A lot of us are stuck in a #FinancialFOG. That is Fear, Obligation, and Guilt (FOG) that prevents us from monetizing our skills and earning what we are worth. Does that sound familiar to you? Are you afraid of making an unpopular financial decision because you fear rejection? Yet, if you don’t make the decision, you cannot grow! What about the obligation of making everyone happy and being a people pleaser? Is EVERYTHING more important to you than saving, investing and planning for your retirement? How much have you saved this year to date? Have you started investing in any stock or bond market? What about any of the unit trusts and mutual funds available? And how much is your pension worth at this stage of your life? News flash — your children are not going to take care of you in your dotage. So is your special gift to the world, being a first-class financial doormat? And what about the guilt of putting your needs first? Can you stand the censor of your family members, co-workers, business partners, church brothers and sisters who simply don’t understand that you are taking a different path? Do you feel guilty for saving when someone in your circle of loved ones has a bill to pay or a child’s school fee that needs covering? Are you one of those people whose savings are just in time to bail out someone or help them fix a car or such emergency that does not benefit you? Do you even see the money come back and do you feel guilty for asking?
Are you uncomfortable reading this?
Good.
I reached out to Elizabeth Terry of #LimitlessTransformation for guidance on how we can break through the mental barriers that keep us from monetizing our skills and her interview is below.
And by the way, you can hear more about building your financial skillset on the #FinanciallyFocusedMONEYTALK show on Power106 or your can visit our YouTube channel for videos to build your financial muscles.
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Now on to the interview.
I would like start by making three key points relating to the ability to create wealth.
First thing I want to say is that the amount of money we have at this moment is a reflection of our long-held values, beliefs and feelings about MONEY! A lot of us have grown up believing that money is a necessary evil and to have too much of it makes us potentially wicked! In fact, we often judge those who are wealthy as greedy and sinful and to be shunned. In other words, we have a love-hate relationship with MONEY and until we get rid of those beliefs and decisions we are NOT going to be able to get much more of it. It’s rather like an abusive relationship where one moment we are screaming in pain, and the next we want the person back in our lives!! In fact, the very idea of ‘monetizing’ your brand will be rejected at an unconscious level, to greater or lesser extent, depending on how strong your negative beliefs and values around money are.
Secondly, I want to point out that MONEY, like anything else, is neither intrinsically good nor evil. In fact, like us, it is simply energy. Rather like electricity, it is what we do with it that becomes the deciding factor.
Finally, in order to monetize your talents and skills, you not only have to have good, strong positive values and beliefs about money, you must also have good SELF-Value, SELF-Concept and SELF-Belief. Without this foundation it is difficult to experience abundance and wealth in any form, except perhaps fleetingly.
So here are three tips you can use to help you develop a positive Money Mindset:
- Flush out your values around money. Ask yourself, what is important to me about my career or business and simply brainstorm and write down EVERRYTHING that comes to mind. When you have completely emptied out, prioritize your list. If money does not appear in your top 5 it suggests that you may have a misalignment of your money values – in other words, you consciously want more money, but at an unconscious level MONEY is not driving your important choices in this sphere of your life.
- Ask yourself what are my frequent thoughts and beliefs around money?Write down EVERYTHING that comes to mind – especially the things our parents used to tell us and the things that we hear ourselves saying all the time! Bringing these things to our conscious awareness is an important first step in the changing what no longer works for us.
- Practice the thoughts, feelings and actions of someone who is wealthy!Find someone you admire who is successful in business or career and model them!
- What would someone who has a lot of money in their bank account say to themselves about investing in the stock market or real estate? Remember you may not be in a current position to actually invest or purchase but saying things like ‘that’s a good stock – I think I would like to put some money in this company in the future’ is very different from ‘Are you kidding? Mi cyan even put food pon di table and yu a talk to mi bout invest?’
- Listen to your self-talk and change it when you hear yourself saying negative things about yourself or MONEY! “I cannot afford that..” comes from a different mind-set to “I have different priorities right now”
- Take action that demonstrates Self-Appreciation– like buying some small treat for yourself once a week to show appreciation for who you are. The root meaning of the word ‘appreciate’ is to grow…the more we pay attention to the GREATNESS of who we are the more that GREATNESS grows.
- Take practical steps like setting financial goals and saving even if is $100 per week towards the dream house that you want.
