Category Archives: money thinking

Hemlines Affecting the Market?

That was the theory that Julie Newmar suggested on the Dick Cavett Show I watched recently. Granted, the show originally aired on February 4, 1971, but it’s not as crazy as you might think.

The stock market is having some ups and downs now. We all know that has happened many times in history. Loads of people make a living studying the trends and data. They make predictions based on all sorts of criteria. Some of them come true, some don’t.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying their research and opinions are not valid. It’s just that there is an overriding factor that has always affected the ‘Market’, and always will, that many of them are stepping over.

I was thrilled when Alan Greenspan, Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, actually said it. Here’s the quote:

‘Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria. Bubbles go up very slowly as euphoria builds. Then fear hits, and it comes down very sharply. When I started to look at that, I was sort of intellectually shocked. Contagion is a critical phenomenon which causes the thing to fall apart.’

Simplifying what he is saying: The Stock Market is based on emotion! and being the analytical guy that he is, he was shocked to discover the impact of emotion on money. You won’t be surprised to find out: I’m not.

Let’s get back to Julie Newmar — For those too young to know, Julie Newmar was Catwoman on the campy Batman television show of the mid 1960s. And she did a great job of pleading her case. It was quite fun. Danny Kaye, a screenwriter, and a doctor were the other guests. Kaye was the only one that tried to pull the attention away from Julie. That wasn’t going to work. She was dynamic, savvy, and dressed for the part — including ‘hotpants’. She brought up the concept of how the Market and hemlines were tied together. Her perspective was that hemlines had an effect on the market. You see when hemlines go down the market is calm and steady, and when they go up it gets volatile. Is this a chicken/egg thing? I don’t think so. I do think that the actions of the Stock Market and the hemlines are reflective of and a response to the emotional tenor of the time.

The truth is that the thing which most strongly affects money is emotion, and Julie Newmar had that figured out in the early 1970s. That hasn’t changed. And now, more than ever, emotions are high and on edge.

“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride” – All About Eve (1950)

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you need a bit untangling your hemline issues give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Fixin’ To?

It’s an old Texas term that most of us have heard, and many of us have used. ‘Fixin’ To‘ is similar to ‘trying’ in its effectiveness. The question really is “How to get out of the Fixin’ To stage and into the actual doing things stage?” And like most things, changing your thinking can make all the difference.

Let’s explore a different way to get results, shall we? You’ve all heard of the Law of Attraction. Near as I can tell it was originally a Hindu concept, or possibly even older than that. More recently it has become a “New Age” mainstay with the use of the equation: Intention + Attention = Manifestation. First let’s move that into clearer language: something like “Dreams, Desires, Goals,” even Fixin’ To for the Intention part. Frankly the simple word for the Attention part is Action. And finally manifestation comes down to Results.

Now, hang on. I’m fixin’ to play with the math a bit. I think of Laws of Nature like Gravity as working whether or not we believe in them. Frankly I’ve been having this ‘conversation’ with Gravity for years, asking it to lighten up a bit… but does Gravity even listen to me? Nope! I think the Law of Attraction equation works that way too, except I—being a numbers person—want to change it just slightly, from addition to multiplication. What the equation is really saying is that you need both Desire (Being) and Action (Doing) to create a Result, and math-wise, a multiplication sign makes more sense to me. If I’ve got only one of the elements without the other it’s like multiplying by zero and the result of that is zero! Wow! Math can be helpful.

So the bottom line is that Fixin’ To doesn’t get you off the couch. Actions do. And for those actions to be effective you need to be clear about what you want.

One thing I know for sure, is that when you or I get wonky results it’s because we are missing one of those two elements in the math problem!

Fixin’ To is a good step, it’s just needs a partner like action. How about aligning the two together?

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Fixin’ to change your money thinking? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Training Your Brain

It’s one of those things that happens whether you are conscious of it or not: your brain gets trained. Most of us have heard something about this, the way our brains store information in groups of neurons firing together. Thus all the information about a particular thing is tucked in the same pile. That just happens. The question is how can you use that to your advantage?

I had somewhat of an epiphany about this recently watching a favorite movie with someone who had never seen it. The film was ‘Cat Ballou‘, the 1965 western romp with a very young Jane Fonda, a wild and inebriated Lee Marvin, and Nate King Cole and Stubby Kaye as narrating balladeers! I hadn’t seen it in years.

