Understanding Your Money Scripts
You have beliefs and values centered around money that you inherited from your parents, have been influenced by society, and have deepened by your own personal experiences. There is a good chance you don’t understand why you view money through the lens that you do. The beliefs and values, or Money Scripts as Dr. Brad Klontz calls them shape how you handle your finances, feel about money, and potentially limit your financial potential.
Klontz has identified four money scripts:
Money Avoidance “Money is bad”
Money Worship “Money solves all problems”
Money Status “My success is determined by my possessions and what others think”
Money Vigilance “I can’t save enough money–I’ll never have enough”
Each script has its positives and negatives and you most likely exhibit some of each script, but probably have one that is dominant. I’m sure you can quickly see the drawbacks in each of the scripts, but having the right mix of each script for your authentic life can bring a healthy relationship with money.
Obviously, some of these money scripts can get you into trouble by overspending (worship and status) or, on the other end of the spectrum, not experiencing life (vigilance and maybe avoidance), but there is another risk that may not be as obvious of one of the scripts—burying your Self under a glass ceiling.
Money avoidance is the script that might keep you from reaching your full potential because it limits your growth; the others could also limit your growth, but not because they cap your potential.
I recently silenced part of my money avoidance script. I obviously don’t think money is bad; after all, my career is helping others manage their money and align it with their authentic lives. I have the right balance of worship, status, and vigilance for my authentic life, but I realized a couple of years ago that avoidance was holding me back from achieving all of my goals and living my authentic life.
Even though I realized avoidance’s glass ceiling, it still took me a couple of years to finally silence the limiting voice in my money scripts.
Until late last year, I was afraid to make increasing my income a goal of mine. I always told my Self that if I made more income a goal, the Universe would make the opposite occur; focusing my efforts on more money was greedy, and that greed would be rewarded with financial struggles. So, each year, I just told my Self that I would focus on doing what is right for others and the finances would fall where they needed to be.
And they always did.
It’s almost hard to write this because we have been incredibly fortunate financially, there’s that money avoidance is still creeping in a little bit, which is a healthy thing. I cannot complain about where we are financially or the path that has led us here. But, I have developed new goals that align with my authentic life that have required me to rethink how I view increasing my income.
I know part of my authentic life is being able to directly help others when they are struggling financially–pay off medical bills, settle school lunch debts, buy a nice used car for a family who needs it, etc., and do it all on the down low.
I know part of my authentic life is being able to invest in others without caring about the financial return on the investment but being focused on the personal impact of the investment. I know what entrepreneurship can mean for someone, and I want to be able to help someone get started when no one else is willing or sees the vision.
A moment of synchronicity…as I was writing this note, a friend of mine sent me an IG Story of one of my favorite rappers Pusha-T, sharing a story of how he invested in a medical transportation business to help his friend who was fresh out of jail.
I know part of my authentic life is being able to support family, friends, or people I like but don’t know in their ventures frivolously. I want to buy all of the courses, subscriptions, and merch that people I care about and like create because I know how hard it is to start something new and what it feels like to get those first few orders, subscribers, or clients.
To live these parts of my authentic life requires me to make more money because my authentic life does not include sacrificing my family’s experiences and comfort to make them happen; that is an option, and I have thought that maybe if I scale back our living to do more of this now the flow of money will return us back to the lifestyle we enjoy—but I’ve ultimately decided that these goals are MY authentic life, not necessarily Ang, Roman, Leo, and Silas’s.
Understanding these new goals allowed me to see the goal of increasing my income through a new lens—I don’t want more money to buy more things, increase my lifestyle, or for any other selfish reasons. I want more money so I can go do good things with it, and I know what those good things are. My focus on more comes from a good place–my heart, which allows me to silence the fear I once let act as a glass ceiling.
As I’ve reflected on this and have begun to embody the version of my Self who is doing the things I mentioned above, I realized in the past, when I was leaving my income up to the flow of life, I didn’t have a reason beyond selfish reasons to make more money; I wasn’t ready to focus on making more money then. But now…it’s like, let me make as much money as possible within the alignment of my authentic life to do as much good as possible.
I’m excited to see what this shift in mindset and resetting my money avoidance money script will lead to this year and beyond.
Think about your relationship with money. How do the four money scripts impact your relationship with money, and are any of them preventing you from living your authentic life?
From my experience, which is just one person’s experience, getting my money scripts to the right mix was only possible once I aligned my spirit, mind, and body to find my authentic life. If you’re struggling with the money scripts, start looking internally, find your alignment, and see if you have a better understanding of where your scripts fall and which one(s) need to be addressed.
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
