Deal with YOU

So much of what we do with money, what we know about money, how we treat financial matters - isn’t about money at all. Over the years, I’ve listened and learned that money reflects our emotions and the knowledge that we have about personal finance. And we can do A LOT to educate people - offer classes, write blog posts, make speeches everywhere - to educate and to remove some of the misconceptions surrounding finance. Education and knowledge is key, especially in a community that has been left out or overlooked. But if we don’t address our emotional connections to money - whether that’s a history of lack, abundance, jealousy, fear, etc. - if we don’t address the WHY in what we’re doing with our money, we can’t correct it. During the Empower webinars, we spend time discussing the why of our spending, the why in our planning and the why in our priorities. Financial planning is a logical, reasonable process. But all of the financial plans in the world won’t matter at all if we don’t understand why we’re making the decisions we’re making.

I created Empower because I’m fully aware that we don’t know some things about money. And I want to bring up and bring out as many conversations as I possibly can. But I also created this group because many of us are ashamed about our relationship with money. We can’t or won’t admit that we spend what we spend because we’re trying to prove something to someone else. We can’t or won’t admit that we remember what it’s like NOT to have things we want or need, so we spend to compensate for those feelings. We can’t or won’t admit that we don’t deal with debt because it’s associated with a divorce or a death or a bad decision and it hurts to look at it, much less make a plan to pay it off...and so on and so on... these are the things that keep us in bondage. I want us to talk about these things, deal with these things and remove the shame associated with these things, so that our finances reflect our priorities and plans rather than our pain.

Now - some of this needs to be dealt with in counseling. Seriously - if you need to work through some things, and you KNOW you need to work through some things, then stop making excuses and go get the help you need. There is no time to waste when it comes to getting your money right. But some of this is just YOU holding YOU accountable. Figure out whether you need outside help, or just more discipline and get to it...but recognize that very few of your money decisions are about money. Your actions reflect your emotions - so deal with your feelings and then face your finances. You owe it to YOU.

#findoutwhy #facesyourfinances #whatareyourpriorities #whatisyourplan #whatareyouinvestedin #empoweryourself #empowermentsource #personalfinance #financialmanagement

We'd love for you to be a part of the Empower community! Join our Facebook group for free personal finance tips or check out the Face Your Finances webinars for a little more guidance. We're enrolling for November right now! If you're interested, sign up at finances.empowermentsource.org or click the link in bio. See you soon!