Posts Tagged ‘money mindset’

We all want to make more money.  I know this from the countless women I’ve coached over the years who have told me so.  The advice I give them on how to change their pricing strategies and how to creatively market their services seems simple enough at first glance.

So I’m often shocked and surprised when even after they follow my advice they still don’t seem to have enough money. So why is it even though a woman entrepreneur can make more money it doesn’t necessarily mean she will keep more money?

I know, it sounds unbelievable at first.  I mean if you’re working harder and harder at becoming successful, why does it seem to just slip through your fingers and out of your bank account?

Our relationship with money is a complex thing.  The reality is nearly ALL women have a secret, haunting issue with money that causes them to freak out and give away their power with money.  And when you lose your power, the cash is sure to follow.

Most possess a fear that somehow, having more money will change them or change their life in some way they can’t control.

So, while on the outside they do everything they can to be successful, on the inside, their mindset and beliefs are sabotaging their efforts.

If you, too, have created that endless struggle with never seeming to have enough money, even when you’re making more, then I know you’ll find these 3 tips really helpful in getting to the bottom of what’s really going on:

Money Will Change You

A lot of women are afraid they’ll turn into someone their not.  But truth be told, money doesn’t change you in that way.  It will magnify your values and your character but not change you into someone completely different.  If you were generous before. you’ll be more so with more cash.

On the flip side, if there are traits and values about yourself that you don’t particularly like then now’s the time to do something about them before you have more money.  Take the time to express your positive characteristics now and stand firm in what you stand for and eventually you’ll see that money will only enhance your quality of your life, not turn you into a mean and heartless bitch.

Who Are You Afraid of Offending?

I can tell you from experience that it’s not uncommon to have someone in your life who you think will be upset, jealous, threatened or disturbed in some way if you make more money.  Typically it’s a family member, but it could just as easily be a close friend too.

Does this feel vaguely familiar?  Ok, well it’s just fear you’re feeling, so go ahead and acknowledge the fear. If you really dig deep here this person more than likely wants the best for you.  They want you to be secure, safe, happy, etc.  So, focus on the positive intentions they have for you instead of focusing on what you’re afraid of.

What’s the Money For?

So, what’s your big money why?  If you don’t know, figure it out.

Making more is great and it allows you to indulge in life’s luxuries.  But once you’ve indulged a few times, eventually you’ll want to connect to your big why which has to do with your heart and spirit.  Maybe you want to finally own a home at the ocean or pay for your grandchild’s college education.

Knowing exactly and specifically what larger amounts of money are slotted for will help you value keeping more of it instead of splurging it on something that won’t change your life in any meaningful way.

Money Equals Self-Growth

Do you want to grow as a person?  Well, money is the perfect catalyst for your self-growth and development.  Not only will you delight in how advanced you become but your new income will give you the opportunity to make a profound and positive difference in the lives of everyone around you.

If you are really serious about making more money then listen up ladies.

You must stop undervaluing your time by spending it in ways that are so far below your skill level they are practically underground. You know what I mean here…the house work, laundry, errands, futzing around with your website, book keeping.  The list is endless.

If you want to make $100, $200 or even $300 or more then you must stop doing those types of tasks.

But how do you know what to delegate first?

Here ‘s a quick list and few tips to help you get started:

1.  Household chores, including running errands, house cleaning, laundry, cooking,  and food shopping to name a few.

2.  Business tasks such as answering emails, invoicing and paying bills, balancing the checkbook, ordering supplies, setting up conference calls and teleseminars, and publishing your newsletter are just a few of the tasks better delegated to your assistant.

Tip #1: Stop Bartering!  When you barter it sends a message of not valuing what you do or how much your worth.  Energetically it sends the wrong message – the message of limitation and lack.

Tip #2: Eliminate (fire) any clients that don’t meet the criteria on your “A” list.  We all have our ideal client in mind…start getting rid of those clients who don’t meet your ideals.

Tip #3: If you want to be a six or even seven figure business owner then you need to start thinking like one.  Ask yourself this question:  “How would a six or even seven figure business owner spend the next hour?  How would a six or even seven figure business owner handle this situation?  How would a six or even seven figure business owner delegate?”

