What does money mean to you?
Do you know how you really feel about money? Our money and financial situation can have such a significant impact on our mental, social and often physical state yet we don’t often talk, or even think about how we really feel about it. Other than the common thoughts of ‘I wish I had more’, or thinking ‘how can I make more money?’ If I had more money, all my problems would be solved.’ Sound familiar?
Think about money for a moment – Close your eyes, take a deep breath and ask yourself this – What is money? What reaction does it invoke in your body and mind? Does it make you feel happy, excited? Or do you feel stress and uneasiness? This exercise will give you a quick insight into your true relationship with money.
Money can be such an emotional subject. It can bring moments of great happiness but drive times of great stress. It can equally motivate and demotivate us. It is the source of many arguments between couples, friends, whole families. When we have a healthy relationship with money it can bring fulfilment to our lives but if we have negative associations with money it can cause great stress and feelings of non-fulfilment and lacking.
Money is a tool we use in our daily lives. Ideally it should be viewed as such, a tool, not a crux, not a saviour, not the be all and end all, not the ultimate source of happiness. Our conditioned views of money can play out in so many ways – some overspend, some won’t spend, some chase high salaried jobs they don’t enjoy while others are ashamed of having money or reject the idea of being wealthy as something shameful, negative or greedy. It’s a fascinating and complex subject and one, in my view, not talked about nearly enough.
Mindful Spending
Adapting a mindful spending approach to our money may help alleviate some of the conscious and unconscious negative money beliefs we carry. If we spend our money mindfully and on purpose then we are using our money deliberately and decisively. We are not reacting to unchecked emotions nor are we restricting ourselves unnecessarily. We will spend with a clear conscience and we will value what we buy much more. We will be find spending more fulfilling.
Mindful Saving
The same applies to mindful saving. Where’s the joy in saving and building our nest eggs if it means depriving ourselves when we don’t need to and waiting to live our lives at some future point? Being mindful with our money means striking a balance between saving, spending and living. Figuring out and working through our emotional attachments to money is key to a success and fulfilling relationship with your money.
If you’d like to learn more about you can be more mindful with your money, if you have concerns about your current financial situation or would like to start working towards your financial freedom, click on the link below and schedule a free 20 minute chat and let’s talk about how we can get started.