Our attitudes about money can impact our behaviors.
How do you feel about money?
Awhile back, I met with a young woman who told me, “Having money makes people do bad things. I’ve seen it happen in my own family when my grandpa died. My aunts never really talked after that.”
This woman had an experience in her life that significantly impacted their thinking about money. The person who thought money made people do bad things – do you think she was interested in having money for herself? She felt like if she had money, she would end up doing bad things, or becoming a bad person. I believe it was partly as a result of this attitude that she had more credit card debt than she could pay off, and yet continued to spend.
Attitudes about money can shape your ability to manage your money
A book I read recently is, You are a badass at making money, by Jen Sincero. I loved one of the early chapters where she talks about the idea that money makes people bad, or only bad people have money. I’m paraphrasing here, but she says something like, there are good people who have money and bad people who have money. Likewise, there are good people who don’t have money and bad people who don’t have money. Imagine if you were interested in helping abandoned animals. You could volunteer your time, but if you had money, you could also use that money to build a shelter, hire more staff, or buy materials like dog food or beds. Having money does not equal being bad. When you change this attitude, you open the door for yourself to have enough.
I have seen this happen in my own practice. When my clients understand their feelings about money and how those feelings are helping or preventing them from achieving their financial goals, they can be a lot more mindful about the choices they make related to money.
How mindful are you about money? Do you need to change your attitude about money?