YOUR MONEY BELIEFS
What was said to you about money growing up?
Can you remember your first experience with money?
Your earliest memory of interacting with money?
What was it?Who said it? When? Where? Why?
Was it in primary school? Lunch money?
Or was it at your mum’s or dad’s shop, as customers came in and paid for goods?
Was it when you wanted a birthday party?
Or a particular game you wanted to buy?
What was it? What happened?
What did you learn at that time, from this first experience with money?
That money is……………? (fill in this blank space before we proceed).
Now from this experience, you may have formed a belief you have about money.
In Psychology, according to a concept called ‘tabular rasa’, the human mind at birth is a blank slate(it knows nothing) and as we grow, what we have on our minds is as a result of our sensory experiences during our life time.
On this basis of this concept, we can infer that we had no knowledge of money until the first experiences. And if this experience about money happened often enough, it became reinforced in our minds and we eventually may have turned it to a belief that we now see as truth.
And as time passes, you may find that you interpret all other experiences to reinforce this money belief. And where you are given a divergent view of your money belief, you will seek to find how that divergent view is not true, rather than see to explore the possibility of it being true.
In Household A, if you were raised to think having money is bad, you may likely grow up to think money is bad.
In Household B, if you were raised up to think money is hard to come by, then you may likely grow up to think money is hard to come by.
In Household C, if you were raised up to think having plenty money is good, then you may likely grow up thinking having money is good.
Now all 3 different households could be right next to each other on the same street! All in the same environment. We can assume that some of the beliefs may limit the mind and prevent us from exercising or exploring opportunities that open to us.
We are often less open or accepting of alternate views because we want to continue to believe what we know. We tend to want to believe certain things about money, that money is good, or money is bad, or money is evil, or only the rich have money, that not everybody can be rich including yourself, or money will never come to you or you are bad with money, or many is for spending and not for saving or vice versa etc.
All this beliefs about money are often a product of something you experienced before, a conversation with a parent, older sibling, a person of authority in your life-school teacher, mentor or some political/religious/thought leader. If you grew up hearing your mother say, ‘I give more to the needy than my family’, you tend to believe this to be true and express this attitude in your life, as you grow older. If you grew up hearing you father say women don’t know how to handle money, and saw your father treat your mother this way, you tend to grow up exhibiting this attitude too, either as a woman (expecting you cannot and should not handle money) or as a man(expecting your wife cant and shouldn’t handle money).
Now all 3 different households could be right next to each other on the same street! All in the same environment. We can assume that some of the beliefs may limit the mind and prevent us from exercising or exploring opportunities that open to us.
MONEY ROOT
How did your father and mother address money in the house? Shouting? Meetings?
Who was responsible for what expenses in the house? Why do you think that is/was?
Do you think you parents were happy with this role? Give reasons for your answer.
How did this dynamic about money affect your parents and the family finances? Was is good or bad? Please give reasons for your answers.
Where there other people who have influenced your thoughts about money? Who are they and what did you learn?
Do you have some concerns/issues/fears about money from your childhood? What are they and why do you think you have them?
MONEY BELIEFS