It seems I’m often confessing in these blogs. Well here’s another one. First I’ll reveal another limiting belief I’ve been holding, and then how that faulty picture has been reframed.
Okay, out with it: I don’t like keeping track of my financials. I’ve never done my own taxes; I always have someone else do them. The ability to balance a checking account has eluded me. I estimate how much money I have at any given time. Keeping an exact budget feels like a straitjacket. I think the stock market is the real voodoo economics.
Now, I do love having and spending money. I have always come in under budget in my professional life. I have a personal investment manager who does my investing for me. I’ve always participated in company 401Ks to the maximum allowed. When it comes to cash, my general attitude is that I have enough skills to keep myself employed, that I always have enough, and that money turns up when I am in need. But the details of that money remain in fantasyland, out of my incapable hands.
So you get the conceptual frame around my finances. Money is always there, sometimes in abundance, sometimes a bit scarce, but I always survive. Do you see the gilding around the frame? I have built my financial life on a foundation of occasional lack and inconsistency, mystery, illusiveness, unpredictability and dependency on what I can earn or raise.
What’s at the bottom of it all? Fear, plain and simple. When my coach, Rha, asked me what this fear felt like and where it came from, the elements I named sounded crazy and puny all by themselves, even untrue. I know I’m not really incapable, untalented, incompetent or unworthy. I realized the fear is bigger and badder, darker and meaner when I leave it as a nameless, murky, all encompassing haze.
Then Rha asked me to imagine what knowing my numbers could mean to me. As I quietly felt deep into that state, amazing responses bubbled up to the surface:
When I know my numbers I have power.
When I know my numbers I have the facts, and I can consciously choose what to spend and how much. I don’t have to wish, guess or hope.
When I know my numbers I can see when I need to make more.
When I know my numbers I can shape my life, I can control my time.
When I know my numbers I have the clarity to dream bigger, and the ability to make those dreams real.
When I know my numbers I have peace of mind and spirit. I rest easy at night and walk with confidence during the day.
When I know my numbers I can teach my daughter by my example and set her on a path to her own true independence.
When I know my numbers I can be free.
The next step in Rha’s process was to encourage me to write these revelations down as a series of affirmations, and post them right where I pay my bills and input my numbers in Quick Books. So when I open the envelopes, write my checks and create my budget, I am no longer just fulfilling some onerous chore. These affirmations help me reframe the context for my financials, making them much more attractive to me and much more resonant with my values and the vision I hold for my life.
What I am really doing when I look at the facts of my figures is stepping into my power on new terms. I am saying amen to clarity. I am fanning the fires of my deepest desires and helping them manifest. I am enlivening the energy of abundance in my wallet and my bank accounts. I am co-creating a new reality. I am walking in freedom.
stories as “art world/underworld pawn shop”- the Art Capital Group? It sounds like Annie Leibovitz may have done, on a very grand scale, what millions of talented women artist and entrepreneurs do with their businesses. They focus on taking their photos, making their art, selling their products and paying way too little attention to the money side of their business. Sometimes they hire professionals to help them sometimes they don’t. By avoiding her financials while she was capturing incredible moments on film, Annie has jeopardized her economic and artistic independence. At Count Me In, we help women everyday to seize their financial freedom by
ADVICE for writing a business plan that I have ever heard. When you start, she said, keep it simple. Before you start answering the questions though she strongly recommended taking a pile of about 10 sticky notes or sticky mailing labels and write DAMNED IF I KNOW on each one. Just write as fast and as much as you can. You CAN DO THIS - it is your business, your dream, your passion. As you are quickly whipping through the questions - when you come to one you can’t answer just stick your Damned If I Know sticker on it and keep going, answering the questions that you can.