The moment it started I was flooded with memories. I remembered sitting in the Wyo Theatre in Sheridan, Wyoming seeing it several times as it played that summer. I spent many summers in Wyoming with Cup Cake, my grandmother. She worked at a furniture store; she’d take me with her to the store, and I’d help her. When she got busy I’d wander the town or go to the movies.

Since I saw the movie several times in the week that it ran, it’s a strong memory. I even remembered that Lee Marvin won an Oscar for it. As we watched I could smell the popcorn. I knew every bit of dialog and every shot. This was a really impactrul memory, and it was securely tucked there in my brain. I didn’t actually call it forward—it came on its own. The main difference between how my brain built this memory and others was that I saw the film a bunch of times close together.

Since we know our brains work this way, we could purposely and specifically ‘train’ them to build strength in areas that are desirable. Actually, we already do that, right? We learn things. We practice. We gather data. We do that about all sorts of things… except for money!

Actually we do unconsciously train our brains about money… it’s just that most of the training is negative. It’s about things that happened with money in our childhoods. It’s about arguments around money. It’s about many situations where money was present in the mix, but probably not the actual cause of the problem.

We all need money to survive in our culture, and at some level most of us want it. It seems to me that it’s a lot easier to acquire and deal with something you like and understand than a mysterious thing you find scary and incomprehensible. So why not change that?

Change truly results from creating those groups of neurons firing together. How can you create some new groups—and stop adding more to the old ones—around money? What might be different if that happened? You’ve developed memory and expertise around all sorts of things in your life… why not give training your brain around money a go?

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want to chat about how to re-train your money brain? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Balancing Loyalty

Loyalty is a good thing. We seek it in all our relationships, and we practice it in return. We want to be loyal and we want others to be loyal to us. The question to ponder here is where might loyalty actually work against you? Specifically where does it have you spending money to be ‘loyal‘ that doesn’t actually align with balancing your self-care with your desire to care for others? And where are you possibly being taken advantage of by companies and associations that rely on your loyalty, even when they haven’t ‘earned‘ it?

It’s a tricky thing. I had a client once who was a major shopper. In truth she was in it for the ‘hunt‘, and had a whole room full of bags of things she’d bought and never used. Many of them she had bought at a particular department store that had ‘given‘ her a credit card with their name on it. She felt really honored and special that they had given her the card. It made her one of the ‘in crowd‘. She went there often, really loved their customer service, and piled up many charges on the card. The card had a much higher interest rate than her other credit cards. She was great at the buying… not so much at paying on time. Oh, and she didn’t want to ‘insult‘ the store by returning things, so she didn’t. It was all about a ‘personal‘ relationship she was imagining she was having with a store. The store was doing its job well. She just wasn’t noticing that she was confusing her personal desire—for relationship—with their techniques of building loyalty. She was stunned when I pointed out that the clerk that was helping her didn’t actually know she had a store credit card until it was time to pay. The clerk was giving good service regardless. And she also missed that no actual person would feel hurt and disappointed if she returned things that she didn’t use.

Together we did get her out of this pattern, but the bigger question this raises is something like “Where are you assuming more ‘caring’ from a company or professional than is really there?”

Yes, every company or pro you work with wants you to keep coming back and using them, myself included! And you need to figure out whether the ‘relationship‘ is really going both ways, or if it is one-sided.

There is something in this mix of our need for actual human connection that is being hindered by the constant pseudo connection of Social Media and cell phones. I recently sat across from a family having lunch at my local Sushi place: Mom, Dad and an about-9-year-old child. All three were on their phones instead of talking to each other. They stopped the phones when the food came, but still didn’t talk.

Maybe it’s just that there is so little actual connection going on that we don’t recognize that the ‘connection‘ we have with the person who cuts our hair isn’t the same as the one with our friend we went to the movies with.

I’m extremely loyal to companies that give me good service for a fair price. And I’m not tolerant and won’t do business with those that are rude. I ‘vote with my feet‘—and do it as a reflection of my values… what I care about. I care about how we all treat each other. I care about fairness. And where I spend my money really does reflect what I’m up to. Am I trying to fulfill some need in a place where it really can’t happen? Or am I really having an exchange that enriches both of us?