Choose one of these simple ways to start valuing your time and implement it starting today!  Don’t delay – your six figure business is just around the corner!

I don’t know about you, but 2011 is starting out phenomenally for me and my family! I just finished my Money Breakthrough Certification and am ready to start working with women who want to change their money situation once and for all.

Stay tuned for more information, but for a sneak peak go to www.breakthrougyourmoneybs.com for my new FR’EE Mini-Course on Clearing Money Clutter! This mini-course gives you some phenomenal, but simple, strategies to start clearing away the clutter so you can start making room for more.

Here’s what one of my clients had said about this Mini-Course:

“I firmly believe that working with a coach like Maureen is the key to success. Being held accountable and masterminding helped me identify the real reason I was “stuck” in my business. I know I have had a breakthrough using the “Clearing Money Clutter Mini-Course.” In less than 2 weeks I was able to take the principles that Maureen taught me and apply them to clear the clutter in my life so I can make room for all the other things that I desire in my life and business. I do believe that “how you do money is how you do everything.” I feel more in control and look forward to more sessions with Maureen to move me further on my path to success!”

~ Janice Donovan | Market America/Transitions

Go ahead, get your fr’ee mini-course now!

www.breakthroughyourmoneybs.com

If you prefer to listen to this article, click here . . .

Your money story isn’t a fairytale, at least not for most of us. It’s that story made up from the past beliefs, words and actions that you observed in others as a child. It’s the things – albeit right or wrong – that you learned from your parents or caregivers when you were quite young.

How many of us heard the following statements from our parents growing up: “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, “Do you think I’m made of money?”, “We can’t afford it”, or, “Do you think there is a money tree growing in the backyard?” There are countless phrases that our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles said to us as kids. We know them all and those statements are part of what has created our money mindset. Sad, I know, but true.

Unfortunately, most of us have negative feelings about money. We have gathered all of the information that our family, peers, television and the media have told us about money and it has come together into what is now our negative money mindset. Some of our feelings may be conscious and others subconscious. It doesn’t matter if they are conscious or subconscious, they are there and they need to be tackled head on if you are going to make the money you desire!

Here are my quick tips to changing your money story:

1. Stop Ignoring Money and Start Paying Attention To It

Money needs to flow and it needs to be paid attention to. If you don’t pay attention to money it will find a way to get your attention. This will show up in ways you don’t want it to because you are not giving it the respect it deserves. So stop putting your head in the sand and take a good look at your current money situation and develop a strategy to deal with it head on. Here are three ways you can start paying attention to money:

Develop a Budget and Stick To It
We all understand the importance of developing a budget but many don’t follow through by sticking to the plan. Let me ask you: How do you expect to pay down your debt if you don’t have a plan? Your budget is part of that plan and a crucial part of your overall success strategy. So take pencil to paper and develop your budget NOW!

Pay Your Bills On Time, Every Time
Paying your bills on time is an important step in your money recovery plan. When you fail to pay your bills on time you are creating the energy of lack and scarcity and that leaves you feeling powerless over money. Many of my bills are paid automatically, some manually, but I pay them at the same time each month. Find a system that works for you and your money flow and stop ignoring your bills.

Track Your Money Daily
You don’t need a fancy system, just paper and pen. Put down the date and any money that was received each day. You may start out with some zeros on some days but eventually you will see money coming in everyday! This simple system really works…try it and see for yourself.

2. Find The Money Leaks In Your Business

Every business has money leaks. It may be that you are paying for a membership that you don’t use. Maybe you are paying someone by the hour and they take far too long to complete a task costing you hundreds of dollars in lost cash. There are countless ways that money leaks right out of our hands and back account. Find your money leaks and plug them so that you can have more money in your business and life.

3. Stop Using Negative Money Language

Spending money is always a choice about what you are prioritizing and what you value. But when you say things like, “I can’t afford it” or “I don’t have the money” it tells the universe that you are not open to receive the money that it is trying to give you. These statements are constricting, limiting and are based in scarcity and lack.

