How to Change Your Beliefs About Money

How are your beliefs about money impacting your relationship with it?

Dealing with money is unavoidable in a commerce-driven world like ours.

Money is one of the most powerful tools people interface with daily, whether or not they realize it.

The money you earn:

• represents labor
• provides purchasing power
• facilitates large-scale movement and change.

For such an essential tool, however, money often becomes a negative force in people’s lives.

Money is both powerful and divisive.

And in a society increasingly caught up in consumerism, it’s not surprising that many people have bad relationships with money.

Those with lots of money may use it unwisely or find themselves unable to stop grasping for more, while those with less may feel trapped, powerless, or resentful of others.

Whether you have too much or too little, money can be a significant stress point in your life.

Negative beliefs about money—and your relationship to it—can influence poor spending and budgeting decisions and decrease your sense of contentment in your life.

To budget better, spend smarter and live happier, you need to change your negative attitudes toward money.

If you’re interested in changing your relationship with your finances for the better, do some soul-searching and take steps to remedy underlying issues.

To start out, here are some ways you can actively work to change your beliefs about money.

1. Identify Your Money Scripts

The attitudes about money formed through childhood experiences, parent stories, and struggles continue to influence people into adulthood.

These early-forming attitudes and behaviors are called money scripts, which have much to do with how you handle money today.

Some money scripts are healthy.

Others are not.

For example, people who believe money shows self-worth, idealize money and material gain, or belittle money’s importance are more likely to have lower financial outcomes than those who don’t.

Isolating a problem is the best way to figure out how to fix it, so if you think your money issues might come from a negative script, it’s a good idea to identify it for what it is.

Because money scripts are often formed in childhood, it’s possible to learn about the origins of your attitudes toward money by talking with your parents and relatives about their own attitudes.

However, you can also discover your money script by consulting your memory to determine where your beliefs come from.

Once you’ve identified a problem, you can work by yourself or with a financial psychologist to counteract negative thought patterns and habits.

2. Recognize Cultural Beliefs Toward Money

Like your family environment, your cultural environment can also influence your financial attitudes.

In the United States, they encourage people to beat out their economic competition to become “the best.”

Because we often equate wealth with success, this can leave people with modest bank accounts feeling unnecessarily down on their achievements.

This isn’t the case around the world, however.

One writer found, for example, that the Swedish culture’s prioritization of humbleness and conformity made financial life easier, even though the living expenses were higher.

Money is a part of the culture.

Therefore, attitudes toward money vary around the world.

Some beliefs are healthier than others, and they all have advantages and disadvantages.

Still, you can learn much about your relationship with money by comparing it to those in other countries.

When you gain a broader view of financial attitudes, you can weed out the parts of your beliefs that aren’t benefiting you.

3. Remember that Money is a Physical Object

Before online banking, money was a tool you could hold in your hand, something physical that communicated value.

Today, however, the individual value of a dollar is often forgotten as we look more at our total wealth rather than each piece of the whole.

Recognize that money isn’t a universal given but a tool and system adopted for convenience.

You should treat money as a physical object instead of a symbolic idea, especially if you want to stop conflating your net worth with your self-worth.

If you need a reminder that money is a tool, you could start carrying bills again instead of relying on a debit or credit card.

Some people also collect coins, which keeps the physical and even historical aspects of currency at the front of their minds.

By using physical tender for small purchases, you can better recognize the power of the money you have while remaining conscious of how much money you’re spending.

4. Differentiate Wants From Needs

Many people’s dissatisfaction with their financial situation comes from the feeling that too many things are out of reach.

However, most people who feel this way probably have enough to provide for their basic needs, so the stress and frustration their dissatisfaction causes them might do them more harm than good.

Happiness and income level are not directly related.

In fact, happiness seems to plateau before annual income even reaches $100,000.

This goes to show that money really can’t buy happiness.

If you have enough to satisfy your needs, you have enough to be happy.

The trick, in this case, is differentiating wants from needs.

Consumers are constantly bombarded with messages telling them they need this or that product to be happy, popular, successful, loved, etc.

To foster a healthier relationship with money, you must resist these messages and define your needs.

Be conscious of the reasons behind every purchase you make and avoid substituting material goods for a real solution to emotional problems.

5. Talk About Your Mistakes

Many people feel shame about their financial situations, especially if they aren’t as well-off as they might have hoped to be.

Because of this shame, people often avoid discussing money at all costs to keep themselves from looking incompetent.

This silence is unfortunate because it allows negative attitudes to fester and bad habits to carry on unchecked.

In their podcast Bad With Money, Gaby Dunn breaks the silence and talks to others about money and money problems.

Their example is good to follow.

Money shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of.

Talking openly and honestly about money with your friends, loved ones, or a professional can help you figure out how to improve your relationship with money.

If you’re brave, open up and discuss some money mistakes.

It is ok (and even good) to change your beliefs about money

If you just can’t bring yourself to do it, you can still learn a lot from others by reading reputable books, listening to podcasts like Dunn’s, and doing your own research.

There are plenty of resources available.

By trying out some of these tips and figuring out what methods work best for you, it’s certainly possible to improve your relationship with money.

Old beliefs don’t have to hold you down and influence how you budget and spend your money.

In fact, by understanding what you believe about money and working to counteract any negative attitudes that might harm you, you can live a healthier, happier, less stressful life.

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