Everything is connected. Your relationship with money impacts both your inner world and your external world. In your outer world, outside of you, your feelings about money can impact how you see the world, how you act in the world, and how you interpret experiences in the world. In your inner world, your relationship with money can impact how you feel. You cannot wholly compartmentalize your financial life; as much as you may have convinced yourself you can. How you feel about your financial life and your relationship with money, impacts how you feel about yourself. How you think about yourself affects the choices you make. And all the choices you make, create who you are, what you're able to do, and who you will allow yourself to be.
Fortune, misfortune, the destiny of geography, whether or not you have access to universal health care, and all the different flavors of circumstances are a given. Of course, some can change, even by our own will, but circumstances will always play a role. They are the backdrop of our lives โ the gravity of the financial world. A given.
I want you to have a better relationship with money. The more time I spend learning about this world that I thought I knew so much about, the deeper I get into understanding humans. 80% of the questions people ask me can be boiled down to, "How can I be better and change this part of my life so that I can feel like I'm going to be okay? And so I feel like the people I love will be okay too?"
You can do things to change your life. You can do things that help you feel like you have some control. You can do things that make you feel like you're going to be okay - even when it comes to things outside of your control. But it requires you to recognize your relationship with money and it will require you to put work into it. As I always say, it's very simple, but not always easy.
Without further ado, let's dig in.
Give Care and Attention
A relationship with money is just like any other relationship in your life. It requires you to give it care and attention. If you had a friendship that you never gave any care or attention to it, it would probably struggle to exist. If you had a hobby that you stopped caring about, it would likely become "something that you used to be into." And if you had pet goldfish that never got any care and attention, that little fishy would struggle to survive.
Giving something care and attention doesn't mean you have to be so attached to it. The process of caring and paying attention actually allows you to have a healthy detachment. Your care and attention can give you a sense of confidence. That sense of confidence can allow you to let go and worry less during the times you aren't actively giving your care and attention. It is just like feeling and being secure in any other relationship. When you know you're giving it the care and attention, doing your best, and showing up for it, you can relax your grip.
Here are some practical ways that you can give care and pay attention to your relationship with money:
Evaluate how you spend and save your money. Does it line up with what you value? If not, how can you change it, so it does?
Have a general idea of what your net worth is
Be Less Distractible
"When the pattern of your attention has changed, you render your reality differently." - Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing
Having a good relationship with money often means having space and time to reflect on big decisions. Should you buy a house? Should you refinance your home? Should you quit your job and start your own business? What are your childcare options? How will your children finance their college education without being saddled with a boulder of debt? Even in an equal society or one that provides social safety nets, it's citizens still need the ability to think critically and assess their choices. This requires focus. This requires us to be less distractible.
Beyond making critical decisions, making the space to reflect on what is meaningful in your own life is vital. You may find that the most significant things in your life are being crowded out by something you don't truly value. Like many others, you may find that you need to rearrange how you earn, spend, save, or invest your money to be more in line with your values. This exercise requires some heavy mental lifting. It requires focus.
When you're less distractible, you have the space to focus. When you're regularly allowing yourself to get distracted, it's like trying to work on a project without the right space and tools.
You have to create space for what is essential. You have to create space to be less distracted. No one will do this for you. Being less distractible isn't just a way to have a better relationship with money; it's a way to have a better relationship with everything in your life.
Take Responsibility
"If you assume that there is no hope you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world." - Noam Chomsky
If you've ever experienced a breakup, had a friendship evaporate, or made the decision to end a relationship in your life, you know that regardless of how the other party has behaved, you were still in some way responsible for the death of that relationship. Whether you stoked the flame that lead to the burning bridge or did nothing at all, both parties have responsibility to shoulder. Even the decision to end a relationship can be a form of taking responsibility. On the other side of the same coin, in trying to improve a relationship, an excellent first step is taking responsibility for whatever role you've played that ushered the relationship into its needs-improvement status.
Similarly, improving your relationship with money means that you have to take responsibility for the current state of your relationship with money. How you feel about money might be a narrative constructed by your family, friends, society, the media, or books you've read. But how you continue to feel about money is a choice you're making every day.
When you take responsibility for your choices, your thoughts, your beliefs, your actions, and your narratives, there is no guarantee that anyone else will take responsibility for theirs. How you choose to be in the world may not impact any people in power, government officials, or the bankers that sell people loans. But if you decide to be a particular type of person, that choice is solely your choice.
Learning how to take responsibility for your relationship with money is a transferable skill. When you do the work in this area of your life, it becomes easier to put this type of effort in other areas of your life.
Here are some things you can do to start taking responsibility for your relationship with money:
Understand your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes (mindset) about money
Examine how those thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes have shaped your current financial reality
Stay Open
It's easy to be critical and cynical, but choosing to be open allows the space for change and for new possibilities. And to me, that's the point of all of this personal finance nonsense. It's a necessary evil that you have to deal with to get to the good stuff; to get to a place where you allow yourself to dwell in the possibilities or to live a more free life. It is less about self-improvement, self-optimization, and even self-actualization and entirely about cultivating inner peace.