Become your best financial self, from within.

People like to ask me why I am in finance, I usually tell them “Because I love money,” and add a wink to my answer.

Of course, that is more than that. I am fortunate enough to be in an industry that I find interesting, and where I can use my strengths to serve my clients.

But interestingly, people usually give me a surprised facial expression when I give that answer.

It is like, they wonder why I am so brutally honest.

There is a bit of me wanting to ask them what the problem is, together with another bit of me that wants to yell — YES! I LOVE MONEY!!!

This kind of interaction often reminds me how a lot of people have this interesting perception of money.

Like even if money is not evil, it is not something moral to pursue.

I think it is tragic that people demonize money.

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So let me tell you what money really is before we start — Money is just a medium of exchange, and therefore it is neutral itself — being a medium of exchange means that, in order to receive money, you need to offer something in exchange.

That means money is a good indicator of how much value you are offering to the world.

Now, let’s talk about what money is not — it is not a magic pill that will make you happy, sexy, powerful, etc.

I am always annoyed when I hear people say that, ah, after I have earned all the money I have ever wanted, I realized that I was happier before blah blah blah.

I am always like, of course, money won’t make you happy, in fact, it won’t make you sad either.

Your thoughts are what determine whether you are happy or not, and of course, money can’t change who you are.

What values you hold and how you behave is totally up to you.

But you know what, money can help in your quest to be happy, it can give you the freedom you want if your circumstance no longer serves you, and money can really bring to light who you are as a person because it has such a magnifying effect.

Money can allow you to be more generous and make a bigger impact, but it can also paralyze you by the fear of losing your wealth to others or make you even greedier in your quest for money.

How you show up, is totally up to you and has nothing to do with money.

With that cleared up, I hope you are ready to create some better money beliefs! Because if you want to make more money and actually hold on to it, this step is crucial.

Why?

Because from the spiritual point of view, if you hold negative thoughts and energies towards money, then you are going to attract more negative experiences with money, think about being broke.

From a logical point of view, your negative thoughts about money won’t motivate you to pursue money, and again, you will be broke or not as financially sound as you want.

Before we get on with the healthy money beliefs, let’s briefly mention some of the poor ones most of us tend to have.

  • Money doesn’t grow on trees.
  • It takes money to make money.
  • Wanting money comes from a place of lack.
  • Money disappears fast.
  • Money creates trouble.
  • Becoming rich is difficult.
  • Money will destroy or corrupt your soul.
  • I was not born into a rich family, so I can’t become rich.
  • Rich people are greedy.

…and the list goes on.

Can you relate to some of these beliefs?

Take some time to journal about them and question their validity.

Now, for the good part — let’s learn about the healthy money beliefs that you need to start ascribing to if you want to lead a better financial life.

Money Belief 1 — Making Money Is Fun

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Now I know this one might rub you the wrong way but hear me out.

I know you might have beaten yourself up really bad with how hard it is to make money.

Maybe you’ve tried so many times and failed, and so you can justify your case.

But here is the thing.

You know when do you feel most accomplished?

It is when you have achieved those hard, or even impossible, goals.

Making money may not be easy, in fact, it can be hard, and that’s exactly why we need to do it.

I don’t want to live a life doing mundane and boring tasks that are a waste of my time here.

I want to be challenged and I want to stretch myself, and doing hard things allows me to just do that!

To turn that around, we do hard things exactly because they are hard, because it is fun and exciting to challenge ourselves!

Who knows how far we can go?

If you still feel anxious about making money, turn that anxiety into excitement, because psychologically, they generate almost the same feelings.

Will you attract more wealth into your life if you have such positive energy towards money? I bet you will!

Money Belief 2 — Money Is Everywhere

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The truth is that there is a huge amount of money, whether it’s dollars, pounds, yuan, etc., circulating the world at any given moment.

So, that means that money never disappears and goes to a specific place; rather, it’s ever around you.

What you need to be thinking about is how to get it into your pocket or bank account, and that’s where delivering value to the market comes in.

See, money is simply a resource and a reward for value, so to get it, you have to offer some value to the market.

Whether it’s a valuable product or service, you need to offer it to people so you can get a piece of the money that is ever circulating everywhere around you.

And lest I forget, don’t lock up your money or cut down expenditure in the hopes of making money or accumulating it.

Rather, start offering value to people in exchange for more money.

Money Belief 3 — There Is No Guilt to Making Money

Remember those negative money beliefs I talked about earlier?

The one that hit me the most is “Wanting money comes from a place of lack”, especially because that came from a spiritual friend.

For some time (ok maybe a week), that statement really made me wonder if I had a scarcity mind because what if, I pursued money because I felt like I am missing something, like validation?

This kind of self-inquiry is really useful because:

A. It allows me to realise that it also doesn’t seem right because I am so grateful for everything I have, not to mention that I also hold a master’s degree in self-love (yes it does exist); and

B. it reminds me that I still have inner work to do when it comes to my beliefs about money.

It took me some inner work to realize the liberating truth that I can pursue money just for fun, and just to see how much value the world thinks I am providing, and I can also pursue money because I know it will allow me to make a bigger impact.

Let me reiterate this — money is just a medium of exchange, and it is neutral, but it has this magnifying effect of showing to the world what kind of person you are.

Money can be a tool for good or evil.

The good examples include:

Warren Buffett, the Gates family, and other billionaires who have committed to giving at least half their wealth to charity through The Giving Pledge.

And let’s skip the evil examples.

Money cannot make you a good or bad person.

In fact, you’ll agree that people can be bad without money, and that’s why you hear things like, “I stole because of my family.”

There should be no guilt about making money.

Replace that guilt with joy, it’s what we need to keep the energy high!

Money Belief 4 — Your Past with Money Does Not Matter

Have you made some poor decisions with money in the past?

Did you lose a lot of it at some point?

I certainly have…

That does not matter, and neither does it impact our ability to make money in the present or future.

Although, they did provide us with some good lessons on how to make better use of our money, or better yet, how to manage our minds when it comes to money.

Get yourself back to the present and release those unnecessary fear about your financial future, and the first thing I would urge you to do is to reflect on how much value you are providing to your boss, your customers, and the world.

And please don’t measure your value in terms of your time commitment, no one cares, think of what kind of results you are providing and how much it means to the recipients.

If you do your best to over-deliver value to people over time, you will certainly make money and even recover or exceed whatever monies you lost in the past.

By the way, some great examples of entrepreneurs who have recovered from losses include Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, Soichiro Honda, founder of the Honda Motor Company, and J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter author.

I also want to share one of my favorite quotes with you “Courage is not the absence of fear, it is acting in spite of it” by Mark Twain.

Overcome your fear about money by actively building your wealth in spite of it.

Money Belief 5 — I Am Good at Making Money

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This has nothing to do with the amount of money.

You can make $1 or $1m, either way, you can be good at making that money.

The feeling is the same, so why not believe you are good at making an extraordinary amount of money?

Doesn’t that excite you?

It is not about being woo-woo and generating high frequencies for manifestation, although I am 200% after that.

It is more about reprograming your mind to start noticing opportunities, e.g., the education and connections, and being active in experimenting and pursuing them.

If you don’t believe in yourself or your capability of providing massive value to the world, no one else will.

Stand up for yourself and remove any limiting beliefs which are blocking you from success.

I hope you got some valuable pointers from this article. If you want to learn more about how to reclaim your emotional, spiritual and financial sovereignty, be sure to check out my pages / YouTube channel.