Your Money Problems Might Not Be About Money
I used to think that if I could just make enough money, everything else would finally settle into place. It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud because I’ve already run the experiment. More than once, actually.
I’ve been homeless. I’ve had years where I brought in over half a million dollars. I sold a company that defined my career for more than a decade. I’ve worried about paying my mortgage, and I’ve worried about losing money that most people would assume should have made me feel secure forever.
The funny thing about finally getting the thing you thought would make you feel safe is that it has a nasty habit of exposing the things that never had anything to do with money in the first place.
Money didn’t heal my trauma. It didn’t teach me how to have boundaries. It didn’t make me feel worthy of wanting things for myself. It didn’t make me less afraid of being seen or taking up space in the world. In some ways, it made those things louder.
The more coaching conversations I have around money, the more I’ve come to believe that money is rarely the problem we’re actually trying to solve.
Most of my clients aren’t trying to become millionaires. They’re certainly not interested in becoming hustle culture poster children. They’re good people who want good things. They want enough money to stop worrying every time the furnace makes a weird sound. They want enough time to take a Tuesday afternoon off and go kayaking. (OK that’s me. I’m the kayaker.) They want enough financial stability to make decisions from desire instead of desperation. They want their actions to match the life they’re trying to build.
And yet, money is one of the places where they are most likely to ghost themselves.
The Problem With Most Money Mindset Advice
I have a complicated relationship with phrases like “scarcity mindset” and “abundance mindset.”
On the one hand, I understand what people are trying to communicate when they talk about abundance. A regulated nervous system absolutely gives us greater access to creativity, generosity, possibility, and joy. When we feel safe enough to imagine a different future, we tend to make better decisions in the present.
On the other hand, I don’t think we can positive-think our way out of survival mode.
If you’ve spent years worrying about paying your bills, lost your job, experienced abuse or financial betrayal, watched industries disappear overnight, or simply paid attention to the world around you lately, I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to tell you that your biggest problem is having a scarcity mindset.
Sometimes scarcity isn’t a mindset, but instead it’s information to pay attention to.
Money Is Where Internal Conflict Shows Up
One of the most frustrating things about being human is that we can want two completely different things at the exact same time and mean both of them wholeheartedly.
- You can desperately want financial freedom and simultaneously be terrified of what success might require of you.
- You can want to charge appropriately for your work and feel physically uncomfortable asking someone to pay you.
- You can want visibility and still want to hide.
- You can know exactly what you need to do in your business and find yourself reorganizing your office instead of sending the email that could change your life.
Welcome to being a human being with competing needs and priorities.
What problem am I actually trying to solve by making more money?
The answers I’ve heard over the years are fascinating.
- I want to feel safe.
- I want freedom.
- I want to finally relax.
- I want to know I matter.
- I want to stop disappointing myself.
- I want to be able to help other people.
- I want to know I’ll be okay if everything falls apart.
Not one person has ever said, “I’d really like a larger number in my bank account for absolutely no emotional reason whatsoever.”
Money is almost always standing in for something much deeper.
I don’t help entrepreneurs “heal their relationship with money” because I don’t actually think that’s the work.
I help entrepreneurs learn how to have their own backs when money, visibility, leadership, or uncertainty inevitably bring up the parts of themselves that are afraid.
Because money problems eventually come and go. The relationship you have with yourself is the only one you’ll take into every version of your life.