Top Limiting Beliefs About Money

Posted on January 8, 2017February 26, 2017 by Anubhav Srivastava

By Anubhav Srivastava ( Register for his Workshop – Build Super Confidence For Super Success!)

Everyone may not want to be rich but everyone wants to be financially free to the extent that they can support the lifestyle they want whether it is extravagant or more conservative. But the fact is that a lot of us hold a lot of limiting beliefs about money that often make it hard to have enough in the bank to comfortably enjoy the lifestyle we want, it is almost like there is not enough. Let’s take a look at 12 of these limiting beliefs that discourage people and severely limit their financial progress

1) Rich people are mostly dishonest so if I become rich it means I have to be dishonest.

While it maybe true for many people who become rich, the fact is there are also many many people who have become through ethical means by practising a variety of principles that helped them gain prosperity. Whether it is working harder, working smarter and haboring good financial habits. Wealthy people have been doing it for long.

2) Rich people are lucky.

While there is no denial that luck plays a role in life, it is just one part of the jigsaw puzzle of success. There are hundreds of other pieces or habits you need to fit together before you even get close to getting rich. If you are not putting them together, you can have all the luck that you want but you will never solve the puzzle.

3) Rich people are always born rich.

Let us assume for an instance that statement was even true and they are always born into wealthy families, what would you say made their dads or grand dads or great grand dads rich? At some point of the family tree someone or the other came from humble backgrounds but with a relentless will and an entrepreneurial spirit that broke the status quo and made the family rich. Even today, a lot of people who are becoming millionaires or billionaires are not children of millionaires or billionaires but relatively self made. Sure, some of them may have learnt their enterprising habits from their parents but their wealth was built, not inherited.

We have thousands and thousands of examples of such people in our society today. Look around you. You don’t need to be born rich to become rich.

4) Money is the root of all evil.

That’s not true. An excessive greed for money which forces you to abandon all your core values for the love of it is the root of all evil. Money itself is neither good or bad. It can be spent on narcotic drugs or it maybe spent on life saving drugs that can cure diseases. It is a matter of how you treat it and how you respect it. Excessively greedy people have given money a bad name. People conveniently forget that philanthropists also use money to fuel their good deeds.

5) Money is not important. It is meant to be spent.

Of course it is important. How else will you pay your bills. It doesn’t matter how much money you make, you need enough to support the lifestyle you desire for yourself. And yes, money is meant to be spent but where you spend it will make a massive difference to the kind of life you are ultimately able to lead. If you have a habit of spending money on the unimportant things all the time for instant gratification, very soon you will realize you will never have money when you need it for the right thing. Treat money with respect. Financial Expert Suze Orman says that People Deserve the most respect, then money and only then the things you buy with money.

6) Getting rich requires almost superhuman hard work.

Working hard if often an element of getting rich, but that alone isn’t enough. A laborer probably works the hardest in the world, we don’t see him getting rich. Working less hard but on the right things will make you much more wealthier than working extremely hard on the wrong things. For example if you create the right automated businesses that do not require your time daily or invest money in the right areas, you won’t be working very hard but you will be making more money than those working super hard on the wrong things.

7) It takes money to make more money and I don’t have much!

Perhaps one of the bigger myths. Yes if you are an investor then it takes some money previously to make money but some of the biggest businesses in the world have started off from scratch or with very little money only by executing ideas that served an existing customer need. Change your belief to, it takes ideas that serve a market need and then executing those ideas well that makes money.

8) Money doesn’t grow on trees

The idea behind this saying is that it is extremely difficult to make money and you need to break your back to earn every dollar or pound or rupee. The saying means that there is no tree which drops money like a fruit. The problem is this saying partly wrong. Money can grow on trees if you treat your investments and businesses like trees. In the beginning, Investments or Businesses are like a small plant. You need to pick the right plants and then water them daily and spend a lot of attention in the initial days to make them grow. Then over a period of time, if you have been doing the right things, they will become trees that do not require.much maintenance but will you give you income like fruits from a tree. That being said you still need to take a little care of the tree and protect it from woodcutters 😉

9) Money can’t buy you happiness

Yes money cannot buy you long term happiness. If you are an unhappy person in general, you will remain so even when you have money. If you are a happy person you will remain so. But money can buy you experiences that can make you happy that we all need from time to time. Vacations and spending on things that give us joy from time to time are quite instrumental in helping us form happy memories so in that sense money can help 🙂

10) Money causes stress so being poor is better.

So we talked about how money can’t buy you happiness and yes money cannot make you a happy person, but let us not glorify poverty. Poor people often don’t have enough to eat, they are exploited, they are humiliated, they often have to work much much harder in getting a good education. If you think having money causes stress, try having no money you when you need it an extreme emergency situation such as when your loved ones desperately needs an expensive medical procedure to save their lives.There is no glory in being poor. Always aim to have enough money to at least take care of the people that matter the most to you in life.

11) If I make money my friends will get jealous and secretly hate me or they will use me or both.

If your friends get jealous if you get money, they are not your real friends anyway. A true friend neither envies you in good times nor does he or she abandon you in bad ones. The same goes for people who you use you. The ones who stick by you during your bad times will be happy for your success, they will only be upset with you if your behaviour towards them changes for the worse after your success. The people who use you will never be around when you need them and will only appear as well wishers when you don’t need their wishes.

Don’t put down the idea of becoming wealthy only because you are worried about how people’s perceptions will change. Most people will always have an opinion anyway so might as well do what is good for you and makes you happy.

12) I will be wealthy only when I get a high paying job.

Finally, we come to the biggest myth. Getting wealthy depends on how much you save and invest rather than what you solely make from a job. So you can over time build a reasonable net worth even if from a lower paying job if you have the basics right.

How many friends do you know of who seem to have a high paying job but spend all of their money and are in debt almost all the time. If they were unfortunately fired tomorrow, they would go back to being broke in an instant because they never took care of their finances and always blew all the money away. A high paying job or business certainly makes the process of becoming wealthy easier BUT ONLY IF you have taken care of the basics first, consistently saving and investing what you earn instead of spending it all away frivolously.

About the Author

The author of this article, Anubhav Srivastava is an author, motivational speaker and the director of Carve Your Destiny, a first of its kind inspirational documentary featuring some of the most famous personalities from diverse fields, who teach the viewers how they too can make all of their dreams come true. The movie itself has been seen on Youtube by close to 600,000 people. Anubhav has also been featured in numerous International and India Media outlets such as BBC , The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff.com, Leicester Mercury and many others.

Email Anubhav Srivastava for coaching, consulting or motivational speaking queries at anubhav101@gmail.com. Facebook Profile: http://facebook.com/anubhav981

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