This post is part #2 of: The Lifestyle Myth – It’s Not Unicorns and Butterflies All of the Time
We have to talk about something even more important than the Lifestyle Myth.
This THING is telling people that there is something wrong with them, when there really isn’t.
We’ve got to talk about money mindset. Specifically, how your money mindset is only a small portion of actually creating more money.
I keep seeing stuff like this:
Feeling broke? Do more affirmations.
–If this worked then people wouldn’t have money issues.
Not enough money to pay your bills or hire a coach? You must have a money block.
–Heal it with this healing modality or technique. Jump up and down seven times while spinning counter clockwise and you will rewind the pattern in your brain. Bam! You are healed. Hallelujah. Can I get an amen!? <forgive the sarcasm, but come on…) And I believe some super woo-woo stuff!
You don’t have the mula you want? (But you’ve “put it out into the universe.”) Then you’ve got to change your thoughts and that will change everything.
–Um…guess what. YOU are a part of the universe. The universe is not this holy energy that is OUTSIDE of you. YOU are a part of IT, IT is a part of YOU. You are an extension of the divine, however divine is defined for you.
Remember this (when it’s tempting to beat yourself up):
Shame around money only creates more shame. It does not change your money pattern.
Feeling bad about something for a day, a week, or a lifetime, will not heal your shame. You just feel bad. Your results never change.
The danger of gratitude:
Using gratitude as a way to tell yourself that “you are grateful for what you have” and essentially denying the experience of wanting, creating and receiving more (even if it’s the new car or shoes or what ever you are telling yourself is too materialistic) then you are misusing gratitude.
Using gratitude to be complacent or squash your desires to be okay with mediocrity is hardly gratitude. It’s martyrdom.
Is it just a decision?
What else could be possible if you CHOSE to let go of the shame? What if it really is that simple – a choice. What if your money was just a decision away?
What do you do when your money and the lifestyle you want don’t match up?
The first thing I want you to do is immediately stop reading another book or going to one more workshop about how to change your money mindset.
For today only, you’ve read enough books about money. You can go back to mindset work tomorrow. You’ve listened to enough programs, teleclasses and gone to enough workshops.
Today, it’s time for action. For some of you it may be bold action. For others, it might be baby steps.
You see, you can work on your mindset all you want. That is all in your thoughts/feelings (4th dimension energy) and in your soul energy (5th dimension). But MONEY exists in the 3rd dimension.
Credit cards, bank accounts, debt, cash flow, bills, money goals…it’s all in the third dimension. (human life, earth, the planet…)
So if you truly want to change your money reality, you’ve got to DO something in the third dimension. You’ve got to take action honey. This anchors your intention into something tangible. That is when you MANIFEST.
Recently I’ve had people come to me for some coaching because their money mindset work isn’t working and they don’t understand why their bank account hasn’t changed with all of the dang work they’ve been doing on their money blocks.
You’ve got to anchor the shifts and breakthroughs from your money mindset into a new habit and pattern so more of the green stuff actually shows up in your life.
Here is a “pretend” example that I just happen to have seen many times with really well-meaning fabulous people:
There was once a girl who became a health and life coach. She was a damn fine coach but she couldn’t afford to hire a coach. Oh the irony…
When it comes time to market her business and follow up with potential clients, she says that she “doesn’t have enough time.”
She hosts local workshops and doesn’t leave herself enough time for her offer during the workshop. So she spends weeks following up with people from the workshop to ask them for a strategy session. No one calls her back.
She’s done money mindset work for a decade but she just can’t get past having more than just enough money to “get by.”
She doesn’t have a money or a mindset problem. She has a marketing and action problem.
It always comes down to taking action. Thinking about marketing is about as effective as thinking about working out.
The solution is to get uncomfortable.
It will feel totally WEIRD to call people and ask them to talk to you about how you can support them. But it’s breaking the ongoing pattern of having money drama.
It will feel totally weird to follow your workshop or teleclass (or what ever you are teaching) outline and leave yourself enough time for your offer. And by DOING it, you are now anchoring the mindset shifts into actual reality. And that is how the money shows up.
Marketing is simply creating relationships with people. Many folks in business are trying to do that through osmosis and telepathy.
On a side note: you’ve got to know what you are offering and have a message that clearly articulates what you do in order to really make this work too. So you see when people say that have a money problem or a money mindset problem, more often than not they have a message/marketing/offer problem aka CLARITY problem.
Here is another made-up example:
A business owner who has “cleared all of her money stuff” and still the money isn’t coming in. It’s coming down to the wire. She has to make money just to pay her basic bills.
Me: Who is the last person you asked to work with you?
Biz owner: I haven’t asked anyone.
Me: How many people are on your newsletter list?
Biz owner: 200
Me: How often do you communicate with them?
Biz owner: Twice per month in a newsletter. I don’t want to bother them too much (ah-ha)
Me: Have you sent a solo email out announcing your program or asking for strategy sessions?
Biz owner: No. I don’t want to be pushy.
Me: When is the last time you went to a networking group?
Biz owner: I haven’t. I’m an introvert.
Me: <silence>
Biz owner: But Angella, I’ve done all of my money mindset work so why isn’t this working? This should be easier after all of the work I’ve done on myself.
Biz owner: But Angella, I’ve done all of my money mindset work so why isn’t this working? This should be easier after all of the work I’ve done on myself.
And so it begins…going around and around and around only stopping long enough to get dizzy before telling yourself to keep going around and around and around…cuz eventually it’s gotta get better right?
The only way to get off of the insanity merry-go-round to Brokeville is to get off the dang ride.
Here are some actions to put with your mindset:
- Be in communication with all of your financial commitments, especially if they are late. A five-minute conversation (they usually take less time than that) will save you hours, days, weeks and months of angst and shame that does absolutely no good. Just have the conversation.
- Honor your agreements. You can always negotiate. But honor your agreements.
- Be the kind of client and/or vendor you want to be. Be honest. Communicate. Don’t join the witness protection program if things get uncomfortable. Hiding out only creates anxiety and that energy doesn’t promote possibility, it just perpetuates lack.
- Pay yourself. Even if it’s $10 a month, you are building a money habit. It’s not amount that matters at the beginning, it’s the tangible action and habit you are creating. (This has been the HARDEST for me to implement in my own business by the way.)
- Give back now, not later. I remember telling a friend that I couldn’t wait to donate thousands of dollars to build schools for girls in Africa. She told me “how you do it now, is how you’ll do it then.”If you are waiting for more money to show up THEN you will donate, THEN you will hire the coach, THEN you will…you will always be waiting.IF you make more money then your problems will just grow because you don’t have the money HABITS to support more money.
- Get a business bank account if you don’t already have one. Keep your business and personal expenses separate.
- Build a money cushion. Instead of $0 being your bottom in your bank account, have it be $50 then double it, then double it again and so forth.
- Call people to work with you or to attend your workshop. Don’t count on email or Facebook to fill your events or programs. Pick. up. the. phone. People will love that you thought of them.
- Collect money that is owed to you. Yes, even from family or friends.
Along with your money mindset work, pick a bold action you are going to take in the next week.
After you take that big bold action, pick up that book, start those affirmations again…
Mindset + Action = Your Life. You can’t change one without the other.
