If you’re a fan of Dana Carvey and Mike Myers, you know their famous line as Garth and Wayne from Wayne’s World – I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy!
If you’re a fan of Dana Carvey and Mike Myers, you know their famous line as Garth and Wayne from Wayne’s World – I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy!
If you have struggled with your relationship with money, you may be having difficulty with the concept of feeling worthy of achieving financial independence and financial success. Here are 7 tips to get you thinking, and acting, like the winner that you are.
When it comes to achieving financial success in your life, one of your most valuable assets is your ability and capacity to make clear and decisive financial decisions. Procrastination, the opposite of decision, is by far the most challenging hurdle to overcome if you’re to reach your short as well as long-range financial goals.
Reaching Decisions Promptly
Imagine being an investor at the time of the Crash of 1929 and realizing that you lost all of your savings that was invested in the stock market. Picture the images of distraught businessmen leaping out of buildings and the poverty that followed in the years of the Great Depression.
These images burn in the minds of those who lived through it and will forever be associated with the risk of investing. The risk of the market alone wasn’t what caused people to jump to their deaths, rather, it was the enhanced risk caused by leverage. People were investing beyond their means by buying on margin, and as a result lost more than they had invested; in many cases, they lost more than all of their net worth.
I came across an article in the Journal of Financial Planning that really opened my eyes to how our brain works in terms of making financial decisions. The title is Money on Your Mind: The Brain’s Role in Financial Decision-Making.
Now you’re probably thinking, it sounds like a pretty wonky publication, but It's really not. If you’re at all interested in the role emotional intelligence plays in your relationship with money and investing, you have to read this case study. If the memory of the DJIA dropping over 900 points in one day is still a vivid memory, this is a must read.
If you need a good old fashioned hit of U.S. optimism, check out this article by David Brooks in the New York Times - it made my day.
From the start of the financial crisis right up until today, we have been bombarded with story after story of how much wealth was vaporized from the global financial system. It seems all the news is about dollars and cents. How much did your 401k or 403b go down? How about your IRA’s, your home value? Everything is focused on the material-money, and little conversation is had discussing the emotional, physical and spiritual ramifications this crisis is having on regular people’s lives.
As a financial planner working mainly with couples, I see firsthand the damage this crisis has had and continues to have on relationships. Let’s face it; money is a tricky enough subject to deal with when things are good. But when the s**t hits the fan, whether it’s a job loss, too much credit card debt, too much spending, not enough saving, you name it, the inability to communicate and resolve conflict grows and grows and the risk to your relationship grows as well.
Imagine having peace of mind. How does that make you feel? What image or thought enters your mind? I think for many people, it’s a feeling of abundance, of having enough of what you need and then some. Perhaps most importantly, in this state of consciousness, money worries are non-existent and you feel financially secure. So how do you get here?
First, you need to ask yourself how much is enough? If you have a significant other, this is a money and lifestyle conversation that offers you both an incredible opportunity to set common goals and work as a team.
As I was asking a new client to describe her earliest memory around money, she started recalling how her parents dealt with money. She remembered how often they disagreed about managing their money, how often she remembers hearing her Dad say how “you kids are going to drive us into the poor house”. She grew up in Long Island and was raised in a Irish Catholic family with 9 kids. There was a constant sense of scarcity in her life and that feeling of never having enough stayed with her as adult and permeated her relationship with money in many ways that were unconscious. At the current age of 58, and by all intents and purposes, very well off financially, she still feels, after all these years, that if she’s not careful, she’ll wind up in the “poorhouse”.
The reason I bring this story up is to remind all the parents reading this post of how powerful your words and actions are when it comes to your relationship with money. What you say, or sometimes what you don’t say about money is being recorded by your kids for future use. How you spend, save and earn money as well as how you talk about it has a huge impact on your children’s future relationship with money.