6 Questions To Ask To Discover Your ‘Money Story’
Grab a pen and write down your response about each of these prompts to uncover your money story.
Your money story is your own personal narrative about money. Without even realizing, we are telling ourselves stories all of the time. It’s how our brains process information and can be helpful or harmful depending on from where and how our brains are pulling their scripts.
Everyone has a money script and often it is inspired by how our parents or caretakers related to money while we were growing up. We internalize their hopes, dreams, and fears about money without often realizing it. We absorbed emotions and feelings of those around us before we even understood what money is, a currency of exchange.
Brad and Ted Klonz, authors of “Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health” coined the term ‘Money Scripts’ to describe the way people relate to money in four main ways, Money Avoidance, Money Vigilance, Money Worship, and Money Status. Each of these are a way we relate to money based on our money story.
Thankfully, with some practice, we can start to change our relationship with money once we have awareness of how our stories were written and how we want to rewrite them.
Here are six questions you can ask yourself to begin to uncover your own personal money story.
What was your earliest childhood memory of money?
How did your parents discuss money?
Growing up, did you have more/less/about the same as your peers?
Do you have feelings of guilt about money?
Do you think you deserve money?
Do you feel like financial success is attainable?
