She Thought She Was Bad At Money
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash
Last week I shared how our experiences in life create our money stories and our money consciousness, which is how we think about and relate to money. It’s what we believe is true for us in that realm.
I promised to share how financial forecasting is a tool used to change your money consciousness. I'll start with an example of one of my clients, Cindy Ingram. Cindy has a very successful business, creating art curriculum to support teachers in their time of great need.
When we first started working together, Cindy believed she WASN’T good at money.
You can listen to her talk about her experience here.
These are some of the things she said:
She had a tremendous amount of stress over money
She didn’t know how to use it
She didn’t know how to handle the amount of money that was coming in
She felt inept and out of control
She didn’t know where her money was coming from or where it was going
She was living in a constant state of anxiety
Very soon after starting the regular monthly practice of financial forecasting, she realized that she was actually good with money, and her mood immediately improved.
I’m astonished this happened so fast for her!
She began to know what she spent and why. There was no out-of-control spending as she had thought. She understood that the expenses were more than she had ever experienced spending, which is why it felt so uncomfortable. She saw that all her expenses were necessary to grow her business.
Through the hundreds of forecasting sessions I have facilitated, I’ve witnessed that when we're not looking at the data, our brains fill in the blanks, and what we think is happening may or may not be accurate because our brain can only keep track of so many numbers and so much detail.
And we are viewing things through the lens of our money stories. Cindy had believed that when a lot of money was spent, it was out-of-control, rather than the truth that these were necessary business expenses.
When we forecast, we look at actual data in an organized, meaningful way, and we can see what's happening. The data speaks volumes and may contradict what our brains tell us.
Through forecasting, we discover that the stories we tell ourselves are not always accurate, which changes our money consciousness.
We can see if the data matches our belief systems and what we tell ourselves is happening. We get to decide what we will agree to, accept, and move forward with as our money consciousness or cast off unsupportive beliefs that may not even be true.
We make peace with the numbers and befriend them instead of judging them and ourselves.
Take it from Cindy, in just a few rounds of forecasting, she went from believing she was bad at money to seeing proof that she was good at it. Talk about a change in consciousness. And this change was just the beginning of the increased profits and well-being she has created for herself, her family, and her business.
Here are some of the gifts she has received from her dedication to the practice:
She learned how to set goals for launches aligned with the business's needs instead of disconnected goals that felt stressful and inauthentic.
She began to feel stable in what she was doing because she was looking into the future.
She was able to make decisions from a place of power, knowing, and understanding.
Her confidence increased.
She allowed herself to dream big.
Her revenue doubled.
I want to tell you that you can change your consciousness around money, and financial forecasting is a vehicle that will help you get there. *
* Maybe you are getting excited about financial forecasting and what it can do for you and your business.
I’m putting together a group program to lead people through the process and help them improve their relationship with their financial information and, in turn, increase their profits and cash flow.
If you are interested, sign up for the waitlist here and be the first to know when the Financial Forecasting Experience goes live.
Love,
Carol