It's hard not to hate money, especially when you think of all the bad things that are done in the name of money.
In my book, Heart, Mind & Money I describe how I once had a guy, newly rich, come up to me at a party and ask me what I do.
When I told him I was a money coach, he turned around and told me he had no clue how he became rich because he hates money.
He believed that money had diminished his creativity as an artist.
I smiled and gave him my business card.
My guess is he’ll need my services in a few years, when we hate something we usually find a way to get rid of it.
Without knowing it, he’d already started avoiding money by repressing his creativity, his main source of income - if he can’t paint, he can’t make money, which means he never has to deal with money.
Why?
Because we think a thought, feel an emotion and then take an action. Whatever we think about money, leads to a feeling about money and that feeling drives our financial behavior.
Hating Money Keeps Us Financially Stuck
You can't love money if you are scared of money or if you blame money for something in your life like a broken relationship or dysfunctional family.
Hatred of money stems from fear of money and a desire to protect ourselves from the perceived danger that money poses, which has a negative impact on our financial behavior.
1. Avoid making money or managing money
If you think that something poses a threat to you, you’ll avoid it, which means you won’t pay attention to anything related to money
2. Living hand to mouth or complete poverty
If money's the enemy, the only way you can eliminate it from your life is to either spend it as fast as you can, gamble it or to give it away or never have it around in any form
3. Inability to save
When you hate something you don’t want to keep it around and would rather avoid it. I'd bet that people that hate money have an irresistible desire to spend it, not accumulate it
4. Work for free or close to nothing
When you hate something, you not only avoid it, you also reject it to protect yourself
5. See poverty as more spiritual or money as evil
This isn't a behaviour as such but an attitude or limiting belief that stems from hating money. This attitude protects you from money but leaves you poor
How to Stop Hating Money
The easiest way to love money is to acknowledge that you hate it and to then start working on the root cause of your hatred – fear of money.
1. Stop making money the bad guy
It’s easy to hate something you believe is evil, which is why you have to start questioning your limiting beliefs.
Start by writing down everything that you blame money for and question if money is to blame for any of those things.
Fill in the blank: I blame money for________________ because______________
I highly suggest using the 4 questions from the work of Byron Katie.
2. Make a case for money as the good guy
Write down a list of 100 good things that you or others have done with money...like Bill Gates starting the Gates Foundation.
If social psychologists are correct then our view of the world is self-constructed, which means that we have the power to reconstruct it by presenting the mind with a different set of building blocks.
3. Use auto-suggestion
Affirmations can take a long time to work, especially when your mind believes it’s protecting you, but they do work, you just have to commit to doing them every day.
Start with a simple affirmation:
“I allow myself to feel safe enough to love money”
How do you feel about money?
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below…
