There’s no better time than today to start having a legendary love affair with your money.
Think of it this way…
Money is like the perfect romantic partner. All it wants to do is serve you, support you and protect you.
All money requires in return is for you to respect and appreciate it by taking good care of it.
In other words, money needs your attention. It needs your understanding. And it needs to feel valued.
Transitions can be a bitch! They tend to shake up our routines and perspective. Moving to a new city, starting a new project, or even deciding to change a daily habit can feel disorienting, unsettling.
I remember right after divorcing my gambling husband, I was determined to take charge of my money, to be a positive role model for my 3 young daughters. But the fear of failure would stop me before I even began.
However, as I’ve come to see, transitions are invitations. They’re designed to stretch us, to push us out of our comfort zone–where success always lies.
Growth usually comes disguised as discomfort. It’s easy to resist it, to wait until it feels “safe” or “the time is right.” But the right time is always now.
As the Chinese saying goes; “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years. The second best time is today.”
If success seems to elude you, here’s a guaranteed approach for finding it. Do what you don’t want to do, are afraid to do, think you can’t do.
Whenever you decide to do something different—whether it’s making more money or changing careers—success always lies just outside your comfort zone.
The only way you’ll succeed is by stretching beyond what feels comfortable to what may seem impossible.
The ability to tolerate discomfort by doing what might not feel good, but doing it anyway—is the only way you’ll ever find financial success.
For us pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding creatures, that’s a very tall order. It’s certainly not comfortable to face up to a challenge, acknowledge a problem, and it’s especially unnerving to eschew our habitual ways of handling them.
Yet, that’s exactly what’s required. The real work in raising the bar is to stop doing the same old thing you’ve always done, to try out new strategies, to ignore false alarms, to resist the urge to quit, and refuse to fall back into familiar terrain.
We all have internal critics. The ones that tell us what we can’t possibly do, how we’re sure to screw up if we even try.
Those voices may never shut up. Mine sure haven’t.
But recently I had an epiphany. Just because I hear voices in my head, doesn’t mean I have to heed them.
If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint.’ by all means paint and the voice will be silenced. ~~Vincent Van Gogh
Instead of listening to that voice, I just keep reminding myself: that’s not my voice. It’s the voice of my dad, the culture, teachers, something ‘out there.’ But it isn’t mine.
Years ago, I trusted my husband with my money. He was a stockbroker after all. But, alas, he lost almost everything. After our divorce, I was terrified to trust anyone again.
Then at some point it dawned on me. I couldn’t just ignore money. I needed to start trusting myself. But how? I was financially clueless.
If you’re in a similar situation, let me introduce you to what I’ve come to call the Trinity of Trust. It’s how I began the journey of reclaiming my power and trusting myself to take financial responsibility.
THE TRINITY OF TRUST:
As I spent time connecting with each point on this triangle, I found myself building a firm foundation of trust in myself, in others who were trustworthy, and in my Higher Power.
Financial abuse is a serious form of domestic violence, but no one ever really talks about it.
While financial abuse is devastating, many, like me, may be totally unaware it’s happening to them.
In the beginning, financial abuse can be so subtle it’s easily misinterpreted as a loving gesture.
“I don’t want finances to stress you,” my first husband would say to me. “Let, me take care of the money and I’ll give what you need.”
However, as in my case, the abuser’s efforts to control will, in time, escalate into intimidation, threats of violence and often, physical harm.
How do you know if you’re a victim? Here are 10 Red Flags. Read them carefully and circle the ones that apply to you:
She had just separated from her husband, moved to a new town and was trying to restart the coaching business she’d put on hold.
Yet she kept procrastinating doing the things she needed to do.
“I feel stuck,” she sighed. “Like I hit a brick wall.”
“You’re not stuck,” I told her. “You’re in transition. And transitions are a bitch.”
I spoke from experience. I remember, back in the 80’s, when I moved to San Francisco, a dream come true. But as soon as I settled in, I sank into a confusing funk. This wasn’t what I expected.
That’s when I read Transitions: Making sense of Life’s Changes by Bill Bridges and understood what was happening. A transition is a gradual psychological process of reorientation to the new situation.
Primitive societies had rituals to give meaning to life’s transitions. Members were taken out of their villages, into the wilderness, where they didn’t know what was going to happen next.
How often do we use money like Novocain, spending freely to numb the pain in our lives or the pressures at work? But instead of making things better, it just gets us deeper into trouble.
Yet we justify our shopping sprees with thoughts like, “I’m going through a divorce. I deserve this,” or “I hate my job. At least I can enjoy my life.”
What gets us into trouble isn’t the spending, but our self-deception. It’s called denial. And denial can generate considerable debt.
Getting out of denial is a prerequisite for prosperity. Credit card debt is insidious, but not insurmountable.
One day, I was glancing at the Wall Street Journal, when 5 words leapt off the page—”The survival of the focused.”
I knew those five words carried a powerful message. A message High Earners understand very well. But one Underearners have failed to grasp.
Financial Success belongs to the focused.
Without focus, it’s easy to get sidetracked by multiple distractions fighting for your attention. But with focus, conflicting objectives cease to control you, making it easier (and less stressful) to take decisive action without second guessing.
What’s the trick to getting focused? Prioritize. Put your attention exclusively on your priorities. All else goes on the back burner.
Here’s a foolproof strategy for getting unstuck. You must let go of where you are to get to where you want to go.
Clinging to the security of the familiar ledge prevents us from discovering what awaits us in the future.
The ledges in our lives offer the illusion of safety, but in truth their only value is to keep us hanging.
These ledges take many forms, both concrete and intangible. They can look like unfulfilling jobs, unpleasant relationships, inappropriate goals, untrue beliefs, unhealthy habits, bottled-up emotions.
Every successful woman I interviewed who finally let go told me:
