“The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost
Week Eleven
This exercise allows for deep analysis of your money roots. Attitudes around the use and application of money are acquired early on by how we see others generating it, collecting it, and dispensing it. You will get clear on exactly what your views around money are. This is your opportunity to gain insight in all the ways, during your lifetime, you have been influenced to think about money. You will learn what you associate with money and its use. Here you will discover more about your relationship with money and the ways in which it is actually a priority for you.
1) Complete the following sentence stems. Write down the first things that come to mind without editing. If you find completing any of the sentences challenging, just notice the resistance and be patient with yourself as you generate a response.
a. My greatest challenge with money at this time is …
b. When I think about earning and spending large sums of money, I …
c. I believe money is …
d. When managing money, I excel at …
e. To me, financial success is …
f. With my current level of prosperity, I avoid …
g. The changes I would most like to make regarding my money are …
h. If I were rich, I would …
2) Consider your earliest memories and what they might tell you about your inclinations towards money. Pick two that occurred when you were small (preferably age ten or younger) and think about the implications of how money was handled in these experiences. Note down what happened.
a. What did you infer about spending money?
b. What was communicated about saving and managing money?
c. List any phrases or associations you have about money that you picked up from your parents or from other people you spent time with who were prominent influences.
3) How do you think you would react if you were to lose all your money? What does this tell you about your relationship with money?
4) For each response to the above questions ask yourself “Are these answers really true for me? If not, what other viewpoints would serve me better?”
5) Lastly, take some time to write a statement that encompasses your ideal belief about money and having all that you need.
Completing these statements benefits you with insight into what you associate with wealth and what aspects of wealth you are most uncomfortable with. When people are uncomfortable with something they self-select out of situations and filter information to avoid coming into contact with it. If you are uncomfortable with money, you may avoid arenas where it is discussed, which in turn limits your knowledge about handling it, and perpetuates feeling unskilled and naive. With different choices you can turn this around. This is the beginning of generating a framework for managing money and your relation to money. You have learned how your attitude to money impacts you over time and can choose how you would prefer to interact with money from now on. The meaning of money in your past does not have to carry over into your future. How it serves your greater purpose now is up to you.
You have also now clarified how important people in your life (family and members of your personal community) interacted with money and what you absorbed and categorized alongside money from these experiences. This knowledge benefits you in two key ways. Firstly, by just being aware of the way you represent and engage with money. Secondly, by giving you the option to accept the beliefs as true for you, or elect an alternative that you want to underpin the way you relate to managing money and other aspects of your wealth and prosperity.