7 Tips To Creating A Money Mindset For Financial Success

This is a guest post by Jon Dulin of MoneySmartGuides.com, a blog about paying off debt and building wealth to achieve your dreams.

Are you struggling with money?

Does it seem like no matter what you do, you simply never have enough money?

Chances are you have a negative money mindset that is holding you back.

By having a negative mindset about money, you never get to experience the wealth you deserve.

When you create a money mindset that is full of positive thinking and belief, you take your finances to the next level.

And I am not talking about some out of this world thinking that will have money magically show up on your doorstep.

You will still take an active role in growing your wealth.

But by combining the power of the right mindset along with the actions you take, you will experience more results in growing your wealth.

In this post, I share with you the 7 steps you need to take to start creating a money mindset for financial success.

7 Tips To Creating A Money Mindset

1. Get To Know Your Voice

Usually when talking about getting you know your voice, we are talking in terms of your writing style. But when it comes to having the right money mindset, we are talking about that little voice in your head.

You know that voice.

The one that tells you that you aren’t good enough.

It keeps you from being the best version of yourself and it is the one that is holding your back from reaching your financial dreams.

Now some of us have a strong negative inner voice. No matter what we do, it is never good enough.

Others have a nicer inner voice. While there is some negativity to it, the voice is a positive cheerleader from time to time.

Regardless where your inner voice falls, you need to know where it stands.

Once you know this, it is time to get to work.

Identify what your inner critic is telling you. When is it most negative? When is it not so bad?

By understanding how your inner voice works, you can start to take action to limit the negative parts of it moving forward.

You do this by being more aware.

For example, let’s say you know your mindset is most negative when it comes to your debt.

As you are paying this month’s credit card bill, you hear it come up and say ‘I’ll never be able to buy a house with this much debt’.

Or maybe you hear your inner voice when you are out shopping and it says ‘buy the item, what is another $20 when I’m in debt up to my waist’.

Going forward, when you hear these critical thoughts, you have to catch yourself and change the script.

For instance, in either example above, follow up the thought with the understanding of how much progress you have made getting out of debt so far.

The key is to stop the negative thought and replace it with a positive one.

When you do this, in time you will find your negative inner voice becoming more and more quiet.

Just understand this change won’t happen over night. And you will never completely rid yourself of your critical inner voice.

But you can control it and limit it by being aware and replacing it with positive thoughts.

2. Create Affirmations

For some reading this, coming up with positive thoughts is going to be easy.

For others, it will be challenging.

Luckily there is help for you.

It is called affirmations.

Affirmations are short, positive sayings you can say verbally or just repeat in your head. They area a great way to get you into a positive mindset so you can begin to build your wealth.

Here are a handful of my favorite money affirmations.

• I always have more than enough money
• I am a money magnet
• I am worthy of making more money
• Money flows into my life in abundance
• I am the first millionaire in my family
• The actions I take create an abundance of riches
• I attract more money than I spend
• I have a blessed life filled with abundance and prosperity
• I am financially blessed every day I wake up

I suggest in addition to using these to replace negative thoughts, you also make a point to say them throughout your day.

By repeating the positive affirmations throughout your day, you will stay in a positive mindset more often, which will make it less likely that negative thoughts can take hold.

For example, I say positive affirmations when I wake up in the morning.

My alarm goes off, and I do a few light stretches in bed. Then say my go-to affirmations in my head. After that, I proceed with getting ready for the day.

I then have set time in the afternoon where I take 5 minutes to repeat the affirmations again. And finally, I say them one more time when I get in bed for the night.

The key to using affirmations is you have to believe what you are saying.

If you are saying things without your heart being in them, they won’t work very well.

So make sure you spend some time finding the affirmations that speak to you.

3. Track Your Spending

The next step you need to take is to start tracking your spending. Ideally this means creating a budget. And luckily there are many budget templates to make this process easier.

Why do you need to budget?

You need to see where your money is going. And chances are you are wasting a lot of money on things you don’t care about.

For example, many people buy things that they believe bring them joy. In reality, they are just buying things to give the illusion of success.

This is why many lease high end luxury cars, wear the most in fashion clothes, and the like. They are simply trying to keep up appearances.

Now stop and ask yourself a simple question.

What brings you joy in life?

If you take the time to give a serious answer, chances are it isn’t the big SUV you are leasing. It’s not the latest iPhone.

It probably has nothing to do with money at all.

When I started to budget and see where my money went, it blew my mind. I wasted so much of my money on things that didn’t matter.

When I answered the question about what brings me joy, the answer was spending time with friends and family.

