Are you sabotaging your own financial success?

MANY OF the beliefs we form around money get set up before we’re 10 years old. We inherit many of these beliefs from our parents, who may or may not have had a good relationship with money. Beliefs also form through childhood experiences related to money, budgeting, saving, spending and debt. Those beliefs around money are embedded into our subconscious and can play out as adults in the form of self-sabotage.

“You can set out to be financially successful but because it’s mostly subconscious, you can have two people with the same skillset doing the same thing but one person will be more financially successful than the other and that’s when you start to look behind at what’s driving that,” says Kinesiologist, coach and co-founder of The Nidana Collective, Terese Mudgway.

She recently worked with a client, for example, who grew up in the UK in council housing located in an affluent area. His perception was that all the other kids lived in big houses with swimming pools but that he was poor. Now an adult, although he’s good at what he does and works hard, he finds it difficult to get ahead and to attract a client base that values his work.

“It’s because somewhere deep inside, he doesn’t value himself and or what he offers,” she says. In other words, he doesn’t feel any ‘alignment’ between himself and wealth due to his experience of being an outsider/different in relation to the wealthy kids during his childhood.

“We're not even aware that we do it,” Terese explains. “It's embedded into the subconscious.”

Luckily, we have the power to alter perceptions, beliefs and the mind. Neuroplasticity proves just that. Although we can’t control what we are born with, we always have choice on who and how we ‘be’ in relation to what we have (or don’t have).

Another Kinesiology client, who grew up in a low-income family but has been so driven to make money that he now runs a successful financial business and lives in a swanky New York apartment, recently lamented that ‘everyone else’ in the building owned a Ferrari or Rolls Royce except him. Social comparison in motion! A toxic and common pattern for many.

“Even though he's incredibly successful and obviously very financially comfortable, he still perceives himself as ‘less than’ on the success scale,” Terese says. “Unfortunately, we are so conditioned inside of this marketing machine that ‘more is better’ – the more we ‘have’, therefore we will ‘be’ and here’s where the marketers insert which ever emotional trigger they are associating with their brand.

A clue that you might be sabotaging your success is if you think you’re taking all the right actions in accordance with your financial goals but the scorecard isn’t showing what it should.

Not sure what subconscious beliefs could be holding you back? Terese suggests writing down all the beliefs and/or opinions you have about money, and the beliefs your parents have about money.

“Then have a look at your life because how your life is right now is because that’s exactly how your subconscious mind believes it needs to be.”

Just like self-sabotage can hinder someone’s weight loss journey (you know you should make a salad, but opt for the McDonald’s take-out instead), the temptation to overspend on credit cards or make irrational financial decisions can undermine our best-laid financial goals – and unless you take the time to uncover the reasons behind those choices, getting where you want to go will be that much harder.