Money Loves Attention – 2 Strategies to Stop Worrying About Money and Start Attracting It.
Are you worried about money? Perhaps there is always that nagging little voice in your head, always wondering “is there enough?” Or perhaps you are tossing and turning at night because of it. Or maybe you are delightfully unaware of what is going in your bank account because you are spending on your credit cards (so the worry hits you when bill time comes).
Or perhaps you just can’t seem to get ahead of your expenses. No matter how tight you get with your budget, it seems like you are always putting something on the credit card. If you relate to any of this – please keep reading.
One of the things that I always tell my clients in the Revenue Breakthrough Program is “Money Loves To Be Paid Attention To.” It’s true. The more you track your money both coming in and out, the more you’ll find yourself growing it. I’ve outlined two great ways to pay more attention to your money. Just install both of these methods into your life – and pretty soon you’ll be worrying about how to spend all that extra cash, not how to earn it.
1. Stop Avoiding Your Money By Looking at Your Bills, Bank Accounts and Debt Weekly. At first it may be difficult to really gather up all your bills and expenses and look at them without freaking out. But over time, you’ll see that the more you focus on the reality of your money, the less consciously and subconsciously you’ll worry about it. Most of us don’t realize how much time we spend worrying about things that we are avoiding. We don’t realize that the story is usually much worse than the truth. Think about the last time you procrastinated for weeks about doing something. Then when you finally did it -it took you half the time you thought it would. All that worry was for no reason.
Start by getting really clear on what actually exists in your bank accounts and on the credit cards. Honor your money by paying attention to it – check these accounts daily or at least weekly. For your business expenses, you may need to just break down and hire a bookkeeper. Believe it or not just taking the time to track all of your accounts will start to spur some planning. You’ll automatically start to pay attention to what you are spending your money on and how much is coming in and out. Just by giving your money this attention, you’ll start to develop a healing relationship with it – one where you can begin to plan how to pay off the debt and/or how to increase your savings without feeling worried or pressured to do so.
2. Get Smart About Money and Stay Accountable to your Goals by forming a Money Club.
Get together with a few very trusted friends and get really honest about where you are now and where you want to go and then set up a regular time to meet each week or month so that you can keep each other accountable and on track.
Here’s a picture of my Money Club or KLM as we fondly like to call ourselves (Ky, Lisa, Monica) – Lisa De Narvaez who runs Delight in Your Life, Kyira Harris who runs Keys to an Abundant Life, and me, Monica Shah. Yes, we three busy business owners have been meeting every month for the last four years to discuss our money situation. Once a month we get together and get brutally honest with one another. I created a spreadsheet to help manage our meetings (OK, I get it, I’m a data nerd). In each meeting we honestly proclaim the amount of debt we owe, the amount of money we’ve put into our savings account and our monthly savings goal.
We also get really clear about our 3 goals for the upcoming month around money and business. And most importantly we call each other out when we see old unhelpful patterns brewing. My tendency is to bite off way more than I can chew and the ladies repeatedly call me on it. We also pick a group goal each month to accomplish together. For example, in the first year we got really smart about money by picking a money book to read each month together. Later we moved on to audio courses.
The club has been amazing for all of us. We each started out four years ago with over $10,000 of debt that we paid off within two years of starting our companies. In the last two years I’ve put more money in my savings account than in my whole corporate career. I can honestly say that there is something delightful and amazing about paying attention to money, getting really honest about it and creating clear goals.
So how about you, what kind of money accountability club could you start? Could you do one with your partner? Could you create one with a best friend or sister? Or perhaps you just track your own money goals each month? Whatever you plan, just make sure it includes a bit of discipline, total honesty and some fun people.
These are two great things you can do now. And, because one of the top questions people always ask is about how to increase their income, I put together a guide here that focuses on how to make more money.
So are you ready to stop avoiding your money and start being totally honest about it? I’m excited for you to say, YES. YES. YES. And if you want more good money stuff, please check out the Revenue Breakthrough Program at www.revenuebreakthrough.com/mastery. We will be doing a day-long intensive on creating Money Breakthroughs in that program. Honestly, my money breakthrough stuff is pushing my platinum clients to the next level fast and furiously. I can’t wait to share it with you.