The answer is different for each of us. There are things I care about—and might even be ‘extravagant’ with—that mean nothing to you, and visa versa. I’m just wanting to make sure that you are getting what you are seeking, and finding the balancing point—that your time, energy, and money are going toward what you truly care about. Give it a ponder and see what you notice…

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you’d like some support with the pondering give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Is It Money’s Fault?

We sure act like it is. And we’ve been of that opinion for centuries. Money, in and of itself, is somehow bad and evil. And yet, is it really?

I did a bit of digging for biblical verses about money. There are quite a few. Timothy, who got tagged with the ‘Money is the root of all evil’ thing actually said: ‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.’ That’s a bit different, isn’t it? Mostly the biblical references about money are really about what people do—or don’t do—with it.

Money, being that it’s actually just a ‘place holder’ of value, has gone through all sorts of changes throughout the ages. It’s been made of gold, paper, and now just numbers in the air. It has had kings and presidents on it, slogans about trusting in God, and pictures of monuments. It has been a symbol of all sorts of things—worthiness, power, ego, generosity, security, endurance—actually a never-ending list. It’s never-ending because all of it is made up.

Money has the value we give it. Whether it be the bigger bit of the ‘Economy’ or your own personal money, it’s all stuff we make up. It was initially a good idea: Rather than trading hay for a goat, and then the goat for cloth, and then the cloth for wheat, it was much easier to use a token with a value assigned to it. It started as a stand in for value. We now have attached a ton of meaning to the symbol of money that is just what we, and our culture has laid on it—not the actual Truth.

Money inherently has no value, or opinion, or goal. It only has the value we assign it. Notice that the value of the dollar moves and shifts? Money reflects the shift. Money doesn’t actually cause the shift. People set a value.

We say we want a house in this neighborhood, or a job that pays that, or a car that has this. Money reflects what we care about, what we want, what’s important to us.

Okay, by now you may be thinking: “Why does all this stuff Shell’s often saying—about money being what she call ‘reflective’ not ‘causative’—matter?” It matters because the way you think and feel about money has a direct effect on you! If you believe that rich people are bad, you will make sure not to become one. You are constantly telling and training your brain what to believe, all the time, every time you think or speak.

I have seen this over and over again. I’ve experienced it myself. Those words you use with yourself have power, and your brain will take them as Truth, and protect you from letting them ‘hurt’ you. The ONLY thing that is true about money is that it reflects what you choose to think about it and do with it.

What do you think and feel about money? Really, answer that question. It’s important, because money will reflect those thoughts back to you. If down deep you think it’s a big struggle and you can never win at it, you will be right!

Changing that thinking isn’t easy. You and the entire planet have been making up things about money forever. However there is an easy way to start the process. Get clear on what you actually, deep down, believe about money. What are those statements that just pop into your head about it? Like ‘it doesn’t grow on trees!’ What does that even mean to you? The first step is always to acknowledge the problem.

Once you get clear on those deep-seated beliefs, the next questions to ponder are: “What is the cost of that belief? What am I missing by thinking that way? How could this be different?”

Changing the way you think about money may be the best gift you ever give yourself. Give it a try! Maybe you’ll find out that it’s not really money’s fault afterall.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want to chat about changing your money thinking? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Separate Business & Personal Money?

The bulk of my clients are working directly for themselves. They are the company or ‘talent’—be they real estate agents, coaches, accountants, lawyers, artists, or some other sole proprietor. A crucial part of that situation is that there are two distinct piles of money that we (yes, I’m one of those types, too) all need to deal with: Business Money and Personal Money.

Let’s explore some of the challenges and pitfalls with having these two distinct money entities, and some thoughts on how to cope with those challenges. Here are three possibilities to look at.

1). What happens when you keep the business and personal money together, and treat it the same? This one ends up being messy, ugly, and way too complicated. It is guaranteed to not only drive your tax person crazy, but to cost you bundles of money, time, and energy, on both the business and personal side. Frankly it’s an avoidance tactic that will make things much more difficult. And if you do this you miss one of the really great things about money. By mushing everything together you miss being able to see what is happening with it. “Where does it all go?” “Why can’t I ever get ahead?” Judgments and nagging voices in your head abound! Bottom line: this is not a sustainable way to go.

