It is meant to indicate that money, or the lack of it, impacts your quality of life: where you live, the food or transportation you can/can’t afford, the education/job you have access to and so on.  It is also meant to demonstrate the very significant connection between your money story and your life story.

Your money story is an integral part of every word and chapter of your life story; it has much to teach you when you listen to it.

First and foremost is that your current financial circumstances are the result of your past money story.

When you realize how true this is you can begin to recognize the potential benefits of this insight.  They are many beginning with:

• A clearer understanding of the role of money in your life.
• The chance to recognize financial patterns.
• How healthy your relationship with your money is/isn’t.
• How well your thoughts, feelings and attitudes about money serve you.
• Weather you need/want to rethink your financial behavior.
• The opportunity to learn from past mistakes, rather than to keep repeating them.
• The ability to begin the journey to a better financial future.

Obviously, there are many steps required to make the shift from passive to proactive author.  The good news is that once you make the choice to do so there are countless ways for you to succeed.   It may not be as easy as you might wish, but it will most likely not be nearly as difficult as you might anticipate.

Making the choice is always the first step and if you read this blog regularly you know that making the commitment is the next one.  With those two steps in place you are much more prepared to write future chapters with better outcomes.

Begin by attending our FREE webinar at 2 PM Eastern today:  Everyone has a Money story: How Well Do YOU Know Yours?   https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/418746992

Of course, your money story is only one part of your life story, admittedly a crucial one, so today’s blog provides the context from which to examine your money story as it relates to your life story.  Both begin at birth and their chapters unfold over days, weeks, months and years.

Your story doesn’t start with “once upon a time,” nor does it include the “happily ever after…” learned in childhood because it is not a novel.  It is, instead, the reality of your days.  Each chapter is unique and deserving of your attention.  

However, only by paying attention to your story’s central theme are you able to begin to write better and different chapters.  The story of who you are today isn’t one that happened to you.  It is one based upon the choices you’ve made and the outcomes which resulted.

If where you are in your life today isn’t where you want to be, it is likely you haven’t been proactive in the management of your life (and your story.)  If you are ready to create change in your life and your story then there is much you can learn from previous chapters.

Do you think of you life as a story?  You are always sharing parts of it with friends, family and new acquaintances as you recount things that have happened recently or in the past.  As its author you edit your narrative with each retelling.

Regardless of whether your story revisions are large or small, conscious or subconscious, all are purposeful; each provides the opportunity to learn more about your life, from your story.

Are you familiar with your most common story modifications?  Are they exaggerations or minimizations; are they falsifications or eliminations?  When you are ready and willing to explore why you alter your story the way you do you will begin to discover how to write chapters less in need of editing.

Get started by attending our FREE webinar this Wednesday (February 22^nd) at 2 PM Eastern:  Everyone has a Money story: How Well Do YOU Know Yours?   You can register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/418746992

Wednesday’s blog will be on “YOUR $$ Money $$ Story”

I am excited to have the opportunity to provide specific materials and information to you because you are the future of my work and you each play such a critical role in the lives of your clients, regardless of how/whether you are explicitly practicing Financial Social Work.

photo credit: Easa Shamih (eEko) | P.h.o.t.o.g.r.a.p.h.y

You view your money through the lens of your financial experiences.  It’s a lens as personal as the color of your hair or the size of your shoes; one which can work for you, but too often works against you because you forget to change it.

Much as the tint of your sunglasses determines how the world looks to you when the sun shines the lens through which you view your money impacts your financial circumstances on a daily basis.  Your money lens colors your relationship with your money by presupposing that your current financial situation is permanent, rather than transitory which is never an accurate interpretation, since all financial circumstances require work, attention and nurturing; when these are consistent circumstances improve and when they are not financial circumstances decline.

Which lens best describes how you view your financial life:

Hopeless:  Overwhelmed by debt and/or lack of financial and emotional support or resources; feeling vulnerable and unable to change your lens or your financial situation due to the lack of financial knowledge and/or the absence of HOPE.

Pessimistic:   Feeling as if you have no reason to believe or to anticipate that given your current job/lack of job, the economy, your credit score, your credit card debt and/or lack of money management skills  that your financial circumstances are likely to improve.

Tolerable:  Getting by but just barely.  Paying current bills and making minimum debt/loan payments but having more month than money, no savings, no assets, no emergency fund, etc.  

Optimistic:  Current with bills, reducing debt/student loans, using a “Personal Spending and Savings Plan,” building an emergency fund and working to take control of your money.

Stable:  Reduced/eliminated debt (student loans), using a “Personal Spending and Savings Plan,” have an emergency fund, savings and building assets, improved/improving credit/FICO score(s), managing your money rather than allowing your money to manage you.

Why did you choose your particular lens?  Did it describe you accurately?  What additional factors could be added to that lens that would make it even more applicable?  Which lens would you like to transition to?

What are two things you need to do to make that move?   Don’t wait to get started!

• You respect?
• You understand?
• Whose life has meaning?
• Who is moving in the direction of a better future?

The person you see is the reflection of your personal expectations: filled and unfulfilled.  It isn’t the person you are, rather it is that person blurred by self doubts and your inner critic whose sole purpose is to prevent you from understanding your real worth, or acknowledging you achievements, abilities and life.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”  Anais Nin

Your reflection will remain out of focus until you are connected to your truest self and to what matters most to you.

