Because of my columns and podcast, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing some of the smartest people I know about their money habits. The more I do this, the more I realize that successful business owners think about money differently. Not only that, but they are willing to bust through money blocks when they come up.
Speaking from my own experience, I’ve done quite a lot of work in busting my own money blocks. However, I’ve also noticed that when you move through levels of money blocks then new ones come up. For example, I surpassed the mid five-figure mark in my business and then I have money blocks up around hitting six figures.
The reality is we all have baggage when it comes to money. Lots of it. And being in business means we will have to deal with the baggage as it comes up. Here are x ways that you can move through money blocks in your business.
Have compassion for yourself.
The most important thing you can do as you deal with your money blocks is to have compassion for yourself. Everyone has different lessons and experiences around money that affect us in our businesses, and we need to give ourselves the room to deal with it.
For example, the reason I feel like it’s taken me so long to earn the kind of money I’d like to earn is because I’m naturally very risk averse. This means I’m not taking out loans or maxing out my credit card to make business investments (though if it’s a calculated risk there’s nothing wrong with that).
I know that getting more comfortable with risk is something I’ve had to overcome. That being said, if my temperament is one of “slow and steady wins the race”, then I need to be compassionate with myself and allow for that. The most important thing is that I keep moving forward, even if it’s slowly.
Look at your upbringing.
We learned a lot about money growing up, and for most of us, we didn’t exactly have gleaming examples of how to run a successful business. In fact, I have found that unless someone’s parents were successful entrepreneurs and they were taught to think about money differently, then most of us need to either a) have to unlearn a lot of stuff we picked up or b) take things to a new level.
In my life, it’s definitely B. My parents were pretty good at managing money. They were good savers and they were responsible. However, they weren’t great investors. In fact, they were terrified of it and it caused them to make some mistakes.
I realize that my job is to take the foundation my parents gave me and add on to it in the form of investing. My parents may have been afraid of investing and entrepreneurship – and I may have inherited it – and now it’s my job to bust through that particular money block. Just because it was true for them doesn’t mean it needs to be true for me.
It’s not just our families we inherited stuff from either. We definitely pick stuff up from society, the news, the culture, friends, family, and marketing. It’s our job to become hyper self-aware of this.
Try affirmations.
I’ve recently been rereading “Secrets of Six-Figure Women” and “Overcoming Underearning” by Barbara Stanny. In both books, she mentions how using affirmations can help us retrain our minds and overcome money blocks.
I tried this back in 2015 back when I was breaking even in my business and I kept hitting an income plateau every month. I wrote out 25 affirmations about my money and my life that I knew I needed to work on that year. When I was done, I taped it to the markerboard in my workspace and read them out loud every day. By December, I’d accomplished everything on that list.
Now that I’m dealing with some new money blocks, I wrote out another list of affirmations I’m working on this year and repeating the same process I took two years ago.
Find a support system.
Whenever I’m dealing with money blocks, I have business besties I can go talk to. They root me on, keep me grounded and remind me that I have all the tools I need to overcome this.
A word of caution here. I learned the hard way that I can’t talk to just anyone about my business fears and money blocks. For example, I used to seek counsel from family members but since they didn’t really understand the nature of entrepreneurship they’d freak out. When they freaked out, I’d feel worse. Bottom line, it just wasn’t very productive.
Quite frankly, some people either don’t get it or can’t handle it. That’s why it’s important that you seek out support systems in the form of people who do get it or are on the same journey. Even better, see if you can find people who are just a little further along in their own journey.
Separate emotion from logic.
Money blocks can be very emotional. Sometimes that emotion blinds us from making the right decisions. That’s why it’s important that we become hyper-aware of when emotions are taking over.
For example, I logically know that I need to outsource more in my business so I recently hired some contractors. I also logically know that this frees up my time so I can focus on revenue generating activities. It’s not my first time doing this and I have countless examples around me about how you need to invest in order to increase revenue.
However, my emotions go haywire every time I do this. Old money blocks about “There’s not enough money to invest!” or “You need to keep more of your money because there isn’t enough!” come up every single time.
At this point, I’m able to recognize the emotions. I still feel them and they may still take me down for a couple of days, but I don’t let them stop me from moving forward.
Final Thoughts
Dealing with your money blocks is a necessity to running a successful business. They will come up every single time you stretch out of your comfort zone. The important thing is you that you know what to do when they come up.