2). What happens when you keep the business and personal money separate, yet still treat them the same? This option is slightly better than the last one. At least the taxes are easier. There is however a subtler and yet bigger issue at play when you do this. It ALL becomes about you personally! When you have to tell someone your rates it’s about you instead of what you will do for them. It’s hard enough to keep what we do from who we are internally without getting the money mixed up in there. And an even more fascinating thing that I learned in my many years as a CFO: Business Money and Personal Money have different perspectives and scale. They run on different criteria. Business is all about growing itself or Return on investment (ROI). My question was always “what is this expense going to get us as a company?” And under that was, “will thing be better?” and “will we be more profitable/successful?” Personal money decisions often have a more emotion-based component: “Will I feel better?” “Will I be safer, more secure?” “Will others like or appreciate me?” Can you see how murky and expensive it can be when we kludge these together? Those different criteria lead to different choices and result.

3). What happens when you keep the business and personal money separate, and treat them that way? I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that this option is the one I strongly suggest! I’ve been practicing it for much of my life, all of the times I was running a business—which has included not only my coaching practice, but an electronic payment processing start-up (doesn’t that just sound techie!) and a radio station. Keeping the money separate allowed me, among other things, to see the business as an ‘entity’ separate from me. I’ve always had these conversations with myself about: “What would the business want?” “What would it say?” “What would make it more solid, and effective?” Similar questions, yet from a different perspective than the Personal Money questions. By keeping it all separate you can see what each ‘entity’ has to tell you. You have clearer information, which will create more effective actions, and better results, both in your business and personal life.

Give it a try. See what new ways of thinking are available. Notice that once you get things separate between your business money and personal money—both in your accounting for them and in the way you think about them—you will be simultaneously more relaxed and in control. A result worth working toward, for sure!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

I’d love to hear about what you discover about your own business and personal money workings and ideas. Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Playing with Virtual Money

It’s summer! Time to be a bit more playful. Personally I’ve been doing more playing and less blogging. How about a way for you to ‘play’ with your money this summer that is fun, whimsical, and doesn’t actually spend any of it … because it’s virtual?

It’s my twist of the Prosperity Game, which has been around for years—so long that there are apps and even printed checks you can buy to play the game. None of that is actually needed to play the game. All you need is some place to track what’s happening , like a journal.

It’s a game you play with yourself by spending virtual money everyday. You start with $100 and double it each day ($100, $200, $400, $800, etc). One of the rules is that you have to spend all the money each day. Sometimes people want to save up for something, but that’s not necessary. Since it doubles every day you will be close to spending a million a day in just two weeks ($819,200) Another rule is that you have to spend it on yourself. You can take people with you on trips, or the like, but you must spend the money on yourself. The point is to explore and clarify your relationship and thoughts about money—not just give it away. While playing the game you will shop, make lists, spend imaginary money on imaginary things. I suggest you don’t get tied up in the fiddly bits of things like sales tax. Rounding off is fine. It’s not about record keeping! No actual money is used.

It’s a very interesting game. Over the years, I’ve encouraged many of my clients to play this game. It does several intriguing things. One thing it does is pretty effectively show you where your “money ceiling” is. Your “money ceiling” is the amount of money you just can’t understand—the amount that is beyond your personal limit. It’s a good thing to know. If you approach your money ceiling without knowing where it is, it can suddenly open up and sweep you away.

The game also helps you reframe your ideas of:

What is expensive
What is cheap
The value of things
What you really want
How much stuff you can handle

All very intriguing concepts to play with and understand.

Okay, now that you know the basics of how the game works, let’s look at the part of the game that I’m most intrigued with. Your brain actually thinks it is real money. Your head doesn’t know the difference between your spending the money virtually or in reality. I know this by personal experience.

When I played first this game, I lived in a house where the washing machine drained into a deep sink. It was a very old, very heavy sink with a small drain. I had a furry spaniel dog, Decaf, who contributed lots of hair to the laundry, and frequently that hair would come out of the washer hose in a way that would plug the sink, and cause it to overflow on to the floor. Not a fun thing to clean up.

Naturally, early in playing the money game I decided to “pay” some of my virtual money to get that sink fixed. Yipee! Problem solved. About a week later I did some laundry, and the sink overflowed. There I was, standing in water, with my hands on my hips saying “Damn it! I paid to get that sink fixed and it’s overflowing!” and then it struck me. I had paid to get the sink fixed with virtual money! It wasn’t really fixed.

