by Sarah McGirr | 28 Nov, 2019 | Uncategorized
When it comes to money, the more we understand about ourselves, the more we understand how we behave around money. An important part of this understanding is recognising our money blocks, but obviously, we before we recognise them, we need to know what they are in the first place. A money block is a belief that holds you back from making the money you want and you may be surprised at how common place they are. We all have money blocks at some level or another. It is a belief originating from our subconscious mind, most likely formed as a result of beliefs we have picked up, and often well practised, over the years. It could be from our environment, our peers or our experiences to date. It can be such a well honed belief, that we don’t even know it’s there, hence it being subconscious. As the main purpose of your subconscious mind is to keep you protected from perceived harm, these money blocks have probably served you well up until now. From this angle, it has been doing its job very well, but it gets to a point where you feel conflicted, as you know you want more out of life, but feel stuck at a certain level. So, by working through and releasing money blocks, you can start exploring your potential and break through self imposed boundaries your money blocks kept you within. Money blocks are not usually lone creatures, there is often a cluster of them lurking in the background. Through my work with clients, one money block that frequently surfaces is that a client believes they aren’t making enough money because of an external factor, i.e. the economy isn’t great or they aren’t able to take on overtime and so the list goes on. However, as harsh as it may sound, these money blocks are actually excuses, beliefs they tell themselves, and others, to justify their glass ceiling (at whatever level) when it comes to money. The external factors are likely to be genuine, but when a client allows that belief to control what they earn, that’s a money block right there. It is interesting to note here that word excuse derives from the Latin word, excūsāre, to free from a charge, in other words, free from responsibility. So, how do I get rid of these money blocks I hear you cry? You can work through each belief by challenging them one by one. A commonly held belief is that if you make more money than you do now, it would change who you are and you’d worry about how your loved ones would respond and you could feel like the odd one out. This can cause an inner conflict as there may be the desire to make more money, but you keep yourself at your current level in order not to draw attention to yourself to avoid being called materialistic, greedy or too big for your boots etc. But you are not only holding yourself back in a financial sense, you are putting a block on generally expanding and exploring your potential. However, money is a great enabler and having money magnifies the essence of who you are. If you are by nature a charitable person, then having more money would allow you to donate more to your favourite charities. Or if you are concerned about the cost of your children’s education, then making more money would mean you could put more money away for that. The good news is that it’s not that difficult to shift money blocks, but the bad news, well, more like ‘be warned’ news is that they’ll continue to pop up, but you’ll be more in tune with them and recognise them for what they are, excuses. You’ll be able to spot them more easily and work through them faster each time. You’ll find that you often have a repertoire of money blocks that you have been running for quite some time. It could well be that they’ve probably become familiar companions. Some are a bit more stubborn to shift than others, but that doesn’t mean to say they can’t be shifted. Keep questioning each one as it comes up. Ask yourself:
- How is this serving me?
- What is it keeping me ‘safe’ from?
- What do I think I’m scared of doing, and why?
You may worry that you are opening up a can of worms here, but fear not! You are feeling and responding to the calling of exploring your potential, by recognising and releasing your money blocks. You are freeing yourself from self-imposed restrictions you have put in place and discovering that you can trust yourself to take risks and explore new territory. It’s time to go and have fun with your potential!
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by Sarah McGirr | 11 Nov, 2019 | Uncategorized
Sometimes it can feel like the Grand Canyon is between you and those who you perceive to be oozing with self belief and confidence and wonder how the heck they got there. As a coach, I help my clients to have more self belief and this is how I do it.
I’d like to invite you to play a game for a moment, come with me. Imagine you spent your life wearing glasses with green lenses, your world around you would obviously be seen through those lenses. If you were to switch those glasses and try on a pair with pink lenses, you would obviously see the world through those lenses now. But what about if you didn’t wear either of those glasses and saw the world without the frame of green or pink lenses? You wouldn’t have any filter, just what you see.
