What does self-love look like when it comes to money?
Happy Galentine Day Beautiful!
Defining Self-Love:
Self-love is an internal behavior as a result of our beliefs, thoughts, and feelings toward ourselves. It is knowing our worth, valuing and respecting ourselves. Self-love is the cornerstone of building a healthy relationship with our money.
The difference between Self-Love and Self-care:
I believe many people actually get these two mixed up, or use them interchangeably. Self-Care is the external things we do to take care of our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social needs/health. Self-Care is the fun stuff! It’s buying those flowers, getting a massage, that mani-pedi, lighting those candles and taking a lavender bubble bath, it’s your downward dogs and quiet meditation, it’s taking time to journal your thoughts, or taking that mental-health day and going hiking. We’ve become good at self-care because it’s popular and trending.
But self-love takes a little more work. It requires us to be introspective and dig into who we are, and why we do the things we do.
When it comes to money, it goes back to understanding your money story. You may need to get a little help with this. Often times things that affect our financial behavior, have nothing to do with money.
A few ways a lack of financial Self-Love shows up in our lives:
• We live beyond our means – this is a way of life, not just a season; we’re constantly spending more than we are making. When we do this, there is no room for savings.
• Debt is our lifestyle – our credit cards are always maxed out. Because of our debt, we will not be able to experience financial freedom.
• We choose to not be aware of our financial situation – we walk around with our heads in the sand about our money; we don’t want to look at our bills, we have no idea what’s going on with our bank accounts, and we basically don’t know where we stand financially.
• We have no financial boundaries – we allow other people to spend our money, and have access to our money when we really don’t want them to, or can’t afford for them to, but we don’t know how to tell them no.
• We don’t believe that we are worthy of having a better life, or the life we desire, so we do things like self-sabotage and/or play small.
Can I tell you that all of the above behaviors can be changed? There was a time in my life when I did not show financial love to myself in several ways. So, I know it’s possible to change.
Start by forgiving yourself. This didn’t start yesterday, it probably took a while to here, so it may take a while to undo. Be patient with yourself, get help if you need it, and start to create new and healthy money habits.
10 Ways to show financial Self-Love:
1. The number one thing we can do is “Pay ourselves first!”
2. Protect ourselves and our assets – check with an insurance agent, and estate planning attorney regarding life and other insurance needs, and the four basic estate planning documents: will, trust, durable power of attorney, and a healthcare directive.
3. Invest in ourselves – learn something new about money.
4. Set financial boundaries for ourselves and others – we must learn to tell ourselves “no” to things we don’t need or really want, and can’t afford, and keep others from going in our pockets/bank accounts, like it’s a joint account and they put money in it.
5. Know our worth
6. We must notice our emotions around money, and pay attention to our money habits, patterns, and triggers.
7. If there is any debt, create a debt reduction plan to pay down, and off debt.
8. Being generous blesses us – give to a cause that you care about.
9. Have annual financial check-ups – just as we get our annual medical check-ups, we should do an annual check-up of our finances: review your retirement accounts, credit reports, subscriptions and utility bills to see if there are any promotions or discounts available.
10. Celebrate your wins, no matter how big or small. Be proud of your achievements, and the steps you have made toward showing yourself some financial self-love.
Embrace Your Journey!
Warmly
Your sister