Click to subscribe in a readerAltering Your Financial Identity
In order to move to an improved financial position, you have to create a new financial identity. If, for example, your financial life is characterized by underearning, constant financial worry, or longing for more and you want to experience abundance and security, your concept of your financial self has to change.
In order to replace financial discomfort of any kind with financial peace and prosperity you have to develop the thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors of a person who always has more than enough and never worries about money.
For many people, this means making major alterations in how they deal with themselves and the world around them. I don’t think, for example, that a person who has been underearning for many years, can rapidly evolve into a person who is well-paid or runs a consistently profitable business.
That’s why, for the majority of people, prosperity programs don’t work in the long run. Altering the characteristics of your financial life takes commitment and conscious attention, over an extended period of time.
You need to know two things: where you are now and where you want to be a few years. Not just financially, but also emotionally. Then you can develop a strategy for gradually altering the thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors that contribute to your current position.
Start by honestly defining where you are now. Perhaps you have already started altering how you deal with money. Start with where you are now, not where you were when you first started changing. Write down how you think and feel about your finances, what beliefs you harbor about what you deserve and what being wealthy means, and how you behave with money. (See the chart in Exercise 1 in Build Your Money Muscles.)
Then write down how you want to be thinking, feeling, and behaving two years from now. Also choose a realistic goal in terms of increased earnings or net worth. Doing this opens the door to decided which steps you want to take in order to develop your new financial identity.
There is no magic answer and unless you are expecting a large inheritance, no one is going to swoop down and drop a load of money into your life. You have to move in a new direction and planning how you will move is up to you. Once you make the plans, it’s up to you to take action.
Coming Very Soon:
Build Your Money Muscles for Financial Strength & Security. A six-month program guaranteed to move you to a healthier financial position.
Joan, What you say always makes so much sense. I have your book and it’s been years since I looked at it. I realize now it’s time to take it back out. Changing a long standing belief system and habit patterns is a daunting task and I can feel the resistance when I do affirmations, journal or whatever technique is suggested to move this mass of mind matter from unsupportive to supportive! I honestly don’t know why my mind is stuck where it is, and no matter what I’ve done, I have not been able to get it unstuck, but recently I’ve noticed people and ideas coming into my life to support me in getting unstuck. So what I now realize has been missing for me, that has always been a major challenge, is to just surrender and let go. My mind cannot grasp how to do this and that’s why I think I’ve been stuck. So I recently told my mind that letting go is not something to do, as a matter of fact, it is the exact opposite of doing something–it is NOT DOING! Tell that to a busy mind! Thank you for this inspiring message and I look forward to moving into a more positive & productive financial identity!