Seeing the World Through a Filter
We enter the world without any filter, we see what we see. As we go through life, we become, consciously or subconsciously, conditioned and pick up behaviours, patterns and habits in response to life around us, like wearing those pink or green glasses impact how you would see the world. No two people will see the world exactly the same as their life experiences have been uniquely different. We are influenced by caregivers, peers, acquaintances and our environment and so much more, whether we realise it or not. How many times have you found yourself repeating something you heard an adult say when you were growing up? Sometimes the behaviours and patterns serve us as we go through life, others don’t. Sometimes we grow out of, or drop habits or patterns yet others we still put into practice day in day out, again consciously or subconsciously – despite some of them not supporting us to our fullest potential.
When we look at the world, we see the world through our own filters impacted by past experiences and our responses to them. It may sound simplistic, because it is, but we can find either positive or negative evidence to support how we see the world and ourselves.
We can use this to our advantage. In terms of building self belief and confidence, we can look at past situations where we have been successful. This obviously varies as to what you regard as success. Some examples that may come to mind may feel small, to you, but nonetheless you experienced them. It is easy to overlook, play down or even forget our successes along the way. It doesn’t have to be something that was overly public. Even waking up in the morning is a pretty good win to start with!
Building Self Belief Through Appreciation of Past Successes
Appreciate these wins and you will find that what you appreciate appreciates, it builds up. More examples will come to mind the more you allow yourself to think about them. What this helps you do is to see yourself as a successful person. You know you have been successful in the past and you can continue to do so, no matter what size the wins are. Allow your mind to be expansive and remember and enjoy the feeling of how you felt when you experienced those successes.
What we have done here is to reaffirm that you are successful, at whatever level and it reaffirms that you can continue to be so. You have done it before, you can do it again.
If you begin to doubt that you can sustain this new way of looking at your life, you can be your own cheerleader. You may notice that if some around you are still wearing their negative lenses, their, ahem, well intended opinions won’t have so much impact on you from now on. Have fun with this, allow yourself to enjoy the expansive, emerging version of you. The one who remembers and builds on past successes, the successful you!
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by Sarah McGirr | 3 Nov, 2019 | Uncategorized
It’s easy enough to feel like all your money problems are sorted once it comes to payday, but are things really as smooth as they seem? It’s fine when you feel like you are ‘in the money’. But in times of economic uncertainty, what are you exposing yourself to, with no money buffer?
Those carefree spending habits could be robbing you of a healthy savings account and much more:
- You fund your lifestyle with a credit card, putting your monthly expenses on a credit care is definitely living beyond your means.
- You can’t cover a ‘money emergency’, like the freezer breaking down, without borrowing to cover the cost of a replacement and you have to borrow from friends, family…..or put it on a credit card.
- Keeping up with the Jones. A bit of a cliché, but are your spending habits influenced by your friends/acquaintances spending/lifestyles?
- You don’t know when your direct debits are going out and sometimes miss the payments as the money has already been spent.
- You buy more than you need. A weekly shop somehow isn’t enough and you find yourself doing a ‘top up’ shop here and there during the week.
- You get seduced by ‘special offers’ but are they really that special and you do need to stockpile cans or boxes of something because it seems cheaper than usual?
- You don’t deviate from your favourite branded items. You like what you like without thinking anymore about it.
- Your daily caffeine hit is punching you in the pocket. That morning pick-me- up could be costing you up to £80 a month, that’s up to £960 a year.
- Those ‘convenient’ lunchtime treats could also be hitting you where it hurts too, that could be around £1,200 on just popping out for a sandwich, when sometimes you don’t even fancy what’s on offer.
- Another money leak is not shopping around for the best offer on subscriptions and contracts. Are you really getting the best deals? Saying you don’t have the time to shop around online, using comparison sites, or even simply calling your existing supplier to see if you are on the best deal could be costing you the cash too.
It may feel a bit boring having to think about the practical side of your spending, but a few tweaks here and there really could make a difference. Even something as simple as starting a savings account or you may already have one sitting there feeling abandoned! You wouldn’t be the first and you won’t be the last, if that’s the case. But taking small steps add up even if it feels a bit pitiful at the moment, putting a seemingly minimal amount in consistently pays off and is a financial and psychological boost once you commit to it and get going.
