What have you heard about money? Most of us have in one way or another been influenced negatively by the beliefs we hold in our lives even those that are beyond money.
According to Neuro-Linguistic Programming studies, we make meaning out of things not as they are but as our mental maps are. This is where our money mental beliefs come into play.
Personally, here are some of the money limiting beliefs I grew believing.
- Money is evil: We were made to believe that money is evil mostly because most of the rich people we knew had a bad record of mistreatment, corruption, and pride.
- Money is scarce: This belief came by witnessing the struggle our parents had to go through paying school fees, even sustaining us.
- Having a loan is a sign of poverty, one thing that scared the hell out of me is when I found a chattels mortgage with all our items on it. Apparently, my dad had secured a school fees loan with his employer. To my understanding, only the poor would seek a loan facility which was quite a very harmful misconception.
Other popular limiting beliefs are as follows:-
- Seeking much money means you are greedy. Instead see the fact that money is attained after exchanging with something valuable, which could be a product or service. The more value you give, the more money comes your way.
- Money is not that important: But of course, money is important. It pays our bills and enable us to acquire good things plus makes us have a peace of mind after settling our money requirements.
- Money is there to spend: This is a mindset that disregards saving or investing with a hope that tomorrow will come and more money will be made.
- Money cannot buy you happiness: Money is not necessarily a way to make you happy but it is important for the freedom it’s able to give a person. If one is not happy without money, they are not going to be happy with money.
- The Rich get richer by day and the poor get poorer: This notion is painted more when we compare the politicians and the ordinary citizen most times. A country that experience corruption has most of its citizen holding on to this belief unfortunately.
- Having more money only brings a lot of problems
Empowering Beliefs:-
- Money is an exchange of value: I will create value, give value and receive value in monetary terms
- Money helps me acquire good things like housing, school fees, enjoying a holiday and helping initiatives participation
Empowering patterns & behaviors around money:-
- Saving then Invest: It is advisable that you pay yourself first before paying everybody else like Electricity Co., landlord, loans etc. A recommendation of just 10% of your income is given.
A good way of saving is to find a reliable investment company that offers a shield to the market inflation. Put up a cash investment that gives you a return on investment above and beyond that of the inflation. - Take one month to check your spending habits by tracking your spending habits. Come up with a budget to suit your spending. Also, scale down where necessary.
- Besides saving, is to reduce your spending and set up an emergency fund that comes in handy when emergency situation arise.
- Have a personal balance sheet and a non-financial balance sheet: This helps in keeping check of your balances.
- We must also change how we talk about money, spoken words are powerful and whether we know it or not, it’s constantly affecting our capability to attract it.
The best way to look at money is to see it as a tool of possibilities, opportunities, and abundance.
