Changing Your Money Mindset to Attract More Wealth
If you have frequent money struggles, it could be partly due to your mindset. The thoughts you have towards your financial life can have a bigger impact over it than you think.
If you’ve ever heard about how “thoughts become things”, then you understand that. Otherwise please take a look into this article about positive affirmations to learn. So, if you want to be financially successful, you need to believe you will be financially successful. Let me explain how this works and how exactly your money mindset can impact your financial life.
The risks of having a fixed mindset
If you feel like you have been stuck in terms of achieving financial success, maybe it is because you haven’t grown out of what we call a “fixed mindset”. When you don’t believe you are able to move from your predicament or that things are the way they are, or it’s just your “luck”, and there is not much you can do about it, that is a fixed mindset.
The first thing you need to do to grow out of this mindset, is change your belief system and develop a growth mindset. When you start believing that it is possible to improve your financial life, that will be when you will see things start to shift in your life. A fixed mindset has a tremendous power to hold you back, as well as a growth mindset has to move you forward in life.
Most people fall back into a fixed mindset way of living – it is just the way we are taught and our mind’s default pattern of thinking to protect us from taking risks or making changes, which both appear to be threatening to our ego. However, when you intentionally develop a healthy money mindset, you grow out of the fixed mindset and allow yourself to start attracting wealth.
Here are some of the things you can do to shift to a healthy money mindset:
Avoid impulse buy
This is not your regular advice to spend less on your morning latte. This is about choosing what you want to spend your money on, and ruthlessly eliminating other expenses from the list. The impulse buying is a habit that people with healthy money mindsets have learned to do away with, as it generally involves buying things you don’t really want, don’t really need and may regret spending money on later.
When you train your brain to avoid impulse buying, you prevent overspending and take a better hold of your financial life. Start by giving yourself a day (or more) before hitting the “buy” button (or going to the register) when you first feel like buying something non essential. If after this time you still feel like it’s a necessary purchase, go ahead and get it. You will be surprised by how often you will have reassessed and determine you can do without it.
Identify limiting belief thoughts
Whenever you catch yourself with negative thoughts around money, such as “I will never be able to pay this debt”, or “I’d have to work a lot harder to make more money than this”, take note. These are limiting belief thoughts around money that not only aren’t true but impact your ability to have a financially stable life.
Whatever you focus on, expands, so make sure you catch these thought on the act and counteract them with their opposite affirmations. Use these positive affirmations instead:
“I am always earning more money and paying all my debts off easily”
“There is no limit to my income”
“People love paying me for my services and products”
What you tell yourself has a big impact. So, if you wish to improve your finances, you will need to start replacing those negative thoughts with positive ones such as these. Make up some of your own!
Worrying about finances
If you are having finance issues, worry is a natural reaction. However, worrying all the time will not help, and in fact it could make matters worse. For one, if all you think about is your “lack of” money, you are building a scarcity mindset and only attracting more of the “lack of” situation to your life.
Also, excessive worry could have negative impacts in your physical and emotional health.
We talk more in depth about this here.
So keep in mind that worry has its time and place, but it shouldn’t be your constant focus.
Hiding from your numbers
It’s very common that people avoid looking at their bills and bank accounts when they are ashamed of their financial situation. That only adds to the snowball effect, though, because if you don’t look at it, you won’t take measures to improve it. Analyze your numbers at least once a month to see where you’re at, what needs action, what can be improved and learned.
Knowing where your biggest expenses are, if any can be decreased or eliminated. It doesn’t have to be all about saving and cutting down expenses. Where is your income, can it be improved? Are there other ways you could be making money? Could you get a promotion, find a better job, sell some unused items from your house, build a side business? Be creative.
Money management
Are you saving and investing monthly? Do you understand your options? After going through a careful assessment of your financial assets, brush up on your money management skills. If you are leaving too much money in your checking (or regular savings) account, you could be leaving on the table money you could be making for the future.
Your money view counts
Whether you view money as evil or something to be worshiped, the way you relate to it makes a difference, and could be an unhealthy money mindset.
Money is neutral and a tool. It is only as good as what is done with it. Don’t put it in a pedestal, nor associate it with greed and selfishness. Many wealthy people are great philanthropists and do wonderful things with the money they have.
If you shift your relationship with money to a healthy one, you will be able to get into a (much) better financial position.