Now I forego wasting my money on things and instead spend most of my money so my friends and family can hang out.

This means cooking dinner for a game night or going on a vacation together.

I’ve never been happier and I spend a lot less money than before. As a result, it has helped me to save $100,000. Interestingly, this was one of the positive affirmations I created for myself when I first started my financial journey.

So I encourage you to start tracking your spending so you can see how you waste money and then understand what brings you joy so you can start spending money there.

4. Start Visualizing

Another way to creating a positive money mindset is to start visualizing.

When you visualize, you are essentially creating affirmations but instead of using words, you are using images.

To start, close your eyes and imagine your ideal life. Picture what it looks like and what you have.

Do this for 5-10 minutes to start. Try to see details as much as you can. In time, you will get very good at this.

And when you do this, you will get excited. It will start to motivate you to want to reach this ideal life.

Combined with saying affirmations, you will find that you will be more positive more often, helping to propel your finances forward.

5. Create Smaller Goals

When you have a large goal, it can be easy to develop a negative money mindset.

For example, if you have $25,000 in credit card debt and you make a $200 payment, it is easy to become negative and think you will never be debt free.

But if you create smaller goals, you can avoid the negative mindset and replace it with a powerful positive mindset.

In this example, instead of focusing in $25,000 of debt, focus on $5,000.

Create a chart with the end goal of paying off $5,000. Then track your $200 monthly payment.

In 5 short months you will pay off 20% of your goal!

This will motivate and excite you. It will even lead to you figuring out ways to pay a little extra on your debt to reach your goal faster.

And it even works when trying to save money too. By creating small, fun money challenges, you can reach your goals and stay positive at the same time.

Once you reach your mini-goal, find a way to reward yourself. Maybe you get a massage or you spend a lazy Saturday in bed.

The key is to make the reward have meaning to you.

And once you reach your mini-goal, then start all over to pay off the next $5,000.

By keeping your goal smaller, you will stay in a positive money mindset more often, leading you to more success in the coming months and years.

6. Find The Right Group

This is going to be the hardest part of developing a positive money mindset.

You need to take stock of the people you surround yourself with.

Are they people who are ambitious and set goals for themselves?

Or are they people who just go through the motions of life?

If they only go through the motions in life, you are going to have a hard time achieving the financial success you want.

This is because we become the people we spend most of our time with.

You need to spend less time with the people who are not encouraging you to be the best you can be and more time with the people that are.

The zest for life that the go-getters possess will rub off on you. You will start to get excited and push for more out of life.

But switching your circle can be difficult for many people.

This is especially true if the negative people are family members.

Here are a few ideas for how to handle these relationships.

• Limit interaction as much as possible. This includes in person and on social media. Try to spend as little time with the people.
• Be honest with them. There is no point in ignoring people if they reach out to you. You are both adults, so have an adult conversion. But make sure you don’t make it all about them and attack them. Talk about how you want more out of life.
• Be nice. Even if you distance yourself from people, you will still run into them. Don’t ignore them. Be polite and talk with them. Just make sure you keep the interaction short so you don’t get dragged into their negativity.

By following these guidelines, you can limit yourself to negative people and be happier and more successful at the same time.

7. Be Patient

The final step in having the right money mindset is to be patient.

You want your mindset and your finances to change overnight. But this isn’t reality.

Nothing changes that quickly.

You need to give it time.

You need time to track your spending. You can’t look at one day’s worth of expenses. You need at least 30 days.

You won’t be a master at visualizing either. You need practice to be able to see the finer details of the images in your mind come to life.

The same goes for affirmations. While I gave you a handful to start with, it will take you some time to develop and mold them into personal affirmations that have the most meaning to you.

And finally, you can’t change your relationships with the flip of a switch.

You need to identify the bad influences in your life, have a conversation with them and begin to distance yourself.

This isn’t to tell you developing a money mindset isn’t possible. It is to dispel any myth in your head that this will be done quickly and easily.

There will be challenges along the way and the more you understand this, the better off you will be.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, creating a money mindset is possible.

You just have to be willing to put in the work.

And I am certain if you put in the work to getting your head in the right space when it comes to money, the actions you take will lead you to financial success and happiness.

The key is to not overlook the mental aspect of wealth.

No matter how much money you earn or save will matter if you have a negative money mindset.

Take the steps today to get in the right frame of mind and enjoy the abundance headed your way.

Author Bio: Jon Dulin is a personal finance expert helping people improve their finances for over 15 years. You can read more of his work at MoneySmartGuides.com where he helps readers pay off debt and start building wealth so they can achieve their dreams.

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