There are 7 key money mindset hurdles that you need to get over to create the financial reality you want in life and business.
More commonly, you may have heard what I describe as money hurdles being called money blocks.
However, I am not a fan of the term.
Whilst I appreciate it may seem like just semantics, the energy behind the words matters.
Money blocks feel dense, almost impossible to move and like the responsibility for their existence is outside of you.
With blocks, it feels like something other than you has control of your financial reality and that just isn’t true.
Hurdles seem much less dense, moveable even.
You can jump over them with practice.
Hurdles leave us with the feeling of possibility and the belief that we can still make progress whilst knowing that we are responsible for making the leap.
Until you make the leap over these hurdles, you can be sure your mind is seriously limiting your money.
You may only resonate with one or two or you may recognise them all.
You may find that as you clear one hurdle, another one pops up.
Understanding is power so let’s take a closer look at how the 7 key money mindset hurdles play out in your life and business.
The Value Hurdle
Understanding your personal values helps you live a meaningful, authentic life and we all know that.
What we perhaps didn’t realise is that as adults, as our responsibilities start mounting up, we can lose sight of what those values are.
If you are a parent or are running your own business, or both, you will know that those responsibilities can so easily become all consuming. What do my children need? What does my business need?
They can become our core focus, our number one priority and then one day we look up and realise a couple of years has passed and we have forgotten who we really are.
Without knowing your values, how do you know what you stand for?
You just seem to have spent a lifetime trying to keep other people happy and support others and now you don’t really know how you feel about anything because your life and business are so intrinsically wrapped up in everyone else’s needs and happiness.
You don’t know what you value and without that, it’s almost impossible to build a life that serves you and feels good.
The Imposter Hurdle
No matter what you are doing in life or business, you are just waiting to be found out. For someone to realise that you are not who you say you are. Not because you have lied but because people just seem to assume more than you are.
You can’t understand how the people around you have come to the judgement that you are an accomplished individual, who is great at what they do, that delivers what they say they will and can always be counted on in a crisis.
You look around at what you have achieved and can’t see the incredibleness of it. You cannot see how far you have come. You do not recognise all the work that you put into getting where you are today. You do not recognise that over time you have indeed earned your reputation, and that people’s perception of you is based on real life events that they have experienced with you.
Instead, you feel like you have what you have and you are who you are by some kind of sheer fluke. And you are waiting to wake up and find that everyone has realised you shouldn’t be where you are. And when that happens….you just know that everything will be taken away..
You cannot see that you have created your reality.
You cannot give yourself the praise you so long to hear.
You cannot tell yourself you are entitled to be where you are and believe it. You cannot see that you have earned the place at this table, the table that you built.
The Worth Hurdle
You feel you are not enough.
You look in the mirror and are reminded of it every single day. You see just how not enough you are repeatedly through the day.
You note all your “failures” as an adult, as a parent/friend/teacher/coach/mentor/family member. No matter what you do it just never feels enough, you always feel like you are letting someone down.
When you cannot see your own worth, it means you tend to chase it in things outside of yourself. You fall into the trap of trying to prove yourself.
Of relentlessly trying to pursue the accolade of being the best or having the best – and it’s only so you might feel enough. You would certainly never feel like you are the best at anything. EVER.
You have forgotten one huge important fact in life and that is that our worth is inherent. We are born of immense worth. Just by the mere fact that you are – you are more than enough. If you did nothing at all but breathed in and out for the rest of your life – you would be enough.
When you strip away people’s possessions, titles, roles and stand them next to each other with nothing, there is no difference. We are not the same but no one is of more or less value. We are all inherently worthy. You have been given the gift of life – you are enough.
The Receiving Hurdle
Receiving makes you feel inherently uncomfortable. It doesn’t matter what it is that you are receiving – it just feels awkward and embarrassing and you wish the ground would swallow you up any time you have to talk about it.
Receiving comes in many forms. It could be money, compliments, gifts, other people’s time, offers of help, a cup of tea, a thank you. It doesn’t matter what it is, you struggle to let yourself receive anything.
This can often be traced back to a moment in childhood. You may not consciously recall it, but something as simple as an off the cuff comment like “greedy guts” when you asked for more dessert, can have caused such a reaction in you at the time, you haven’t asked for another thing ever since. You just don’t ever like to receive anything in case you get that awful feeling of being a “greedy guts” again.
Receiving, in many cases, can trigger shame and guilt especially when it comes to money. When running your online business, if you have an issue with receiving, asking for the sale can feel so icky to you that it’s hard to explain. You can overcome this with some focused work and a willingness to accept that whilst receiving might feel uncomfortable, it is not dangerous.
The Capacity Hurdle
This one is like an extension of the receiving hurdle. You will allow yourself to receive but only ever just enough. You could not possibly have more than enough because what would that make you? Some people have nothing, who would you be to have more than you needed.
The capacity hurdle is a huge limiter to income levels. You may have managed to get to your consistent £5k months but any time you push towards more than that, something comes along that snaps you right back to the £5k. You are comfortable at this level because it is just enough. More than enough is simply too much.
You may find you can increase your income beyond a limit but your expenses always go up to match it – and you end up with the same amount. This is always a capacity issue.
The Hustle Hurdle
You have been the underdog so many times in life. You have had to fight to get to where you are today. You overcome immense stress and pressure and you have achieved many of your goals. However, you strongly believe that you have to work hard for everything you have.
You can’t slow down, reduce your hours, take time off because everything will absolutely go down the toilet if you do. You need to keep pushing to keep getting the results. You’ve heard of operating in your flow and it sounds like a load of old tosh. No flow for you – when you are tired you just push. When you are sad or grieving , you just work through it. No matter what, you hustle to get over it/through it.
You don’t know what it is to not have to fight, you are so used to always having to overcome something.
You don’t know how life would be without an obstacle or needing to push. If you don’t overcome the hustle hurdle, you will hit burn out. There is no way, your level of hustle can be sustained for life without detriment to your health and happiness.
The Trust Hurdle
Trust – this is a big deal for you.
You don’t trust anyone easily. There is a belief locked away that they always let you down and they always leave. People who you adored and put your faith in, broke your trust at some point in your life. You now believe that this is likely because of you and will therefore apply to all people. And although you may not yet realise it, the person you trust the least is yourself.
How many times have you promised yourself you will take a day off, or have an early night, or meet a friend, or play with your kids and have ended up not doing that because something important came up? How many times have you held back on saying what you wanted to say so as not to make someone else uncomfortable? If at some point you have lied to yourself or pretended that your feelings didn’t exist, you have broken your own trust. It then feels like nothing and no one can be trusted. This internal reality then plays out in your external reality with you being trust adverse and experiencing repeated examples of people breaking your trust.
It comes from promising yourself, you will change things. Of dipping your toes in the water of creating your own reality, only to panic and go back to “real life”. When you fail to deliver on the promises your soul craves, you break your own trust.
Now you understand a little more about each of the hurdles, you could take a look at the money hurdle quiz on my website and see which hurdle you need to start clearing.
The first step to creating change in your money mindset is to understand where you are starting from.
The hurdles that are currently in your way, are creating the money story that is driving your financial reality but now that you understand that, you can start to spot those hurdles in action. When you catch yourself you get to ask what would be a better action in this moment and remember that you have the power to clear your money hurdles.