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Your Money Comfort Zones
| A comfort zone is an environment, situation or state of mind a person feels comfortable in. It feels familiar and safe to move within your comfort zone and the thought of venturing outside it can be very frightening. Although most people have heard of comfort zones in reference to various situations, not many have linked the idea with finances. |
| Money comfort zones subconsciously dictate how much money we are comfortable earning, spending and saving and any amount above that feels "wrong" to us. The tricky part about money comfort zones is they can be very subtle. For example, you might really feel like you would have no problem at all earning 10 million dollars a year but, under closer examination, that may not really be the case. |
| Our money comfort zones come from various sources...everything from feeling uncomfortable about earning more money than our parents, believing that income is based on education, feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy, fear of success, and many, many others. Regardless of where your money comfort zones originated, though, they can still drastically limit your income. |
| People with strong money comfort zones find themselves able to easily earn a certain amount each month or each year but moving beyond that amount seems to be nearly impossible; no amount of planning, effort or work brings them the financial success they hope for. |
| So how can you discover your money comfort zones? Try this exercise: |
| Write yourself a check for an amount above your normal income. If you make $50,000 a year, write a check for $75,000. Now examine how it feels to "own" that amount of money. How does it feel to see your name next to that amount? How does it feel to say that you've received that much money? If the amount you wrote your first check for doesn't feel uncomfortable, write another check for a higher amount and notice how you feel with it. Keep doing this until you feel that the amount you now have isn't right for you. When you've found that amount, you've found your money comfort zone. |
| Now that you know what your comfort zone is, think about why that particular amount is your "glass ceiling". Is there anything about that amount of money that stands out? If you notice something about that dollar amount, make note of it and ask yourself if what you currently believe about that amount of money is true. If not, turn that thought around and choose to think differently about it from now on. For example, I have a family member who was always told he would never succeed and even though he is very bright
and has the potential to do quite well, he has a very low money comfort zone due to this limiting beliefs. When I helped him discover what his comfort zone was, he realized he was stuck there because he believed in order for him to earn more, he would need a college degree. After presenting him with a list of some very famous and highly successful people who didn't finish college (Bill Gate, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Hanks to name a few), he started seeing things very differently. For the first time, he began to think that his education didn't have to dictate his income. |
| Making a shift in your perspective on money can really make a difference. Sometimes it's pretty simple to make that change in thinking and other times strong limiting beliefs can make it much more difficult. If you want to learn how to neutralize these limiting beliefs, take a look at what the Members Page offers. |
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