Tapping
into Your Money Potential:
Stop Your Self Sabotage
By
Gayle A. North
“We
are all so powerless as children and money looms so powerfully.
As we grow up we claim our power in one way after another, taking on
jobs, families, commitments, responsibilities.
Yet we don’t grow up to claim our financial power until we look money
in the eye, face our fears, and claim that power back.
Each one of our memories is different, but they all lead to similar
places, places that are riddled with self-doubt, unworthiness, insecurity, and
fear. Fear that has paralyzed us
into thinking of all the things we can’t do, not all the things we can.
No financial advice you can get or financial book you read is worth
anything unless you put the advice into action.
– Suze Orman, Author of The Nine
Steps to Financial Freedom
I
have worked with many clients over the years.
Some have had great financial wealth and some have been on welfare with
all shades of financial status in between.
Most everyone harbors limiting beliefs, thoughts, and emotions about
money.
A
stock broker came in to do some sessions with me to clear up some money related
issues among other things. In
his mid forties at the time, he felt like a failure because he had no portfolio
of his own. He had not saved
or invested any of his own money.
As
we explored the shame and guilt he felt in his body related to his self sabotage
with money an old childhood experience popped into his mind. The allowance his
parents gave him was budgeted by them. He
was told exactly what he had to do with all of it.
By the time he paid all the “necessary” expenses there was nothing
left for him to spend on anything he wanted.
When he was about ten, he had a big desire to buy his sister a birthday
present and just couldn’t get enough money saved in time to buy it for her.
He felt defeated and bitter about it.
He
developed several beliefs and patterns with money at that young age.
“I will never have enough money – never enough for me to do things I
want.” “Planning and saving
makes me feel bad.” “I’ll
never have everything I want.”
He
had no idea that his experience as a child was driving his behavior now.
As an adult now he was subconsciously afraid that if he didn’t get what
he wanted right away the money would disappear and he would never be able
to have it. His money just seemed
to run through his fingers as he spent it every payday.
Despite his good intentions to save and invest (he knows how to do it
very well) the years slipped away and something always took a higher priority.
After
clearing the emotion he had around his childhood experiences with money, he
noticed a shift in his thinking and found it easier to do use his expertise for
himself as well as others. He now
does the things he tells others to do – pay yourself first.
Every
one of us has had childhood experiences that influence our feelings and
behaviors related to our financial life today.
In
Suze Orman’s book, The
Nine Steps to Financial Freedom, the
first and second steps involve clearing fears about money.
Following
are some steps you can take to begin clearing out some of the old beliefs that
may be sabotage your success with money.
1.
Make
a list of your disempowering beliefs about money and your lack of ability to
make it and manage it.
2.
Put your beliefs to the test. Ask:
Is
it really true? What is absurd or
ridiculous about it? What evidence
am I using to confirm this? How
would I need to change this to be really successful with money?
Where
will I be with money in five years if I don’t change this perception?
What is the real truth about that experience or my limiting belief?
What belief would you prefer to adopt in the future?
Doing
this exercise will help you get started questioning the beliefs that sabotaged
your success with money in the past so that you can replace them with new
healthy ones.
