Maybe you’ve heard this before?
True self-value comes from the inside, and no amount of money or any level of success will change that.
We’ve all seen the stories about the rich folks who are sour and mean and the poor folks who are happy and kind to others. Some say that wealth makes you more of who you already are inside — that it emphasizes your true colors.
Hopefully, this concept of inner versus outer wealth arrives front and center in your focus when you hit a rough patch — like when you feel you’ve hit a plateau, or as if you’ve been making all the right money moves but don’t feel like it’s paying off.
While we’d all rather avoid that deep, inner work and self-evaluation (because it’s painful and emotional), sometimes you just can’t get to the next level in life until you spend some time exploring your own self-value.
Look in the Mirror and Read Between the Lines
Struggle and stuck-ness can occur at any level and multiple times throughout life, especially throughout your investing and wealth-building journey. At these moments, you’re forced to look inward and attempt to understand the ways you believe your value is conditionally based on external circumstances.
It’s exceptionally usual to carry beliefs that are not serving you well without realizing it. Here are a few examples:
- When I earn/have/save X amount, I’ll be happier.
- You’ve got to work hard for money.
- More money = more problems.
You might laugh at some of these because you’ve heard them before, or on the surface, they might sound silly. They may be phrases you grew up with, hear all the time, or have even said before!
Still, when you stop to examine the noise, your negative self-talk, and behaviors that result in self-sabotage, you’ll notice that these and other narratives will surface. It’s these types of back-handed narratives that hold us back, and only when we realize their impact and consciously make a choice to dismantle these beliefs can we elevate beyond where we are now.
Discovering Your Roadblocks
Leisa Peterson*, the author of The Mindful Millionaire, says that people lose out on money, time, and opportunities every day because of their inability to shift their inner narrative toward acknowledging the limitless, non-negotiable truth they already are.
She helps people embody confidence and achieve economic security and self-love by helping them heal their hearts and become aware of the roadblocks on the path toward their prosperous relationship with themselves.
The trouble is, traditional financial services assume you have a healthy relationship with yourself and your money, but most people don’t. Most people believe money reflects self-value, which results in a clouded approach toward financial decisions.
*Listen to an entire interview with Leisa in Episode 6 of the Investing For Good podcast: How To Become A Mindful Millionaire.
Bringing Mindful Millionaires to the Surface
Leisa shares eight steps designed to help you break the invisible barriers in your life, and they follow the acronym IPROSPER. Mindfully develop your inner awareness to better support the exterior aspects of growing your wealth by spending time in each of the following steps:
Intention
Look inward and ask why you’re here, what you want to do, and where you want to focus. Decide what catalyst brought you to this point and center your awareness on who you really are deep inside.
Patterns
Recognize patterns in your personal behavior, your feelings around security, success, and failure, and notice areas in which you avoid taking action. There are patterns you mindlessly repeat that do not benefit you; this is the time to bring those into awareness.
Reclaim
Realize your lack of focus or fear of making a difference might have you scattered and overextended. Reclaim your feelings of orientation with a renewed sense of awareness and hyper-focus on the steps toward what your true self desires.
Opportunity
Explore your deepest wants toward authority, abundance, peace, lifestyle, connection with others, self-discipline, and influence. What is holding you back from pursuing the opportunity for multifaceted growth in these areas?
Story
Understand the stories you’ve carried under the surface that have not been helping you toward your goals but instead have been holding you back. This might look like fear of rejection, having low expectations, or resisting money-making opportunities.
Permission
Give yourself permission to attract more, create more, and achieve more. Trust that you can move into the next chapter with openness. The possibility is there — you just have to accept it, even if it looks different than you might expect.
Evidence
Find supporting evidence that you are enough to achieve the life you want to live. Recognize that your inner struggle has been causing fragmentation of your focus and leading to an invisible resistance of wealth.
Reinvention
Claim what you want, set your goals, and relentlessly pursue them, realizing that failure is part of the process. Reinvent your journey as many times as it takes to achieve a life you love.
Minding Your Money
When you’re able to see how money can help you achieve your goals instead of believing money is THE goal, it is more likely to flow in and out of your life in a way that moves you toward inner and outer wealth.
When you feel like a million bucks, you can achieve anything, but if you have a low level of belief in your abilities or a low sense of self-worth, it will always seem like something is working against you. I know you’ve felt this firsthand before. We all have.
Try heading out for a run feeling like you’re on top of the world. Contrast that with a run after a day when everything you touched seemed to fizzle. Which run do you think went further, faster, more effortlessly, and was more fun?
As you progress through this journey, you’ll naturally gravitate toward a community that is not only wealthier monetarily, but also wealthier mentally. Surround yourself with people who inspire you, are attuned to their inner selves, and maintain a strong sense of self-worth and limitless value.
Keep this in mind: Money is only one of the bricks in the marvelous structure of fulfillment and abundance.
About the Author:
Annie Dickerson and her partner Julie Lam are founders of Goodegg Investments — an award-winning real estate private equity firm — and creators of the Real Estate Accelerator Mentorship Program. They are authors of the book Investing For Good and hosts of the popular Life & Money Show podcast: https://goodegginvestments.com/
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action.
