What is your money mindset (without the airy fairy stuff) and how it can be helping or hindering your start-ups success?
What is it?
When I first heard about money mindset, I just assumed that it was one of those things that other people do to convince themselves that they’ll be successful – if they just rely on the universe to support them … it all sounded a bit far fetched for my liking. I’m not a girl who’s particularly interested in waking up each morning, having to contort myself into an awkward position and start chanting about my relationship with money. Surprisingly however, I found that it was less about chanting and more about realistic goal setting – and releasing the fears that I had come to associate with attaining wealth.
In fact, working on your money mindset is much more about analysing your beliefs around finances; understanding where your core beliefs around money come from and challenging your own thoughts to create a positive mindset to invite more cash into your business.
What can I do to fix it?
So how does that actually work when chanting isn’t on the agenda? Creating a positive relationship with money is all about understanding your fears around how money is attained. Some of the more common beliefs that my clients have are; “Money is difficult to get”, “I have to work really hard to get money” or even, “only thin, pretty women can be rich”. Understanding where these beliefs come from is hugely important to challenge them.
For example; when I first started my coaching business, I realised that one of my fears was of a lack of money. I believed that money was something that only “successful people” had – and that those successful people were the ones willing to stamp on everybody else to get to the top. Realistically, I knew deep down that wasn’t true – but it had come from a lifetime of watching my family and friends work incredibly long hours to “just get by”, and so I believed that I too had to work 70+ hour weeks for very low return in terms of salary, holidays and freedom.
Understanding this belief around money – and why I felt that way – made it easier to challenge. When I looked around me at other successful coaches, they certainly weren’t worrying about money, despite solely relying on themselves to generate income. They were travelling 4-6 months of the year, working from anywhere in the world and actually spending their hard earned funds on things they actually wanted; new cars, amazing holidays or the latest Kate Spade handbag!
I wanted to be like that – and not have the gut-wrenching guilt every time I accidentally splurged in Victorias Secrets! So I took control of my money mindset, challenging negative thoughts when they entered my head by turning them around on themselves.
Post-It notes were handy during this time; I had them stuck on the fridge, the mirror and even my computer screen. All of them saying things like “There are enough clients for everyone”, “I attain wealth by providing a valuable service to my clients”, “My clients have more than enough money to pay me” and my personal favourite, “I have enough money for all of my desires”.
I didn’t become a millionaire overnight – but it taught me a valuable lesson about my beliefs and how it was those beliefs, not my skills, that were limiting the growth of my business. Those beliefs were encouraging me to skip precious sales conversations, made me nervous about charging the right prices for my programmes and were setting me up to fail; if I didn’t believe in the valuable services that I charged for, who else would?
Challenging that money mindset was tough but it made me feel more deserving of the wealth that I was attracting. Instead of putting all of my revenue into a high interest savings account for a rainy day, I bought a flat (and instinctively knew that I would always be able to pay the mortgage.) There have definitely been months that have been quieter than others, but through improving my relationship with money, I’m now much more open about promoting my business. I’m more prepared to invest in awesome coaching programmes that allow me to grow and develop (and further help my clients) and most of all? I’m more accepting of the money that comes into my life and spending it on fun things that I actually want to do. Which is why this summer, I’m going to be taking a month off to eat ice-cream in Milan and practice my Italian!
Top Tips to Challenge your money mindset:
So if you are looking to improve your money mindset and develop a positive relationship with your finances, my top three tips would be:
Read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. It’s one of the best books on the market to help you create a positive relationship with money (without the airy fairy stuff!)
Take time to actually assess your finances – and your beliefs around money and how the two correspond. Are you naturally a worrier? Do your finances fluctuate with your emotions? Where have you learnt this behaviour and how can you challenge it? Be kind to yourself. Despite all the hype, fixing your money mindset will not give Sheryl Sandberg finances overnight. If you are in debt, create a repayment plan that gives you a positive goal to work towards, if you are scared about setting up your own business because you might not make money instantly, go out and promote yourself and start generating revenue quickly – or if you need additional support to work through multiple finance issues, talk!
Find a Business Coach that can help you work past your money blocks and stop you sabotaging your own business before it’s even begun.
So there you have it – what money mindset is and how you can use it to sabotage or strengthen your start-up business.
My advice? Make it as simple as possible, with smart goals – leave the woo woo’s to the cocktail bar next weekend.
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