Financial limitations can often be traced back to past money traumas. The emotional impact of those events can be lasting. As an entrepreneur, you might find that although you are enjoying financial independence in terms of being able to earn an income without a traditional job, you feel limited. Maybe it often feels like a grind and when business gets slow, you double down and work even harder. This leaves you feeling frustrated thinking that you can never get ahead.
But it’s not your fault. Long ago, you adopted an attitude about money from different life experiences and messages passed on to you by others that have set limits for you in your mind. By becoming aware of these events and releasing the emotional charge around them, you will be able to re-wire your brain for greater success and happiness. Below are 5 common past money traumas that affect your present level of financial success.
Early messages about money:
A necessary starting place for releasing negative beliefs about money is looking at the messages and stories that you adopted as your own during your formative years.
If you grew up hearing messages like, “people like us can never get ahead” or, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” or, even more commonly “rich people are evil” how do you think that will affect your current level of financial success?
Those messages that we hear when we are younger, usually between the years of 0-7 years old shape how we view the world. During our formative years, we are in a hypnotic state in a way. So messages about how the world works get deeply ingrained in our subconscious.
If you went shopping with your parents as a kid, you likely saw things you wanted from the grocery store (the Lucky Charms cereal) or the department store (that new Barbie doll when passing the toys). If your parents consistently responded with “we can’t afford it”, then you would have very quickly developed a belief in lack.
And kids are relentless, I know I was and at a young age, I would ask over and over again for the things I wanted when we would go shopping. So, I heard “we can’t afford it” a lot before I stopped asking.
Do your kids a favour and don’t ever effing say “we can’t afford it”. Being aware of this belief in lack that I took on as a child, I was very careful when my son was younger to just say to him “not right now honey” to his relentless asking for stuff he wanted me to buy for him.
Clearing out the emotional charge and beliefs around those early messages is necessary in order expand your financial success.
Past business failures:
For most entrepreneurs, this isn’t their first rodeo. Very rarely do entrepreneurs get to six figures in their first year of business with their very first business. Often they’ve tried and failed in other businesses in the past. But that entrepreneurial drive keeps them going and perhaps chasing another other business ideas.
However, these past failures affect how they show up in their current business. They resist putting themselves out there in marketing their business or, they resist investing in themselves to get the support they need for their mindset and marketing strategy.
If you find yourself saying “no” to doing Facebook lives, doing sales calls or, investing in yourself and your business because you’re replaying in your mind how it didn’t work out the last time, then you’ll stay stuck.
Anytime you reflect on past failures, you activate that feeling of disappointment and dread. Especially if you wanted success really bad and worked really hard but faced criticism from others in the past or had any financial losses. It makes you skittish about taking risks and risk taking is a very big part of entrepreneurship.
You must let go of the past because it has no bearing on your future. But, we tend to repeat the same patterns over and over again unless we work on our mindset.
Fear of Criticism:
Ever hear about the “Crabs in a Bucket Mentality”? It’s a metaphor for human behaviour. Crabs in a bucket will prevent other crabs from getting out. They pull whichever crab is trying to escape the bucket back down inside.
Humans are a lot like that. If one person in a group is attempting to achieve success beyond the others, they will have the tendency to pull them back down to their level through criticism or other means. It might be due to jealousy, competitiveness or their own fear of abandonment. It’s the tribal mentality.
And, during tribal times, our survival depended on working as a group. The primitive part of our minds sees moving beyond the level of success of our friends and family as a threat.
If you find you are holding yourself back because of what others might think, then the fear of criticism or negative judgemental reactions from others is something you need to let go of.
There have been studies that have shown that people tend to earn between 10% and 20% of their peers. If you want to move beyond your groups income then it would make sense to find new friends. But you don’t have to do that unless of course you find that your circle of friends is truly trying to take you down. Although, it would be good idea to find a mentor or mastermind group who are already enjoying the financial success you desire.
Most of the time, the fear of criticism and judgement is in our minds and releasing the fear transforms our experience. We feel more at ease with taking risks and moving to that next level of income. And oftentimes, our circle of friends or our tribe supports us in our achievement of success because it inspires them to do the same.
Fear of Success:
Unfortunately there are a lot of negative depictions of rich successful people on t.v. and in the media. Take Mr. Burns on the Simpsons or Scroodge McDuck. Both are selfish money loving and lonely characters. And there are many real life people who make the news who have millions or billions of dollars who are decidedly NOT nice people. Remember Harvey Weinstein?
So, it’s no wonder our minds fear success. Who wants to be a lonely horrible rich person? But the more you look for negative examples of rich people, the more you will find them. However, most rich people are friendly well balanced philanthropic people. Think of Oprah or Louise Hay. They just don’t get as much mainstream media attention as the negative ones.
Another contributing factor in the fear of success goes back to negative messages we received during our formative years. If you heard “don’t get your hopes up” a lot as a child them that feeling of excited anticipation can feel threatening to you. That feeling can signal future disappointment for you which feels even worse.
And, worry that others in our tribe or circle of friends will criticise or become jealous can contribute to the fear of success. Feelings of stress and excitement can feel very similar to one another and so because we tend to avoid stressful situations, we might also avoid going for the success we desire because of the negative associations with feelings of excitement.
Financial Trauma:
If you’re like me, you’ve had a financial trauma in your past. It’s worse as an entrepreneur if it’s related to a business. Quite a few years ago now, my husband and I were in a business that drained our finances. In fact, we racked up a shit ton of debt over the course of 3 or 4 years in an effort to succeed in that business.
And digging ourselves out of that debt took another 3 or 4 years. This experience had a really negative impact on me. In fact it was traumatic. It held me back from investing in my business for a long time. I was afraid of getting back into that financial mess again.
All the stress and sleepless nights, I just couldn’t go through that again.
I had to clear out the negative emotions and beliefs from that experience. Because no matter whatever positive self talk or affirmations I tried, my emotions took over. And, my fear of financial ruin, held me back. I had to work on releasing that negative emotional charge associated with the debt we were in, in order to move forward.
If you’re had your savings wiped out and racked up a bunch of debt, your negative stressful emotions will keep you stuck there. Where emotion goes is where energy flows. And moving forward requires you to release the negative emotions of that financial trauma.
Reach out to me for a complimentary MONEY BREAKTHROUGH SESSION at this link.
If you want help in releasing limiting beliefs on an energetic level, download the Top 7 Limiting Beliefs that Sabotage Your Financial Success. This free guide will help you to tap into your natural talent and ability to succeed.
Certified Tapping Into Wealth Coach
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