Many people spend most of their adult lives working through unresolved feelings or emotions they experienced as children, and your money story is likely an unresolved experience that you’re not quite sure how to approach today. For some, the tension and stress surrounding financial matters in childhood has never quite dissolved, regardless of whether your financial means have improved in the years since. Those barriers to feeling safe or secure in your money story continue to affect your financial decisions as an adult and can affect the decisions you make in your personal and professional life. Whether it means taking a less satisfying job that pays more securely or being unable to save because you inherited repetitive and exhaustive spending habits, your money story can be a serious barrier to financial security. If you’re unsatisfied or struggling with the impact of your money story, it’s time to consider rewriting the narrative around finance.
Changing the way you think about money, saving, budgeting, and spending influences every aspect of your life. Breaking down negative or imperfect financial mindsets is key to understanding how to rewrite harmful money stories and constructing a new money story built on financial security and support. There are a few different ways you can approach rewriting your money story. The first, as we’ve already discussed, is to identify your existing money story. Once you understand your past, you can begin to move through it and plan a journey into the future. Disproving your money story involves honest and sincere reflection on your childhood and on your current financial situation and goals for the future. It’s no easy task, but it is essential to the process of reshaping your financial future.
The most difficult part of rewriting your money story is often understanding that your financial security is not inherently tied to your personal value. Many people have grown to associate self worth and financial security: the more you have, the better off you are. If you’re used to lavish vacations and have a hefty emergency fund tucked away, you’re likely to feel more confident and self assured than someone who lives paycheck to paycheck and struggles to make rent. Self worth has never been equated with financial security, and to do so is an unhealthy and impractical approach to financial success. Only by embracing your current financial reality from a growth mindset that separates self worth and value from your bank account are you able to truly set goals for the future and create a positive and focused money story.
Once your new money story has been written, it’s time for you to seize the day and act on it. Actions have always spoken louder than words, so when it comes to your money story it’s time to put your money where your mouth is and invest in your new financial reality. Whatever your new money story is, it’s likely to contain a series of financial goals that will help you move toward fiscal freedom. Act on those goals. Take action and boldly pursue financial success and freedom. Only by trusting in yourself and your redefined relationship with money will you truly invest in a new money story that empowers and supports your financial journey.
