10 tips for understanding your relationship with money

  1. Money has numbers, but money is not just about numbers. This is true for everybody. So, if you’re asking yourself “It’s just numbers, I’m an adult, why can’t I manage it?”, then welcome to the club.
  2. By putting a £ in front of a number, we transform it from a number to a value. 60 is just a number. £60 is a measure of value, maybe my value if that’s my hourly rate.
  3. This means that values are tied up in money, and values are a set of stories that we learn in childhood from the people around us and the broader cultural environment.
  4. Money stories are the stories that we were told – and that we now tell ourselves – about what we can do, be or have with money.
  5. The are sometimes called money scripts and they mostly reflect the values of the people from our childhood.
  6. Some are helpful, most are not, and nearly all of them have challenges and limitations if we adopt them unthinkingly. Which is what we do.
  7. In order to understand and manage the money in your life, you need to understand and manage your behaviour around money.
  8. That behaviour is driven by those money stories or scripts. Start by thinking about those early money stories and how they drive your behaviour today.
  9. Then you can start to consciously choose stories that are taking you towards the person you want to be; and you can also release yourself from the stories that are undermining you.
  10. This is not easy, but it is entirely possible and it’s most effective if you can get some help from someone who can support you in a non-judgmental manner. That person is a money coach.

The key message here is that if you find managing your finances hard, then that’s normal. If you find it difficult to save, if you have debt, if you’re anxious all the time, if you’re finances feel like a rollercoaster, if you don’t open your bills, if you can’t seem to control your spending, if you can’t spend anything…   there’s nothing wrong with you. Money is not just numbers.

Understanding your relationship with money is the key to improving it, and everyone can do that. 

And if you’d like some help, please get in contact.