I do quite a bit of financial coaching and watch people trip themselves up regularly. If like me, financial skills are not your strongest set of skills, you might like to review some of the basics…
Probably more important than learning specific financial skills is the mindset we have about money, taxes, banks, etc. Our thoughts, avoidance behaviors, and the outright lies we tell ourselves prevent us from ever being able to get beyond the baby steps of personal finance skills.
My earliest money lie started from an outdated idea that revolved around balancing a checkbook. To this day when I consider how many times I could not get numbers in balance, I need to calm myself. I am all about balance, but the hours I spent trying to get income and expenses, checks and transactions, to line up exactly, well, that is NOT in my skill set. The harder I tried, the more frustrated I became, the worse I got, the more terrible things I told myself not just about the checkbook, but about all money concepts. I just shut down and abdicated financial control to other people and repeated the idea that I was not good at anything financial.
When a financial avalanche hit in my life in 2009 I was required to step up and take complete control of not just my own, but my father’s and my business finances. I had no confidence in doing my own finances much less the household, business, and my Dad’s. Just before I had a complete meltdown I got completely honest with myself and decided I MUST gain actual skills. That would require a good teacher. So I hired a coach. Despite being very financially challenged at the time it was the very best investment I ever made in myself.
I made a total commitment to breaking the financial barriers that bound me. It’s been over 10 years since that day and I am super proud of my progress. I had to find a coach that introduced me to entirely new ideas. Learning to kick out the negative voices in my head, the ones that not only told me some very old, and fixed ideas about finance, but also the ones I had evolved into personal demons, those ideas, the deepest darkest, they were the hardest to change. Do you have voices in your head that are not your own? Parents who repeated their money problems, usually by yelling? Problems in math so bad that public school told you you were, “bad at math”? Perhaps peers who helped you develop overspending habits in order to look cool?
Some of my favorite people in life say things to me about their finances that are absolutely untrue. One even apologized to me for lying to me about something they promised they would do and then did not. I reminded my client that we all tell ourselves things that are untrue and that the only one that gets hurt by a lie like this is ourselves. There might be some external fallout from our lies, like charging up credit cards and hiding it from a spouse, but really it takes a ton of energy to hold the lie. It’s very self-destructive.
The lies to ourselves are the ones that cut the deepest. Lies we don’t really know we are telling until one day we realize we are doing real damage to ourselves. Forgiving ourselves for past transgressions and committing to the actual actions that support our well-being is how we heal, grow, learn, and improve.
How do we slay those financial demons?
- Journaling, writing them down is the best place to start. Once on paper we can make decisions about what to do next.
- Learn on the internet, a great place to do research and see whose healthy voice we might want to invite into our head.
- Tools: books, workbooks, apps there are a bunch of educational and very helpful resources to try until the right tool is uncovered.
- For me, especially with the intense changes in my life, there is nothing better than getting a real, live person to target the lessons, clear up my demons, and encourage getting back up when I would fall down.
It took me a very long time to recognize how badly I was hurting my own growth by talking to myself with the equivalent of word daggers. It’s an ongoing process to maintain healthy ideas in my head and personal finance is one of my favorite ways to practice since it was my most challenging area of life. The changes have made such a HUGE and visible difference in my life and the lives of my family, friends, and clients I am hoping to assist others with similar struggles to acquire new levels of success.
Here is a great first goal when it comes to personal finance success, gain a Positive Money Mindset.
The Mission, should you choose to accept…Select a Demon
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