Instead say things like: “I am worth it” or “I choose to invest in myself and my business.” Not only is the language really important but what’s behind the language; the mindset is really important too. Start focusing on what you say and stop using language that sends the wrong message to the universe.

When you start to pay attention to money, it will begin to flow into your business and into your life. So pick one of these tips today and change your money story.

Being willing to look at the situation and telling the truth were the first steps in helping you move towards a big Money Breakthrough.  But we still have some emotional work to do before we start down the road to taking the kind of action that will help you create new money habits.

In keeping with our goal of preventing you from getting caught up in the buying frenzy this holiday season, I want to examine the fears that motivate us to shop till we drop.

What Are You Afraid Of If You Don’t Spend Like Crazy?

Boy, do I remember vividly the day I had to tell my daughter I didn’t have the money to have the usual Christmas.  Our “usual” consisted of my daughter giving me a list of things she just “had to have” and me going out and getting her all of it.  You read it right, ALL OF IT!

Pictures speak a thousand words so I’ve included one so you fully get the idea.  Every gift under that tree is for my daughter!

There was a time when I would look at those photos and feel sick.  Thank goodness I can look at them now and not feel those same feelings of dread, despair, and nausea.

So when I started to delve into my own money habits, fears, beliefs and mindsets I knew I had to answer the biggest question of them all: “What am I afraid of if I don’t spend like crazy?”

Fear motivates us to do all sorts of things.  In this case, fear was driving my need to shop my life away.  But in the beginning I wasn’t sure what I was afraid of.  It took some time and digging before the fear revealed the truth of the situation.

Our fears are motivated by underlying needs. Maybe you over spend because you have an underlying need to be loved. Or, maybe your shopping fills the need to gain status or recognition.  No matter what the underlying need, trust me, there is one to your over shopping and over spending.

Now is the time to evaluate it and determine, “what need am I trying to fill?”

This part of the process takes some real self-reflection because at first the need may not be very clear to you or possibly you may feel like you have competing needs that must be fulfilled.

This exercise isn’t for the faint of heart.  This type of self-recrimination pushes us past our feeling of complacency and pain and moves us forward towards the life we really want. The alternative is to be stuck in the same place with the same fears for the rest of our lives.  If that’s what you want, then heck, don’t bother reading anymore and go out and keep on spending, feeling guilty, and being in debt.

Here’s my suggestion:  get out a notebook and pen and start journaling your thoughts and feelings about what‘s coming up for you.  Review it from time to time and see if you can identify a pattern in your thoughts.

You more than likely will start to see a clear picture of where you have been deluding yourself and the actions steps may clearly begin to form in your mind.

Action – that six letter word that changes everything.

Each and every day I am lucky enough to impart extraordinary information to help my clients move from frustrating five figure income into six and even high six figures.  Most of what I share with my clients is about the money mindset shifts one needs to make in order to be a successful entrepreneur.

Mindset in combination with using my keen intuition and facing my fears are the foundation for the success me and my clients have had in our businesses.

Now, just to be clear, mindset is more than just reading some fancy, squishy feeling affirmations every day.  Your mindset is those deep rooted beliefs that you hold near and dear to you and would take an atomic bomb for you to let go of.  These beliefs help you through all of your challenges both business and personal.  Ultimately, your mindset helps you to make the decisions that change your life.

So here’s a list of mindset secrets to help you succeed in business and become that high six figure entrepreneur!

• Face your fears; never let fear influence your decision making ability
• Use challenges to spark your creativity and solve problems
• Never tolerate excuses from others or from yourself
• Believe “Where there’s a will there’s a way”
• Understand there’s real power in asking for help
• Knows that obstacles are a reason to strengthen your commitment to your bigger why
• Graciously welcomes new learning opportunities from teachers, mentors and coaches
• Know you can do, be and have anything you want
• Never, ever play the victim
• Holds firm to boundaries and stand solid in your personal power
• Knows that “NOW” is the right time
• Understands that fear and doubt are not truth
• Let’s go to grow
• Appreciates the growing and learning process and see the results in the transformation of your business
• Practices the attitude of gratitude
• Invest in the best mentoring and coaching

Print out this list and put it on your cork board or wall and reflect on the mindset secrets every day.

