As with everything else, I believe that your money mindset greatly impacts how successful you are at your business, managing your money, investing in yourself, and your other money goals.
This is because,
The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, our world, our work, the interpretations we give to the things that happen in our lives, etc limit our ability to make changes in our lives. We stress about things that we shouldn’t. And, oh my goodness, do we struggle not to overspend on food, data (for internet access), ‘junk’ etc.
Your Money Mindset Matters
I have to admit it. I have been a bit of a late bloomer when it came to money mindset. You see, there was not much money around in my family when I was growing up, technically, we weren’t poor, we were just an average family surviving with my father’s excellent money management skills.
I grew up hearing stories from my dad about how poor his family was growing up. How they suffered, how they couldn’t afford to all go to school, so he (my dad) had to see himself through school and spent his early years as a graduate working to give his siblings the opportunity to have an education.
I was brought up to believe “money doesn’t grow on trees”, “it takes hard work to make money,” “money is hard to come by,” and “money should not be spent on anything other than books and school (the very thing that is guaranteed to give you a good future),” “spending money on yourself, to acquire things like clothing, etc were a waste of resources…” alongside other beliefs around money such as “rich people are bad people,” “a Christian is not supposed to be rich or have money, they’ll sin…” “money is the root of evil” etc.
Even though my father obeyed without fail all the personal finance rules: spend less than you earn, save for the rainy day, save for retirement, have a budget, keep a record of your expenses, etc, and tried to be there for us as often as he could, this beliefs and messages of: “there is never enough,” “there is never going to be enough,” “we can’t have the things we want,” “we have to sacrifice certain wants and desires..” “someday we’re going to run out of money and be without help…” etc where subtly communicated to me.
I thought I had turned out fine until I started my business and began to handle money myself.
Then I began to see myself replaying those thoughts and beliefs I heard growing up. I refused to spend on myself or my business because I believed that spending on myself (even my personal growth) was a waste of resources and that I was going to run out of money and become poor.
I wasn’t paying attention to these patterns and didn’t even know they could sabotage my business. It didn’t take long for my business to go down and all that I ‘feared’ happened.
The same thing happened to my first 2 blogs.
When I began analyzing why my business and blogs failed, I realized I was ignoring the ‘inner work’ or didn’t even realize it mattered.
And I also realized that my relationship with money was one of the reasons I failed. I learned there’s another side to money that I didn’t know of. The not-so-straightforward side of the coin is called Money Mindset.
As Tony Robbins rightly puts it, we don’t lack strategies in our life and business but we hold on to stories that don’t serve us.
Your money mindset story is the story you tell yourself or the beliefs you hold about money, its availability, and all. And it can hold you back from success as much as it enhances your business.
Your money mindset matters.
In this post, we will talk about what a money mindset is, a few examples, and how it sabotages your business and blog.
I believe that by becoming aware of how your unconscious beliefs around money might be holding you back, you become better-armed and empowered to fix it.
So let’s dive in.
What is Money Mindset?
Your money mindset is your unique and individual set of core beliefs about money and how money works in the world.
A money mindset is an overriding attitude that you have about your finances. It drives how you make key money decisions every day.
Your money mindset shapes what you believe you can and cannot do with money, how much money you believe you’re allowed, entitled, and able to earn, how much you can and should spend, the way you utilize debt, how much money you give away, and your ability to invest with confidence and success.
Your money mindset also shows up in the way you handle yourself in money talks: do you feel vulnerable and intimidated or confident and in control? Are you comfortable asking questions – either yes, because you feel safe asking; or, alternatively, no, because you’re shy and embarrassed? Do you have an unconscious belief that money is a man’s world and women shouldn’t bother about it?!
How is Your Money Mindset Formed?
Like many of our core beliefs, our beliefs about money are formed in early childhood by observing and internalizing the money messages we learned or heard from our parents, friends, community, and other caregivers.
Especially our parents.
As children, we keenly observed how the adults closest to us dealt with money and with life – did your parents fight about money, or were they calm and collected when family finances came up in conversation?
Was there enough money when you were growing up or was it a struggle?
How did your parents talk about other people and their money? Did they make snide remarks about the rich or the poor? Did they pay taxes or levies willingly or bad-mouth the government and complain about corruption?
If you were born into a family that believed that “people like us don’t get ahead” “we can never earn that much, nobody in our family has ever been that rich..” you might be holding onto a similar unconscious belief. And you might unconsciously be sabotaging every opportunity that could allow you to earn above what you believe you are allowed to earn.
Growing up in material comfort, with thoughtful, generous parents who speak with each other and about other people calmly and respectfully positively impacts your money mindset.
The historical era in which you grew up also influences your money mindset – and depending on where you are in line in the family, you and your siblings may have grown up in a different historical era and you may each have a different money mindset.
