What are your beliefs about money (and success) that are keeping you back? Here are 11 false beliefs about money and what to do about them.
You Serve Money
First and foremost, get this relationship correct: Money serves you, never the other way around.
If you believe that you are a slave then you will carry an undercurrent of bitter resentment.
Rather, think of money as your faithful, good, and obedient servant. Money is a vehicle that allows you to live comfortably and helps you to do good in the world.
The Rich Are Crooked
Many people incorrectly believe that the rich acquired their wealth through ill-gotten ways. I can hardly blame them. Turn on the news and you hear about white-collared crooks swindling billions of dollars from thousands of investors.
Yet, I have also met many wealthy people who just want to make a difference in the world with what they have to offer. Many support philanthropic causes.
I Don’t Want to Become a Snob
Having money hardly makes one snobby. Yet, some people do hold the belief that the affluent are picky, prissy, prim, and too proper for the rest of society. This is as far removed from the truth as television is a reflection of reality. Most wealthy and successful individuals are humble and very giving.
Money Isn’t Everything
Usually, people who say this also believe that money can’t buy happiness. They mistakenly think that in order to be happy they must also live in poverty. Or at the very least, just enough to get by.
I don’t know about you. But I would rather be wealthy and miserable than poor and miserable. With money, I can always buy time so that I can find what brings me joy and happiness.
Living with an abundant mindset means having the best of both worlds. It means to be wealthy and happy.
I Don’t Know How to Receive
Do you know what your services are worth if you were to run your own business? Do you know how to ask for money?
After removing malware from a friend’s computer at her place of business, she wanted to pay me for my services. I didn’t know how to ask for money at the time so I said to forget about it since it took me less than an hour to do so. Fortunately, I would learn a lesson that day about how much my services are worth
She insisted on paying me, and it was then that I realized that you have to ask in order to receive. I also relearned a basic tenet of providing services: Sure, it might have taken me less than an hour to fix her computer. But it took me twenty years of concentrated study and countless hours in front of a computer to learn these skills, among many others.
Lack of Gratitude
Just as I didn’t know how to receive, I also failed to express gratitude whenever I would find a dime or quarter just laying on my garage floor. Having an attitude of gratitude is important to reframing your mind in order to expand your awareness and start looking for what’s possible. Too many of us hold a narrowness of mind by concentrating on what we don’t want.
It is in expressing gratitude that we open ourselves more to receiving.
So now, whenever I find a quarter on the floor or a dollar in a pair of freshly laundered jeans, I express gratitude.
Poor Self-Image
How you view money, your relationship to it and the value you provide to facilitate its reception is important, too.
If you believe yourself undeserving of money, then you will push it away long before it ever comes your way. If you want someone to offer you a six-figure salary, then you better believe that you are deserving this number long before you ever ask for it.
Money Tore My Family Apart
Folks whose parents struggled to make ends meet, living from paycheck to paycheck, likely believe that money tears families apart. I held a similar belief. My parents worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, all to just remain at the poverty line. As a result, I hardly ever saw them or spent time with them. For us, money was always that mysterious entity that was elusive to come by.
Overtime, I have come to accept money as an inanimate object. My failings with money are just that—my failures. It was up to me to adopt a different set of beliefs and to see money as nothing more than just pieces of paper to which we assign value, be they good or bad.
I dedicated myself to study and specialization, for the world pays handsomely and well for specialized knowledge in which you help to solve problems. After all, that is the reason businesses exist.
I Know Jack Sh!t About Money
This was a hard one for me to accept. Yet, once I accepted responsibility for my own shortcomings things started to change for the better. I adopted a whole new set of beliefs about money, such as the ones you read about today. I also realized that money is simply an indicator of success. The more specialized knowledge we hold and the more we are able to apply that knowledge, the more successful we are.
Wrapping up
Astute readers likely noticed a common thread running through the above reasons: blame. We tend to blame money for our problems. It’s silly to blame pieces of paper and metal for our own problems. When we stop living as victims and start taking the initiative then wonderful things start happening in our lives.
We set goals, but realize that goals aren’t about getting. They are about growing. In the end, as Earl Nightingale puts it, “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal.”
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