Money Monday Part 1: Holy $%*! ...And Other Reactions To My Monthly Finances

Money fear, ugh. It can be relentless:

“I really want X, but is it worth it?”

“Will buying X actually make me look/feel/be beautiful?”

“If I join X will I get the results that I want?”

“Oh no, what if I don’t make X this month?”

“I’ll never have enough money to have everything I want.”

I used to hate the inner conversations that went on in my head: the anxiety, the calculations, the worry, the excitement, and the fear of regret. My head used to spin with these scenarios constantly. Will I have enough for this? Will this benefit me in the long run? Am I about to overdraw my account? I’m so poor! Is it worth it?

What I’ve come to learn in the past year and a half of getting down and dirty with my own money story is that I am the only one who is controlling how I feel about my money, how I spend my money and as an entrepreneur, I’m actually the only one in control of my earnings. How liberating (and insanely scary)!

With that being said, I knew that I wanted to change three things in relation to my money issues. The very first thing was that I wanted to have an empowered money story (ie: one that didn’t cause me to avoid my bank statements, have mild panic attacks when bills were due and curse out my bank account on the reg).

In order to accomplish this, I had to go face to face with my own finances. How the hell am I supposed to empower women to invest in themselves and start moneymaking businesses doing what they love when I’m afraid to take a nice long look at my own bank account? The time had come to get real with my money: my debt, my savings, my investing and (dun, dun, dun) my spending.

I was finally making money in my business, so what was I so afraid of anyway? After a lot of calculations, reflection, tears, panic and organization of everything #oliviasmoney, I kept noticing that my “I’m not enough” story was creeping it’s little head into my finances. This repeating thought throughout the process was causing me a lot of unneeded overwhelm and tension. If I didn’t shut down this thought pattern, I knew I would never finish this task or take it on in the future. I had to change my story around my money and I had to do it fast.

We all have negative thought patterns that jump in and shit on our plans; maybe you call it your ego, your survival mechanism or simply fear. Whatever you call it, it is in the way and you must make it your full time job to adopt a new way of thinking.

What’s your ego telling you about your money?

Instead of avoiding my money out of fear that there would never be enough, I started to basically “date” my money. I would spend some quality time with my finances weekly: what was I earning, spending, saving, and let’s be honest, wasting each week. At first this was super challenging to commit to, but eventually I was able to realize that I had enough and all of the fear around the money was just a self-sabotaging pattern that was ultimately holding me back from earning even more. Did I have to cut back on some spending? Yes. Did I have to struggle and have anxiety over it? No.

Now, I was definitely not making tons of my money when I first started my coaching business (if you want to know how I changed that click here). But, I was making enough to survive, have a bit of fun, pay my bills and most importantly invest in myself and in my business. In order to realize this though, I had to stop automatically deleting anything from Bank of America or putting bills in a pile in the corner and start facing the facts. The Law of Attraction plays a huge role in this; yes, we can declare to the universe that we want to make more money, but are we willing to do the inner work on our own story to actually be ready to receive it?

For this week, I challenge you to get down and dirty with your money story. If you have a little ego voice saying, “I don’t have enough” or “I’m broke”, or “I am so much worse off than x, y or z” face that voice and change your story. Go through all of your stuff: your bank accounts, your debt, your credit report and your piggy bank. Do the calculations and reframe whatever fear you have around your money into something empowering. (Hint: Even if you don’t fully believe your new empowered money story just yet, fake it ‘til you make it sister!)

I changed my money story from “I’ll never have enough” to “I am thankful for everything I have; I have enough”. You aren’t going to start attracting more money if deep down it scares the shit out of you. Trust me.

Now, go empower your money story and come back for Money Monday next week for Part II, Spending Versus Investing: Don’t Get it Twisted.