What are your beliefs about money?
As children we grow up with all sorts of rules and beliefs that our parents give us. These include beliefs around money. Unconsciously many of us have some self-limiting beliefs around money, we don’t feel like we are good with money.
Have you grown up with some self-limiting beliefs but don’t realise it?
One of my parents phrases was “money doesn’t grow on trees”, this led me to a belief that money was scare and that I had to be very careful with it because it might run out. What phrases did your parents use about money I wonder?
We can unconsciously have thoughts that money is bad, dirty, evil, that having money is greedy somehow, that rich people are selfish.
These thoughts are often not rational or logical but are deeply programmed within us.
As well as these attitudes towards money, our family rules around money and parental examples of managing money can really influence how we now view it as adults. Our society still has strong gender biases around money. Think back to what role your dad played with money and what role you mum played? Who had control over it? Did money get talked about in your family?
What were your early experiences with money did you get pocket money? Did you have to earn it? Were you told to save it? Did you do that or did you spend it every week on sweets at the local shop?
By starting to look carefully at what we believe about money, and our early lessons on it, we can discover what might be leading us to believe that we are no good with money and money blocks that get in our way.
Money is the man’s domain
For many we’ve grown up with the idea that money is the man’s domain. At school subjects like maths and science are still perceived as more male and this is also the case for jobs in finance. Our culture still implies that men are the breadwinners, many men feel they should be earning supporting the household. They have received these sort of messages in their childhood, along with those about being strong and not crying. Things are changing but at a very slow rate.
Typically women are steered away from being financially assertive, often unconsciously. Women sometimes feel shame and loneliness about money, they don’t feel power and independence and therefore often avoid it. Although ironically in the household we often take responsibility for many buying decisions, such as new sofas, the new washing machine and so many other household objects. However we often don’t take responsibility for our personal financial situation, our pension and investments for instance. We’re focused on others first.
Improving your financial situation
To start to improve your financial situation you need to take a long hard look at your beliefs around money. Look at those questions I posed earlier in the article, what are your answers?
By answering the questions you can start to uncover your personal money blockers.
What are your current feelings and emotions around money?
With hindsight has money caused difficulties for you?
Do you feel underconfident about money and therefore leave it to others to deal with? As women we’ve already got so much else to do it’s often just one more task and can feel overwhelming.
Last month I wrote about asking for a pay rise, think about how this relates to your own views on money and your money blocks. Once you’ve identified your money blocks by answering the questions think about how you can work on them. Take control by educating yourself, start by really understanding how you spend your money now. Where does your money go each month? Start tracking it. Then consider what provisions have you made for your future. Are you saving money every month? Are you putting money into your pension?
This can seem very daunting but help is out there. She Can Prosper was set up to empower women financially.
As women we typically have less money but we live longer.
So it’s time to take control of it and change our mindset from ‘I’m no good with money’ to ‘I am confident with money’.
If you would like more help on this topic please do get in touch with me.
Originally posted on She Can Prosper.com