In these difficult and challenging economic times, it may seem easier to sacrifice who and what you could be and have, in order to accommodate who and what you already have and are.  It can seem simpler to give in, give up and give way your hopes, dreams and wishes, but payment is in sense of self and self-esteem and never ever worth the cost.

When you:

• Avoid your own truths to accept the truths of others;
• Choose to stop trying to make a difference to accept indifference;
• Place your future at risk by sacrificing your present sense of purpose;
• Relinquish your own goals in order to help others to achieve theirs;

You inevitably fail yourself in order to satisfy others thus losing your ability to see yourself clearly.

If the image you see isn’t the image you want to see, your mirror doesn’t need cleaned or replaced.  What needs to happen is for you to identify your values and the principles by which you want to live.

These will connect you to your truest self and provide you with the ability to realign you mirror image!

• Make a clear and conscious choice to do so.  All change is grounded in individual, emotional and personal choice.  If you believe you have no choices in any situation in your life you are wrong because everyone has choices.  Most likely it is actually that the choices you have aren’t the choices you want; when that is the case it is critical to understand that by making better choices today you will create more and better choices tomorrow and on into the future.
• In twenty-five words or less explain the benefits of making this choice.  This can be in paragraph form or in list format.
• Identify three to five specific actions you can/will take to achieve the benefits you identified in step #2.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST | Register for FREE!

photo credit: joiseyshowaa

Past chapters of your money story reveal how your current financial situation evolved from childhood messages received/perceived.

More recent chapters demonstrate how those messages were internalized and actualized with regard to financial safety, stability and security.

If you want to write future chapters featuring increased emotional stability and improved financial circumstances this webinar is for you.

Join us to learn how to:

• Understand what your money story contributed to your current financial situation.
• Prevent your past money story from determining your financial future.
• Benefit from the lessons your money story has to teach you.
• Become the author of future chapters with more positive outcomes.

Registration is Free! Register NOW!

Negative thinking produces negative outcomes; if your finances are a source of fear, stress and worry it’s most likely because you haven’t made friends with your financial life.

In these (and in most) economic times there is no shortage of financial uncertainty which too often makes avoidance of all things financial seem like a good choice.  Unfortunately, avoidance only leads to a greater misunderstanding of what money management is and why it matters and  to increased financial problems such as foreclosure, bankruptcy, credit card and student debt plus countless other social and financial problems.

How exactly do you think you begin to make friends with your money?  If you answered by spending less, saving more, making more, starting an emergency fund or anything else having to do specifically with dollars and cents you would be wrong.

The practicality of money management is certainly relevant but unfortunately it is also what drives the financial life disconnect for so many men and women.  So where does that leave you?

The first three steps to making friends with your financial life are to:

1. Make a clear and conscious choice to do so.  All change is grounded in individual, emotional and personal choice.  If you believe you have no choice in this you are wrong because everyone has choices.  If the choices you have aren’t the choices you want then it is important to begin to make better choices today that will allow you to have more choices tomorrow.
2. In twenty-five words or less explain the benefits of making this choice.  This can be in paragraph form or in list format.
3. Identify three to five specific actions you will to take to achieve the benefits you identified in step #2.

Taking these three steps will create a new awareness of your financial life and start you on the road to making friends with it.

In Thursday’s blog we will share More Steps to Making Friends with YOUR Financial Life

Money may only be one component of our lives but its overall impact on every other area of our lives is serious and significant.   You most likely talk and think about your social life, your home life, work life and even your sex life but how often do you consider your financial life (time spent worrying about your finances doesn’t count?)

• How would you begin to describe your financial life?
• What three specific words would capture what it looks and feels like?
• How would you define it in terms of dollars and cents?
• How would you explain the ways it makes your life better or worse?
• Where would you say it fits within the overall schema of your life?

Your financial life is obviously based upon your financial circumstances but is in no way solely dependent on the money you make, spend and save.  It is a far more complex amalgam of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, expectations and influences some of which we don’t control but many of which we do.

The more connected you are to your financial life the more it will flourish.  Like all things organic it needs constant and consistent nurturing to achieve its maximum potential.  When it is feared, avoided and ignored it will and can only respond negatively.  When provided the appropriate attention, understanding and direction it will inevitably respond in kind.

Your financial life is yours alone to create.  It is ultimately a reflection of the time and effort you put into it and your willingness to make the choice to change your relationship and behavior with your money.  Many of our recent blog posts are filled with information, steps and ideas to facilitate your doing so and tomorrow’s post will address specific steps to take to begin to make friends with your financial life.

NEVER CONFUSE YOUR SELF WORTH WITH YOUR NET WORTH.

photo credit: Neubie

This week I wrote a series of blogs about relationships with money.  Today I am providing a much needed exercise to help clients to begin to  pay more attention to all of their relationships, since each of us has many different ones; inevitably certain ones receive more attention than others.

This activity is designed to help clients begin to understand and recognize which of their relationships are healthy and which are not.

It is specifically meant to introduce the concept of having a relationship with your money.  Too many men and women are unaware of this particular relationship, so they ignore it to the detriment of their current financial circumstances and to moving in the direction of a better financial futures.