to let go of control. But as long as you’re trying to control it, it’s not coming because you’re still pouring all your energy into focusing on what you DON’T have.
And what you focus on grows.
If you focus on what you DON’T have, you’re gonna have… yep, you guessed it more of what you don’t have – i.e. nothing (or not enough).
When you’re co-creating with the Big U, your higher self, your job is to put in the destination into your life’s GPS and then follow the directions you’re given.
Will there be times when you have no idea where you’re going or how the feck you’re gonna get there?
Yes.
But you just have to keep following your internal GPS and keep your eyes, heart and soul open for those breadcrumbs and signs from the universe and trust that you’re exactly where you need to be.
Enjoy the now because it’s all you’re guaranteed.
The most important thing is to just get out of your own head, look around you and start making the most of what’s there now.
And trust that you’ll progress along your journey and get exactly where you wanna go.
Do these three steps – honestyl and thoroughly – and you’ll arrive at your money destination sooner than you think.
If you feel like the journey is going slower, add more intensity.
Rinse and repeat, with stronger conviction and intensity.
Keep doing the inner work (again and again).
This isn’t one of those set-it-and-forget-it kind of things.
As you grown and evolve and change, your money mindset will level up.
And, as in any good game, you’ll progress to a new level and given stronger mobs to beat down – and one day the higher level boss fight.
This is work that will literally never be finished.
What you need to do is develop the first three steps into an automated rinse-and-repeat habit that will serve you like a loyal sidekick and help you break down your money blocks at every new level.
And no, you shouldn’t stop once you hit your money goal.
Because what’s the point of hitting a six figure income, slacking off on your money monsters and then blowing it all because you couldn’t be bothered to maintain a good relationship with your money.
If you start resting on your laurels thinking that you’re already so abundant and that ‘there’s always more where that came from’ you won’t even notice when, in your abundance fumes, you fail to notice that your expenses are outstripping your income.
It’s happened to me! It’s happened to people far richer than me!
Just think Johnny Depp and his “If I want to buy 15,000 cotton balls a day, it’s my thing”.
And you have to keep doing the work or you could fall prey to your own complacency. You absolutely can make six figures and still be cash poor, living hand-to-mouth and straining to make it to the next paycheck.
Unless you work on your money mindset and make sure that you’re micro-habits are always fully aligned with where you want to be and go.
Stay in alignment. Don’t fall back on shitty money habits. Not too hard, right?
For bonus brownie points you can make a tangible commitment to yourself by signing the Money Manifesto.
It will help you solidify your new, wildy successful relationship with money and abundance.
Get your free personal money manifesto here.
When you commit to the inner work and put your energy and intention behind it, you’ll become a money magnet in no time!
Redefine how you value yourself.
When you want to do the deep inner work to increase your earning potential and break through your income plateau, take The Money Mindset Workshop.
It’s a course with real talk about money, that includes exercises and journaling prompts to help you completely transform how you think and feel, not just about money, but how you measure your own worth.