Part of your overall money mindset is how you feel about issues of self-identity, independence, and feeling powerful. Some people are freaked out by power, so they back away from anything that shines the light on them too brightly.
Or, you might not feel powerful at all, so you try to “borrow” someone else’s power in a certain area. I frequently see this when people are paying huge sums of money to a coach or even a financial planner to borrow that other person’s power. They are delegating decision-making to a third party to make them feel protected or safe. Author Gay Hendricks calls this money mindset issue an “upper limit problem.”
We’ve all seen it play out with celebrities a hundred times: someone is highly successful in one area of their life, making a lot of money, and then they sabotage themselves in some other area of their lives. Hendricks says this is because they’ve hit their psychological “upper limit” and are afraid to break through it, so they subconsciously do things that will knock them back down.
This is something I’ve frequently seen with some of my clients. A client will be making great money that could easily help her reach all her goals — except that she blows it all on purchases that don’t mean anything to her and that she later regrets. That upper limit problem tends to happen because people don’t trust themselves to go further, or they are afraid of their own power.
Part of your overall money mindset is how you feel about issues of self-identity, independence, and feeling powerful. Click To TweetChanging your money mindset
If you’re seeing some ways that your mindset around power might be compromising your relationship with money, you can always change it. Ask yourself:
- Are you showing up in powerful ways in your own life? If not, what is limiting your power?
- Do you have any limiting self-beliefs? (And if so, are they really true or just stories you’re used to telling yourself?) This might include the idea that you can’t make a lot of money because you don’t have the right expertise/parents/circumstances/education etc.
- Are you afraid of making decisions around money? Are you avoiding decisions because of it?
- Are you delegating your power to anyone else? Maybe a spouse, business partner, coach, or other professionals? Are you using them so that you don’t have to make decisions?
There can be a lot of fear associated with money and power issues, but it’s important to ask if you are afraid of something real or just stories that you are telling yourself.
Create a money power practice
It may seem a little counterintuitive — since I am a financial planner, after all! — but if you’re regularly delegating your decision making about money to someone else, your first step to clear this energy is to start making your own decisions. Let others help you gather information if you like, but be sure the final decision rests with you. Write down the fears you may have identified and come up with ways to start to “desensitize” yourself to them. If, for example, you’re afraid of making financial decisions, challenge yourself to make some for yourself. Start with decisions that have small consequences and move up from there. Build your confidence slowly but steadily by increasing the size of your decisions. You might also have a chat about your intentions with the person to whom you’ve been delegating the power; if they truly have your best interests at heart, they will be happy to help you take on more responsibility.
If this sort of money/energy talk intrigues you, I highly encourage you to download my free mindset resources and learn more about how you can support both sides of your money — both the pragmatic side and the energetic side.