Improve Your Money Relationship
Oct 23, 2022Depends when you’re reading this, but I’m hosting a free webinar on Monday 7 November, where I’ll go into more detail on this – Rewire Your Money Habits & Beliefs.
When you think about the concept of a relationship, you can have a healthy one and you can have unhealthy relationships – there’s co-dependent, independent, dependent relationships. All sorts of possibilities out there.
And when it comes to money though, we don't necessarily always think of the fact that we have a relationship with money. When the relationship isn’t with another person, it's then more connection or association or involvement. So, if you think of the connection that we have with money, it's usually based on a whole pile of “stuff” that's come about because of experiences we've witnessed as children. The stories we've heard, the things that we've read, things we've had come to us through direct or indirect experience.
Then as we get older, we end up living through all of these lenses, experiences and stories. Not to mention the news articles! Whether we're going into recession, or we're headed for a boom or a bust, or a bear or a bull market…
There's so much terminology and it’s easy to become overwhelmed by it. Feeling like you have no relationship with money, or a very poor one is completely understandable. The thing is, life isn’t stagnant, so that feeling doesn’t have to stick around! As human beings, we evolve. When we grow and we learn we can change our situation in so many different ways, whether it's physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.
You have the power to make the changes in your life that you really want. You already have that capacity – it comes down to what you believe.
The older we get, the more ability we have to self-reflect (because there are more years to reflect upon!). It’s important to look back and acknowledge how far you have actually come, and also what you still want to achieve.
This can go one of two ways. You can get so depressed by it and you stagnate as a result. Or, you can use it as a form of motivation and go OK, well I got here. If I haven’t done much deliberately, then now is the time to start!
Action creates momentum. There is an analogy that I like to use, and it’s to do with sailing (we have a sailboat, so when I was learning to sail my husband used to tell me this a lot!). You can’t move or change direction without actually moving in the first place. You need movement (or momentum) of any kind to be able to steer your boat (or life).
Some movement or action is better than none to start with. Then you also have a reference point for how you’re going – what works or what doesn’t work. What you like versus what you don’t like.
Life is very much like sailing a boat – there are ebbs and flows. Sometimes a gust of wind blows into your sails and you’re off! Other times, nothing is happening and you have to just sit there and wait. This waiting time can be used productively though – for reading and learning.
OK, enough with the sailing analogy.
The important thing is also the level of attention we give to our relationships, and in this case, the relationship with money. All relationships need work and attention. They don’t just sit there and grow without any work at all. That’s what also makes them worthwhile.
But if you never give attention towards your relationship with money it's going to stagnate and you’re never going to learn what works and what doesn't work for you.
There are two main ways that we can improve our relationship with money:
- 1. Habits – the things you do repetitively without even thinking about them; and
- 2. Beliefs – what you believe is possible for your money situation.
Habits
Habits are behaviours that we have repeated so often that now we do them without thinking about them. This can work for or against you. Where the habit is useful, and helps you get to where you want to go, then great! However, if the habit is keeping you from achieving the outcomes or goals that you want, then it isn’t so great.
For example, after having my daughter I got into the habit of being quite lethargic and not physically moving much. So, I decided to change that, as I was tired of always being tired! Plus, as my daughter grew and got heavier, I found carrying her was hurting my back, and I just didn’t like not feeling strong.
Habits can be good – you don’t have to think about certain things because you automatically do them. It frees up your brain to focus on other things.
HOWEVER, if the habit isn’t working FOR you, then it reinforces things that aren’t helping you get where you want to go – like spending when you feel sad, or eating when you’re bored, or drinking too much when you go out.
It’s also easy to get stuck in a rut. So that's when it’s good to have a review or a self reflection mechanism to help you look at things and ask yourself if the habit is in your best interests.
Ask yourself, “is this habit really serving me?”, or “do I really need to do this anymore?”. Sometimes habits are formed during tough times, but then are no longer necessary when that time has passed.
Beliefs
Beliefs are the thoughts that underpin our behaviours. They are linked to how we see ourselves (our identity or type of person we think we are).
For instance, you might think that you’re not good with money, or that you never make good money decisions. As a result of this thought, you might abdicate the decision making responsibility for money things to someone else, or avoid it altogether.
I have always been good at saving, but never knew what to do with investing. When I don’t know how to do something I go and do a course, or find someone who does know. So, I went to a share trading course, and then a property investment course. The problem was, for me the methodologies that were being taught didn’t align with my values, so I still didn’t want to pursue them. Then I found someone I thought knew how to invest, but that turned out not to be the case. In the end my husband bought me the Barefoot Investor book, and his approach was perfect for me!
That’s why it’s important to know WHY you believe what you believe, and why you have certain habits. Link them to your Values, and watch how much easier your relationship with money becomes!
Ask yourself WHY you believe what you believe about money. The actual knowledge and things you need to know and do are actually pretty simple, and can be learned. It’s the beliefs and habits around money that aren’t supporting you.
Action Steps
These actions are much easier with someone to support you and keep you accountable. That doesn’t mean you can’t do them on your own, but or it makes the process more difficult, especially when self-doubt creeps in.
For Habits:
- Make a list of the things you do regularly (even non-money related things)
- Prioritise which of these you need to change
- Reframe the habit to be something that you want
- Write down the change you want to make
- Either replace the current habit with the new one, or pair up the new habit with an existing one, so you can get into the routine of doing the new habit alongside the old habit (for example, when I wanted to get used to tacking vitamins in the morning, I would put them next to my water glass – as I always drank my water in the morning!)
For Beliefs:
- Write down some of the phrases you say to yourself repeatedly about money
- Highlight the phrases that you don’t want to believe anymore, because you feel they’re holding you back
- Reframe these phrases to be more closely aligned to the person you want to see yourself as
- Write the new phrases down, and put them somewhere you will see regularly
- Combine saying these phrases to yourself, with habits that support them, and then tell yourself that you are this person (not that you’re “trying” it out to see how it goes, or even that you “used” to be one way and now you’re another). The past is the past. You now ARE the sort of person who is good with money (for example). Check in with yourself when making decisions and taking action to confirm that this is the decision or action that someone who is good with money would make. Be consistent and keep repeating this.
Like I said, this is much easier with someone to help support you and keep you accountable – at least in the beginning. It does take focus and discipline, but isn’t the result worth it???
