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In the journey towards financial enjoyment and empowerment, our mindset and how we FEEL in our bodies play an important role. How we think about money can significantly impact our ability to attract wealth and opportunities. Instead of viewing wealth-building as a daunting, overwhelming, and mundane task, let’s explore some fun and empowering exercises that can shift your perspective and cultivate a more relaxed, fun, and engaging money mindset.
Understanding Your Current Mindset
Our beliefs about money often shape our financial reality. We understood that we picked up many of our beliefs from our caretakers and parents. Up until about age 7-8, everything we are exposed to just gets absorbed into our brains and bodies. Our conscious mind doesn’t come online until around the age of 7, so we are like sponges, just soaking up all the beliefs that everyone has around money. First, identify the beliefs that you actually have about money. Then siphon off the beliefs that serve you and that you want to keep, and the ones that are limiting and holding you back from what you want to create in this world. I always like to look at beliefs as neutral. All of the beliefs that we have had were able to serve us on some level and at some point during our lives. We don’t have to “get rid of the beliefs” that we don’t want; we can just focus on the beliefs that we want to keep and create more often. Our neural pathways will naturally atrophy if we stop paying attention to the beliefs we no longer want to keep.
Exercise 1: Gratitude Journaling
One powerful exercise to foster a positive money mindset is gratitude journaling. Regularly reflecting on what you’re grateful for can shift your focus from scarcity to sufficiency and then to abundance. Begin by jotting down three things you’re grateful for each day. This is where people might get a little confused about gratitude. We’re taught to journal and list out the things that we are grateful for, but this is only part of the puzzle. We have to FEEL the gratitude in our bodies. Simply listing out what you’re grateful for won’t do it; you have to get into your body. So what are ways that you can become more connected with your body to feel what gratitude feels like?
In the beginning, I had to borrow the meaning of gratitude; I had to use an instance where I felt grateful for something, and I had to feel what that felt like in my body to get used to feeling what gratitude felt like. I would suggest that you don’t start with money because if money is already a triggering thing for you, our brains and bodies are typically in a heightened state (fight, flight, or freeze), so it might take more effort to get into gratitude. What you can do is find gratitude for other areas of your life that are neutral and not triggering at all.
For example, if you think about how freely your body is able to move, how the sun is always there to greet you in the morning, or the cup of coffee or tea that you get to drink and how it tastes, think of things that are small and bring you joy. The key here is to do this often, build up the neural pathways, and let dopamine circulate in the body. Remember that the body doesn’t know if you’re feeling grateful for the amount of money you have or if you’re feeling grateful because you are drinking your favorite glass of tea; it just feels the vibration.
Exercise 2: Visualization Techniques
Visualization is a potent tool for manifesting the life you desire. Like anything else, this is both practice and a skill. Sometimes, people will tell me they can’t visualize, and I always chuckle a little because we can all visualize. If I were to tell you, imagine a red car right now. Do you see it? What about a pink rose? What about you running down the street? We all have the capability to visualize; whether we are able to FEEL what it feels like in our bodies and be so connected to that vision is the question. I think so often we want to start at 1 and go to 100. For some of us, this is too big of a jump. We can start at 1 and visualize 2. Meaning, spend some time writing down what your life would look like if you had everything you wanted. There will be some details in there and in your day-to-day that you are already doing now, and then obviously there will be things in there that will be different. Visualize both.
We like to fantasize that our lives will be so different when we have everything we want, and I think that’s a fallacy. You’ll probably still get up on the same side of the bed you sleep in right now. You’ll probably still wash your face or drink the same glass of tea you already do now. There might be more space in your day to do the things you enjoy, or maybe your vacations get more luxurious, but there will still be some things that stay the same. So imagine both when you are doing this visualization practice. Just like an actor/actress rehearses their part so much that they basically become the character they are playing, the same goes with our visualizations. Just like gratitude journaling, visualization works when we feel what we are visualizing. Everything we want in our lives is because we think it’s going to bring us a feeling. So what are the feelings that you think the business of your dreams will bring you? The house you want to live in or the cars you want to drive? What are those feelings? Practice living that life now.
Exercise 3: Let’s talk affirmations
Affirmations are statements that can rewire your subconscious mind and are big in the self-development world. And just like anything else, they only work if you BELIEVE them, or, I should say, if your body (the subconscious mind) believes them. So if you are stating to yourself that you have 10 million dollars invested and your body is like, “The hell we do! ”It’s not going to work. I like to use affirmations in a couple of ways. First, if you are wanting to believe something new, then I like to use phrases like “I am in the process of” or “I am learning to believe” or “I am on my way to.”
So for example, if you want to create 10 million in assets, I would say I am in the process of creating 10 million in assets. That phrase, my brain and BODY can get behind. Also, pairing affirmations with things that you already do is highly helpful. So one way I would suggest is to say the affirmations as you are going from one task to another or moving from one room to another. Before you start a new task or get up from your desk to go into the kitchen, think about your affirmation, say it aloud, and link it with what you are doing. So if you are working in your business and you are getting up to go get a drink of water, you could say something like, “I am in the process of creating 10 million in assets because the work I just did in my business is getting me closer to that.” And then FEEL that in your heart and body. You want to link the thing you are doing to how it is helping you move toward the goals you are after.
Exercise 4: Generosity and Giving
The act of giving can have a profound impact on your wealth mindset, and it shows you and the Universe that you are abundant. We give because we have more than enough. And in Western society today, we have been led to believe that more than enough means millions of dollars in the bank account.
I believe more than enough is more than we need today. Most people believe they have to give large sums of money, so they wait to start giving until they can reach that amount. That’s not how it works. If you can’t give $1, $5, or $20 now, you won’t be able to give $100,000. You’re building habits, neural pathways, and higher-vibration emotions when you give. Think about money. We call it currency. Currents move. The ocean’s current. Electrical currents. There is giving and receiving. When you give your time or money, how do you feel? What emotions come up for you? Deciding on causes that you care about and contributing to them on a consistent basis, how they will get to use the energy (money) you give them, and how helpful it will be. Imagine that as you give.
Exercise 5: Identifying and Transforming Limiting Beliefs
Many of us hold onto limiting beliefs about money without realizing their impact. Take time to identify all your beliefs. Write them down on paper. Then decide powerfully which beliefs you want to keep and which ones you want to let go of. So often we have been taught that limiting beliefs are “bad,” but let’s be honest, they have served us and probably protected us along the way. They got us to where we are now. We can thank them and let them go. Beliefs like “money is scarce” have allowed me to save and invest for the last 20 years. All of our beliefs have a purpose at some point in time.
And also, I have realized that “money is scarce” doesn’t serve me anymore. In my body, that belief feels restrictive and contracting. Believing and knowing that “money is on its way to me” and that “money circulates” is a much more empowering belief for me. I feel expansion in my chest as I type that. I feel a freeing feeling in my body. There is no belief in the police. You get to decide and try on all the beliefs you have had and want to have and choose to relinquish the ones you want.
My Final Thoughts
Cultivating a fun and empowered money mindset is a journey that requires consistent practice and self-reflection. I’ve been on my money journey for the last 5 years. Well, I should probably say all my life because I truly believe that my higher self chose this path so that I could help the world change their relationship with money.
Seriously, though, changing our money beliefs and how we feel in our bodies takes time. We didn’t develop these beliefs overnight, and they don’t just disappear overnight either, and that’s OK. By embracing these exercises, you’re taking steps towards a healthier relationship with wealth and money. Keep in mind that every small shift in mindset can possibly lead to significant changes in your financial well-being.
As always, from my soul to yours,
Erin.