Have you heard the news?
It’s my Birthday Month and I want to really take full advantage of it! And I want you to be right here celebrating with me!
As I was thinking about what I wanted to do for the month of February, one of my old narratives came slowly creeping in… and because I’ve been looking for a topic to talk about in our private group, I thought, this has to be it! Can you guess what that old narrative was? My scarcity mindset! Which seems fitting because I was just talking about how overwhelming it can be to deal with our finances. (If you haven’t seen the sessions or want to the workbooks you can find them here).
I cannot stress this enough, one of the reasons we were able to accelerate the rate at which we were getting out of debt was our mindset shift! It came a little late in the game because, probably like you, I was told that you have to work hard to earn those dollars! It has to be hard! Money doesn’t grow on trees (which it actually does!) and so on and so on.
So, when I was working hard doing the hardest work of my life, feeling miserable, all I could think was, how come I never seem to make enough? If only I made X amount it would be just enough to get by! And guess what? I made just enough to get by!
Of course I read all I could about getting out of debt, but if I’m being really honest, I resisted all the articles about mindset and how powerful our thoughts really are (not just in getting out of debt but in general!). Because it was all about me and the victim I was to society, the “filthy-rich“ banks… you get the picture! I was a mere product of the injustices of this world! Poor me!
Until that day I decided I didn’t want that life anymore! Still in debt and no money, my husband and I quit our jobs and set out to work for ourselves. It was so scary but so freeing! I can still remember, that was the most wonderful Summer I can remember, even to this day! (well, it’s only been 6 years, so…I’m betting on this one to top it!!!) I decided I would only work for people I liked and I would make my own hours. I did and that year we went for the first time to spend Christmas with family in our home country. Remember, we still had debt and worked for ourselves, which meant that if we didn’t work we didn’t get paid and we still managed to pay for the trip, buy the gifts and pay our bills, debt included the month of December!
It’s exactly that that got me thinking that, up until then we had always worked and never took a day off (yes I used to work Sundays too)! And here we were, six months after starting to work for ourselves, having made the conscious decision to change our lives and we were rocking it! So I started looking into what we were doing differently than we had done before. And, brace yourself, my husband would say “We got this, don’t worry!“ and I’d worry! Until one day I decided to believe him. I remember driving to work and singing like there was no tomorrow, thinking “Life is good!“ And in that moment I remember God, or the Universe, I’m not sure, confirming that everything was going to be ok. So I started living, I started spending money on pizza once in a while, we started going to church and giving more than we’d ever done before. (Remember, this is my highlight reel, it took time to get to this place!)
Now, this is what happened for me, for you it might be completely different but I dare say we have the mindset in common! We need to believe that everything is going to be ok and live as if it’s already ok. We need to start changing the story we are constantly telling ourselves. We need to have faith that we are meant for more, that no God or Higher power is so cruel that he/she would put us in this world to make us suffer. (Although jury still out on why we have no instructions on how to do life! just saying!)
So this month I really want to do a reset and remind myself that there’s no place for scarcity in my mind! And one of the things I do when scarcity shows up, I give. I give more than I normally do, I go as far as giving the money I know I need to pay for something and it never amazes me how much I get in return.
It’s so easy to fall back on old patterns and live life on auto-pilot. Let’s make the conscious decision to not live like that! Let’s be intentional about life and what we really want to accomplish and where we see ourselves in 5, 10 or 20 years.
So let’s start by
- Forgetting and forgiving ourselves about our past life – our past does not define our present or our future, sure we made mistakes with our money, today is a brand new day, let’s start afresh!
- Changing our money story – it’s so hard to attract wealth and abundance when we are stuck in a state of lack, scarcity. Let’s believe we are destined for success and that we are deserving.
- Practicing Gratitude and give freely and generously – let’s write a list of everything we are grateful for in our life everyday. When we make the decision to give generously we become more confident and feel secure with our money.
- Knowledge is power – when we know what our actual money situation, we have the power, we can make decisions to how we are going to deal with the situation. Remember, we can become awesome at managing our money, let’s learn about it and take the power back.
- Setting big goals and living abundantly – no, we are not going to pretend to live in an alternative world, we are going to set goals so big that they scare us and we are going to live abundantly because once we understand our money mindset we are able to create positive habits that will help us to reach those same goals!
I hope this inspires you to take action. I’m excited to be on this journey with you!
S – The Sparkling Budgeteer
