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Typically, by the age of 7 a lot of your financial habits are already formed. I know a lot of the habits or opinions I had at 7 have changed quite a bit at 27. Whether love or hate your current money beliefs if you are reading this you likely want to make some tweaks. Think through the exercise below, to find your new money mindset that align with your current values.
Where to start?
To start I have read many books, listened to many podcasts, and watched countless videos. What I can tell you from that is none of them have the “right answer”. I will just tell you that as hard as you look for it, you won’t find out. What I needed to do was change my money mindset. In the thick of my financial journey, I listened and read different insights from all the top financial gurus, and no matter, I felt like I was failing. It was because I needed to change some of my fundamental beliefs about money. Yes, those beliefs that started creating habits in elementary school were starting to haunt me as a full-fledged adult, with a full-time job and mortgage.
This book really changed my mindset around money. Chloe has a way of breaking down how you may have been taught about money into taking some of those lessons (or none of them) and making them something that aligns with your current values and way of thinking. Chloe breaks this down in her book fully, but it was a monumental step in changing my money mindset and want you to have a chance to do the same. So what is the first step to change your money mindset?
Money Mindset Exercise
- Create a list of all of your beliefs about money. This could be good or bad, this can be big or small. For example: We can’t afford to go out to eat or a $200 electric bill is too expensive. These are beliefs that I had in my head when I started my financial journey.
- Now, go through them and think about if there are any beliefs you want to keep, change, or completely erase. This may not be something you can do in one sitting. For me, I kept a note in my phone and whenever I thought of a belief I added it to a list. As I continued to evaluate this list, I added if I wanted to Keep, Change, or Delete each belief. For example: I deleted the “We can’t afford to go out to eat” belief. My husband and I both work full-time, we have an entertainment line in our budget and that belief comes from growing up in a family that said going out to eat was too expensive.
- Once you are happy with your tweaked list, think of things you want to add to your money beliefs list. Again, this can be as big or as small as you’d like. For example: Always give something for friends and families special occasions. For me, this will likely change through different phases of life, but it is important to me to always be able to able to celebrate my favorite people.
This practice, was life changing for me. I was stressed about what I should be doing with money, what I wanted to do with money, etc. Sitting down and aligning my money mindset with my current values to allow me to live in alignment, has changed the way I look at money.