Your environment and growing up in certain countries also influence your money mindset. As you are expected to adopt the “this is how our people think or do it in this part of the world..” mentality.
Related: Mindset Tips for getting stuff done!
6 Ways Your Money Mindset is Sabotaging Your Business & Blog
1. You Don’t Invest
When you have the scarcity mindset you don’t invest in the offers or buy products that will help you uplevel, and you don’t outsource to free up time for yourself.
You don’t invest in a coach, course, VA, or anything that will help grow your business because you believe: “there’s never enough money,” “I can’t make enough,” “money’s running out and I’m going to be broke,” “that’s too expensive, I simply can’t afford it,”
You don’t hire the coach, you don’t buy the course, and you don’t self-host. You don’t outsource or pay for that service.
Instead of investing in a course or program that gives you access to strategies that have worked for the creator and saves you the time of trying and failing, you’d rather download all the freebies you can get your hands on and try to DIY your way to business success.
Saying no to things that will be beneficial to your blog and business in the long run because of money is bullsh*t.
Money is never about money, it’s about freedom.
So when we say no because of the money we “don’t have” we perpetuate this cycle.
I’m guessing the reason you started a business is that you wanted to be financially free.
So in order to get there, you’re going to have to take some risks. You’re going to have to keep showing up when it looks like it’s not working. You’re going to have to invest when it looks like you’ve lost your mind and it doesn’t make sense for your current reality.
In order to build a life where money is no object, money has to be no object.
When you’re building a healthy money mindset, it is important you figure out a way to trust yourself.
Because it is safe to trust yourself.
You will make more money. Often times when we buy a course that is aligned and we feel like we just need, the ROI is 3x the price.
Investing in yourself yields the biggest return and it’s never a waste. Trust that you’re worth it because you absolutely are.
New Money Mindset Affirmation: “I can’t afford NOT to invest in my business.” I can’t afford NOT to outsource and get help when I need help.” “My capacity to make money is unlimited…” Instead of saying “I can’t afford it,” say “I have other priorities right now.”
2. You’re scared to charge money, so you claim spirituality or confuse your business with your charity.
Yeah, I know. This doesn’t apply to you.
But it does to me. And I might probably be the only one on this table.
But it’s still worth putting out there just in case you happen to find yourself on this block.
I used to think that as a Christian, you are not supposed to price your services or products or price them high as that will be a sin or make you less Christian-like. So I struggled between balancing ‘free’ and ‘for profit’
The line that got me through my intimate relationship with this block was that I couldn’t help people and get paid. In my mind, there was something inherently wrong with supporting people to transform their lives and make money from it. It felt yucky.
Anyway, once I dug deep into my prayer life and in the work with my coaches, I realized that I had created this bullshit story that made me appear deep, spiritual, generous, kind, and a super good person. I had convinced myself that I felt bad about charging, and continuously gave too many free sessions, and free help, and underpriced my services.
Whatever your reason for not charging for your products or services is, it sends a bad signal.
Not charging at all puts you at the risk of losing your business, being overworked, unhappy, and resentful.
New Money Mindset Affirmation: There are many examples of wealthy, and business people in the Bible, buying and selling are also well spoken of and encouraged, so it is not a sin to charge for your services or be wealthy. Work, profitable work is encouraged.
3. Your Income Is Inconsistent
When you have trauma around money, it means something, somewhere (usually from childhood) told you something crazy and untrue about money that does not support your current reality.
One of the main ways this manifests in business is big ups and downs in income.
When we feel unworthy of money, we manifest struggle and lack.
When we feel like making money takes a lot of effort to get, we struggle to earn consistent money unless we work 60+ hours.
When we feel like money is limited, we always seem to run out of it for the things we want to do.
Aside from our inability to manage money, Inconsistent income always comes down to limiting beliefs we have about our earning potential.
Inconsistent income is not a result of being an entrepreneur. It is not a natural part of this path. That’s one of the many limiting beliefs a lot of entrepreneurs hold.
If you find that this is you, examine some of the things you think about money. Do you think money is hard to earn? Do you think money is evil? How much do you think is possible to earn at this current stage of business?
New Money Mindset Affirmation “It is possible and easy for me to earn a consistent income that is enough to fund my lifestyle, doing what I love”.
4. You Don’t Celebrate
When you’re steeped into the entrepreneurial world, you forget how amazing the stuff you’re doing actually is.
Like you had an idea one day, and you put aside all the human emotions like doubt, fear, and anxiety and you birthed it into the world.
That is incredible.
You are incredible.
And when your money mindset sucks, and you’re stuck in scarcity, you save every penny because you don’t know when the next one is coming.
Saving is healthy, wonderful, and a part of wealth building, but a lot of us do it from a fearful place.
