5 Tips to Change Your Money Mindset
This blog is full of tips and advice for living your best life that are inspired by things I’ve personally experienced or am currently working on. One thing I’ve always struggled with and recently decided I wanted to dedicate more time to is my money mindset.
What’s a money mindset? It’s basically the attitude you have towards your finances. Many people struggle with this and it manifests in different ways. For me, I’ve always said that “I don’t care about money and it doesn’t matter to me.” Except in order to do the things I love, like running my own business and traveling the world…it takes money! But because of my beliefs, I’ve never really tried to make a lot of money or save anything and always end up living off the bare minimum. So recently, I’ve started working on rewriting my money story and changing my attitude towards it.
Many common beliefs around money revolve around the idea of scarcity, feeling like you never have enough money and you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Other thoughts might be, “I’m not good with money,” “I need money to even make money,” or even “money is evil.”
So what would happen if you shifted your thinking from scarcity to one of positivity and abundance? Thinking things like, “there is enough money for everyone,” “it is a resource to do good in my life, and in others,” “I CAN make money and my financial future is entirely up to me.” I recently listened to a podcast talking about the concept of money being simply an exchange of energy, and one must spend energy to receive energy in return.
“Your beliefs are driving the bus. They take you where you’re going whether you’re paying attention or not.” - Jen Sincero
*The quote above is from the book You Are a Badass at Making Money, and I also just finished The Latte Factor by David Bach, which are both fantastic resources if you’re interested!
Okay so if you’re nodding along thinking, “Yeeeah that’s definitely how I think about money,” how do we actually work on “fixing” it?!
Change your script. This means rewriting your beliefs and shifting from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance. One way to work on this is by journaling! Write down positive affirmations about money (like the examples above) and brainstorm what money means to you and why you want it (Jen Sincero’s book also has TONS of questions and activities on this).
Make a money plan. It’s much harder to make money if you have no idea what you want to do with it. So create financial goals for yourself, use benchmarks, budgets, savings accounts, vision boards, whatever works best for you to give your money PURPOSE.
Avoid emotional spending. This may not apply to everyone but some of us spend money because it makes us “feel good.” You know the “I had a hard day…hellooo online shopping!” Rewards can be a good thing but check in with WHY you’re spending money and if it’s to change an emotion you could work through in another way…put the credit card away.
Keep money personal, no comparing. Sometimes the scarcity mindset comes from seeing other people’s lives, wanting what they have, and feeling like you’re not “good enough” in comparison. Only work on yourself and remember to “never compare your insides to everyone else’s outsides.”
Try EFT! Emotional freedom technique, also called tapping, is a way of using psychological acupressure to create balance in your body and is used as an alternative treatment for emotional distress, so why not also use it to rewire your thinking on money? (You can find lots of guided videos of how to do this online).
Things like our money mindset are subconsciously developed over many years of self-experience, stemming from what money looked like to you growing up and also how your parents and the people around you treated money. It may take lots of time and patience to rewire your thinking patterns, but if you're a business owner looking to make more income or simply sick of feeling like you’re scraping by day-to-day, I hope you find these tips helpful!