Other people I know have had similar experiences with this game. One person offered to loan a friend $25,000 until it occurred to her that it was virtual money she was offering.

I learned a bunch of other things playing the game. Some of my ideas of what was ‘expensive’ and what was ‘cheap’ shifted. And then there was the place where I just felt overwhelmed. The place where I had hit my money ceiling. A very good thing to know. I suggest that you play at least one day past that place, because just beyond that point often lurks some really amazing dreams.

The real point is that your thoughts about money are fluid and can change. That’s good news. You can change your money thinking. You can provide some different experiences of money for your brain, even virtual ones, and your brain will accept them as real even when they aren’t. That’s good news. It’s also odd news. It would seem to be telling us that it’s important that you pay attention to the messages that you send your brain about money, wouldn’t it?

How about playing this money game to explore what’s going on in your head around money, and learn about some new possibilities. At the very least it’s a bit of a fun summer lark!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

I’d love to hear how the game worked for you. Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment. Happy spending!

Money Self-Talk

Did you happen to see this quote on Facebook? ‘Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been taught was how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.’

You probably won’t be surprised that my brain went right to: ‘…and when it comes to money, it’s an even more taboo topic!’ Mostly we don’t even talk about that we don’t talk about it, and the aforementioned ‘lack of understanding’ around money is monumental. I truly do think it’s the MOST taboo topic on the planet.

And the person we talk to the least about money is actually ourself. Sure we have money conversations in our head. Most often they are rants about what we are doing wrong — judgements of our short comings. These aren’t actual conversations where we listen — really listen — to what we are saying about money. This is unexplored money self-talk.

The important thing here, is that what we say is what we believe. Our internal dialog rules our brain. If the primary belief we have is that money is this awful, scary stuff that we can’t actually get a handle on and don’t understand, we will make that the truth and act accordingly.

A large part of my job is to really hear what people are saying, both out loud and in their heads. I try to clue in on when I hear someone using internal and external language-based judgement, criticism, and just not feeling good about ourselves. Some of the words that we use around money that tip me off to this are: enough, earned, value, deserve, frugal, broke, wasteful. Other words that strike even deeper show how we judge what we are doing — how we ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘have to’, and ‘got to’. It’s often pretty subtle stuff. And I’m pretty much all over my clients, encouraging them to thinking in terms of ‘wanting’ or ‘choosing’ to do things instead of all those other options.

The real reason for that is that coming from that more self-directed positive place is just plain more effective. All that negative nattering distracts us from the task at hand, and that limits our abilities.

How about you find a way to have a couple of heart-to-heart money conversations with yourself? I know it sounds a bit ‘out there’ but why not? Tune in and notice when you say a negative thing about yourself, about you and money, even about your expectations of what is possible in your life. Why not start by making a simple list of your self-talk phrases and then noting if they are positive, negative, or even neutral.

What’s going on there in your head? You can absolutely shift it. You can learn new words and hold new ideas. You even can learn to ‘correct’ yourself when you say something like, “I’ll never make it!” You can choose to follow it with “…unless, of course, I do!”

There is a bit of sneaky science behind this idea. It’s all about neural pathways. The ones that get more use get stronger, the ones with little use diminish. You get to choose. What are you reinforcing? See what you can learn about what you really say about money. And how, with just a bit of noticing and language focus, you can change your money thinking — really, you can!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you’d like to some support in hearing your internal messages and making these change give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.

Money Strata

We all have beliefs about money that we cling to, and when those beliefs get challenged, our reality also gets challenged. One of the fundamental, and in many ways “unspoken” beliefs about money has to do with the “socio-economic strata” that you and your family belong to.

There are places in the world where which level of society you belong to is crucial. For example, England still has the House of Lords. Other places practice less obvious but equally strident categorizing. I noticed when I lived in the South that the first question I was asked by new acquaintances was what housing development I lived in. The answer to this question told people what strata to put me in.

We like to think of ourselves as a “democratic” society, and in many ways we are. But when it comes to neighborhoods—and money—we have many levels.

There is an exceptionally strong internal compass to stay in our lane, and certainly to not rock the boat!