A place that says, what if I never make any more money?
It all comes down to this feeling that there is a limitation on money.
You have to celebrate.
Whatever it is that you wanted so badly when you couldn’t afford it, buy it.
The book, the spa session, the shoes, the purse, the bracelet, the trip.
Buy. It.
The world will not end.
You should be doing this no matter what level you’re at.
I don’t care if you just made your first $100, celebrate.
I did this recently(2020), This blog is barely 4 months old at the time of writing this post and I made a couple of $$$$ from it this month(this post was first written on one of my blogs in 2020, I sold the blog, but the buyer wasn’t interested in mindset related stuff). I realized I haven’t been celebrating my wins or even noticing them. So I took out a large sum and got myself a new laptop. One I’ve always wanted to buy. When I held that laptop in my hands, I felt this rush of empowering emotions that I’ve not felt in a long long time. The gratitude, affirmation, and reinforcement of my new beliefs and methods made me promise myself to celebrate every win.
I promptly took myself out on a date a week later.
Because #goals.
The entire reason you want the money is to feel supported by it. So allow yourself to be supported. Whether it buying a bottle of wine or buying yourself a first-class plane ticket, enjoy where you are and the success you’ve had.
Because if not, you hustle and hustle and you finally reach the goal and feel nothing. You have to train yourself for the big stuff to feel like the holy crap stuff it is.
There is always more money to be made.
But you have to draw a line between celebrating a win and overspending. Support yourself, but don’t run yourself dry.
New Money Mindset Affirmation: “I celebrate every win, every new income break, because if I don’t celebrate me, who will?
5. You’re Undercharging
I know this is almost the same thing as point 2 above, but it’s worth stating that when you price something from a place of scarcity and little belief in your work it sounds a little like this:
“My target audience could never afford this”
“No one will pay me that much”
“No one would ever buy this at this price”
“This is only my first product so I shouldn’t charge that much”
Beliefs about what our clients will or won’t pay are directly linked to our beliefs about ourselves as business owners, bloggers, or coaches.
If you truly felt you were offering each client incredible value, you would have no problem charging increasingly higher rates. The problem here isn’t with the client, but with your confidence level.
So, It’s never about the price.
People invest in themselves and their businesses every single day.
People have the money or find a way to get it to solve their problem or pay for anything that promises them such.
So your job is not to obsess over your audiences’ perceived income (no matter who your audience is) and price what feels supportive and energetically satiating.
The fastest way to hate your life and business? Undercharging.
You will feel resentful, and if you have a service-based biz, you will burn out, be exhausted, and on the verge of a breakdown because you have to take 10 clients at a time to make ends meet.
Been there, done that. It sucked.
You have to reframe how you see pricing your work and products.
Selling is sacred, and charging is necessary.
Charging opens the channel for results.
In order for the buyer to actually get the results, energy has to be exchanged.
When people see higher prices, they associate it with higher value. Don’t be afraid to charge as much as your experience and confidence level will allow.
When you pay, you commit.
Just making the investment can uplevel someone in seconds.
We all know the danger of overpricing: You lose the deal. But underpricing can be just as perilous.
Price is often a proxy for quality, and when you put yourself at the free end, it signals that you’re unsure of your value — or the value just isn’t there.
Either send a bad signal to your prospective clients or attracts clients who don’t value your services.
Try this experiment: quadruple your rates and see what happens.
New Money Mindset Affirmation: “The right clients always pay what I ask.”
6. You Hold Back
When you’re creating freebies for your website or content for your social media, you hold back. You think to yourself: I shouldn’t be giving this away for free.
You save the “best stuff” for your paid offers and skimp out on your free content.
Scarcity 101.
People don’t buy something because of the content. They don’t care if they’ve heard it before.
You don’t need to focus on creating something new and original or whatever, you just need to focus on creating what you feel called to create.
You do not (and absolutely should not) hold back in your free content. Not the blog posts, or Instagram captions, or Facebook. Give away all the secrets, for free, and people will still buy them.
I recently shared my entire process for setting up my clients’ Pinterest account on Instagram and Facebook and went on to do a live. I remember a Facebook friend telling me “you won’t get people paying you to do this stuff anymore since you have given it away for free” I remember sending a smile emoji because I got 5 paying clients from that post alone
There’s a lot of proof of this but bottomline, is when you feel like you shouldn’t share all you’ve got because you think you should save it for something paid you don’t trust yourself to have better ideas.
There’s no way the one post you share is going to be the last brilliant thing that you think of.
Brilliant ideas are always trying to come through you, they will be created over and over again, there is no shortage of them, so don’t be afraid to give them away freely.
Giving away free things does not mean you won’t be paid.
There you have it, 6 ways your money mindset is sabotaging your business.