How you do money is how you do everything.

I posted that in my money reflections section of my newsletter last week.  I didn’t get one question or comment about it which I thought was kind of strange.

Could it be that everyone understands this statement?  I honestly didn’t think it was possible that everyone understood the statement so I decided to write a piece today that digs deeper into the statement.

Because we live in a universe that is made up of energy it’s safe to say that money is energy too.  Makes sense, right?  Which means if this energy is everywhere and money is energy too, our relationship with money is a symbol of our relationship with everything in our lives.

When you work at improving one area of your life usually other areas are improved as well.  So it’s safe to say when we improve our relationship with money other areas follow suit and get better and better.

So, how you do money is how you do everything.

Think about it this way…

• Do you feel like you ever have enough money? Do you have enough time?
• Do you have a tendency to waste money?  Do you often feel like you are wasting your time?
• Do you know how much money you have in your bank accounts?  Do you have an adequate picture of your physical health?

The goal here is to wake up and start recognizing where we are unconscious and to start changing our habits and beliefs to ones that better suit us.  By doing so we can start to conduct ourselves and stand more powerfully in our lives.

Money and the energy associated with it allows us to do just that.

“My clients won’t pay more!” Have you ever said that?

I did… A long time ago before I started working on my money mindset issues, I used to say it quite frequently when I would start to even consider charging more for my services.

The fact of the matter is we never really know what someone is willing to pay for our services and we definitely don’t have the right to assume anything about our clients. And truth be told most, not all, will pay more for your services.

Now this isn’t true in all industries but it does hold true for some. If you’re a coach, consultant, or other service-based entrepreneur it will hold true.

But that’s really not the point. The point of the matter is what you believe about money and your ability to make more is what’s at stake here.

Change your mindset and you change how much money will flow to you. It’s really that simple.

I hear it all the time…”I want to charge more for my services.” When I ask, “What’s stopping you,” I usually get a look of panic and hear words that are filled with fear and doubt. Hearing their “money words” is an important first step when I work with a client.

Why? Because, it tells me a great deal about their money habits and beliefs.

I recently spoke with a woman who was interested in joining my mastermind program. She was letting fear and cost stand in the way of her stepping up to the plate. Instead of investing in the program, she decided it was better to play it safe and small. She made statements like, “I can’t afford it,” “I don’t have the money” and even “I don’t know if it will be of benefit to me.” These are words that are rooted in fear and lack, and will have a direct impact on your ability to raise your own fees and up your prices.

So what kinds of words will let you stand in your power around money? Talking about money in ways that are rooted in abundance and power like, “I value myself enough to spend money on this program that will greatly benefit my business” or “I would love to spend that kind of money on (fill in the blank)” or even “Things that cost more have a higher value.” Do you feel the difference in these statements?

When you use words that are powerful you automatically shift your belief about YOU and what’s possible in your business and life. You’re creating a shift deep within yourself that values quality, which recognizes that good things DO cost more and are worth it.

Next time you hear yourself using language that is rooted in lack, I want you to stop and instead use your power — words that can help you make the shift from lack to abundance.

Why do so many people play it small?

Because of fear — simple as that.

Fear of what? Fear of failure or even the fear of success. But most people fail because they feel unworthy, not good enough, small or just not important.

Unfortunately, our culture has made us believe for many years that it is all about us as individuals. That is absolutely not true!

Feelings of self worth can best be cultivated when we are in service of others. When we focus on the greater good and begin to add to the value of other people’s lives are self worth increases.

You have gifts and talents and those gifts were given to you so that you could share them with others. Sharing those talents means you must begin to start playing it big, to start stepping into your greatness.

When you start playing it big you will begin to see and immediate shift not only in your own self worth but your bank account will begin to reflect your greatness as well.

Playing it small usually means a small bank account. If you want more money then I suggest you start using those gifts and talents to impact others. When you do, the money will follow.