What if the only thing that actually kept us in our class or strata was the belief that a given strata was somehow where we belonged? Guess what? That belief is the only thing that really does keep us there, and it’s incredibly powerful. There are amazing statistics about people who win the lottery being back to the financial status they were in before winning within just a few years. Mismanagement and lack of financial acumen can be part of that, but I think it’s much more about being pushed into a money “strata” you don’t understand and aren’t sure how to fit into. These people somehow feel they don’t belong in the new place, so they find ways to sabotage themselves right back to where the came from, to where they think they “belong”. I remember once being reluctant to buy a house in a particular neighborhood. The voice inside my head said: “You’d have to get dressed and put on makeup to get the mail!” Definitely a step above my comfort zone.

Mostly, when we step outside of the norm, what comes with that stepping is a disruption of the old systems. Part of what holds many families together are common beliefs and practices around money. Many Depression Era families are proud of their ability to “keep body and soul together”. Being able to “get through the hard times” is a part of how they see and value their family. If someone in the family goes off and suddenly “makes good”, what does that say about the ones left behind? It might just say that they could have chosen differently too! And wouldn’t that be awkward? What if everyone had a choice?

In what ways does your “strata” keep you stuck, and what would you choose if you could? Have you even thought about how your clan and class keep you from pursuing new ideas? What if you could decide what you wanted, and go after it?

Ka’ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you’d like to explore the challenge of your Money Strata give me a call 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com

Perfection is a Money Trap

Money is one of those areas where we have all made some mistakes.

We have bought things that didn’t work.
We have spent too much money on stuff we never used.
We have given people presents they didn’t like.
We have lost money on the sale of a house
We have gotten “taken to the cleaners” in a divorce.
We have run up charges and interest on our credit cards.

And yet we are mostly still here, and kicking!

Sure some of these things were and are avoidable. And yet they also still serve to give our Inner Critic great fodder for berating us!

There are a couple of things I want to clear up about these ‘errors in judgement‘ and ‘mistakes‘ we all make with our money.

First, you got through them ! The problems may have been messy and costly, but you survived them! It’s one of the things I think our ancestors that went through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl got trapped in. They somehow missed that they made it through the troubles, and that they didn’t happen again in the same way. We tend to practice “one trial learning” with many things. We tend to either try and hide our head in the sand or decide it will always be like it was, and avoid getting anywhere near the part we think is scary. We stay trapped.

The other thing I’d really like my readers to consider is the value of the messing up. Huh, you say! How can there be value in having gone through that terrible time, that mess?

It’s all about learning! As humans we actually learn by making mistakes, by being imperfect. You don’t just get on a bike and ride it the first time. You wobble and pedal and fall off. The same process happens a bunch in other aspects of our lives, including money. We screw up, make mistakes, and learn. If we don’t make mistakes we don’t learn!

But instead of accepting that we make mistakes, sometimes in order to try and avoid “errors”, we try to be — or appear to be — perfect… yipes! Just how patient are you with yourself? Do you keep trying to attain something close to perfection to avoid judgement? And do you notice that most of the judgement come from your inner critic, instead of the people around you?

Many of us have this thing in our heads about trying to be ‘perfect‘. I truly think it’s one of the traps our Inner Critics use to keep us stuck in a rut. Somehow we think we are supposed to be perfect without practice, failing, or learning. Instead I really like the perspective that Maya Angelou put forth: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

We do recover, we do persevere, and we do learn.

Money is just one of the assets that we ‘spend’ while we are learning. Money, Time, and Energy all get spent. And I’d like to suggest that Money is really just a reflection of the other two: Time and Energy.

Here’s the really interesting question. How much time, energy, and maybe even money do you spend trying to be perfect, protecting the idea that you are almost perfect, or even hiding that you aren’t perfect? What if instead of getting trapped by perfection, you actually celebrated your mistakes as ways to learn? What if it’s really about focusing on the learning, and not beating yourself up about that mistake you made?

It’s really likely that your attempt at perfection is a reaction to some really ‘old stuff’ that actually is no longer present in your life, right? Like avoiding being judged or lectured.

Seems to me trying to be perfect has us holding on to, and getting stuck in, our errors in judgement, instead of learning from them, perhaps laughing them off, and most certainly moving on… what say you?

Ka’ching

Shell Tain, the Untanlger

If you’d like some support letting go of trying for perfection, just give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.