Have you ever considered what stories or beliefs concerning money may no longer be serving you? Our socialization as children is embedded in who we become. Stories are passed down and we witness those around us navigate life while learning to navigate life ourselves. Through all of this, beliefs and behaviors emerge - some conscious and many unconscious. Yet we may do ourselves a disservice if we never step back to ask ourselves how and if our beliefs and behaviors serve us today.
When I turned 15, my parents opened a checking account for me so I could learn how to manage money. I recall being very careful to not spend much money - not that I had any to spend - but I believed it would please my parents if I saved more than I spent.
When I started my first corporate job in my early 20's, it was for a small company that offered a 401k plan. My parents encouraged me to put the maximum amount toward my 401k in order to receive the maximum match and begin my retirement savings. I carried this habit over to every future job.
I am grateful for these lessons as they created good habits that have benefited me throughout my life. Yet other beliefs existed within me that went unnoticed until I got married in my early 30's. Suddenly, an entirely new and different set of beliefs and behaviors around money was present in my daily life. We struggled, as many relationships do, to identify a common ground. I was challenged to turn off auto-pilot mode and ask myself what I believed about money and how was that impacting my choices... and how were my beliefs and behaviors serving me? It was uncomfortable because it began exposing an unconscious fear I held around money - a scarcity mentality.
As I began to untangle my web of beliefs and behaviors to sort out what I truly believed versus what I had simply picked up from others along the way, I began to see that my scarcity mentality was not mine. It belonged to others before me, for very good reason, but it came about through experiences that had happened many decades earlier and I absorbed it as though it was my experience too, which created an unhealthy relationship with money. Realizing this gave me the opportunity to start deciphering which elements of past stories were useful to retain and which were appropriate to shed.
Finding our financial voice through shining a light on our long-standing beliefs and behaviors around money - conscious and unconscious - allows us the possibility to choose what we bring forward so we can engage in a healthier relationship with money and bring well-being to our lives.