While you may recognise the importance of self-care in taking the time to do some of the activities that nurture your physical and emotional well-being, we often miss the concept of money and self-care
You may be focused on a healthy diet, exercise and personal well-being, you may meditate and practice healthy lifestyle choices, yet when you stress or worry about money, it often ends up undermining the benefits and positive action that otherwise you’re taking towards your well-being.
The more connected you are to your money, the more control you have over it. It then becomes easier for you to reduce stress, take control of your financial future and use money as a tool to create the life you want to live.
So what is financial self-care and how do we practice it?
Financial self-care is about learning to connect with your money in a more conscious way so that your thoughts and actions with your money begin to add, not subtract from our well-being. Financial self-care describes the actions that you might take in order to reach optimal financial health.
It's about prioritising your relationship with money and understanding the link that money has to your overall well-being and taking the time to do some of the activities that nurture your wealth and well-being.
Most importantly financial self-care is about taking proper care of yourself and your money and treating your money as importantly as all other areas of our well-being. It’s about re-framing the context of money in your life so that you have control over it, rather than it having control over you.
A financial self-care practice has three simple steps:
Creating awareness of how you think about, behave with and manage your money.
Nurturing your relationship with money to take control of it to reduce stress and bring more enjoyment and wellbeing.
Prioritising your wealth and well-being by giving your finances the care and attention they require.
Financial self-care is a practice that requires you to create habits and routines that support and nurture your relationship with money. Below are a few tips on how to incorporate financial self-care into your life:
1. Prioritise it
In order to make change or improvement in anything in life you’re going to need to make time for it and prioritise it! Financial self care is no different. Whether it’s a few minutes or an hour each day or deciding to take a course, workshop or retreat, make time to and focus our attention on money and wealth.
2. Let go of the judgement and comparison
Constant judgement and comparison only creates more stress and feelings of inadequacy or despair. Remember that your financial situation is completely unique to you and you're in control of your situation. As the saying goes, you've got to start somewhere and whilst the best time to start may have been yesterday, the second best time is today!
3. Start talking about money:
Part of the reason for such complex relationships with money is because we don’t talk about it! Money is such a taboo subject, it seems even more so than sex, religion and politics. Open the conversation — choose a friend, partner, group of friends or someone else you trust and have a money conversation!
4. Learn some quick fixes
Surprisingly there are many simple strategies which can implemented in mere minutes! Managing money isn’t necessarily complicated, in fact simple things like taking steps to reduce emotional or impulsive spending, looking at ways to reduce debt, setting money goals can work wonders towards your financial self-care.
5. Breathe
So often when stressed, rushed or too busy, we forget to just breathe! Breathing is such a simple way to introduce more calm and provide you with the opportunity to pause and think before “acting” with your money.
By Lea Schodel - Founder of Mindful Wealth
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