Financial Clarity & Empowerment: How this Blog Will Help
As a therapist in private practice, you might have the general sense that you could (or should) do more to organize and manage your financial life. And you might also be a bit unsure about where to begin, or even feel stuck. In this post, I’m going to walk through how this blog will help bring you the clarity and confidence you need to take empowering and intentional steps to move your financial life forward.
Scroll below to keep reading. You can also watch this video in which I cover the same content.
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Managing Your Financial Life Can Be Vital & Inspirational
Let’s just acknowledge that even that phrase “managing your financial life” sounds boring and a bit painful. And yes, this finance stuff is work - but it is really worthwhile work.
When I say “managing your financial life,” what I really mean is using your financial resources to support living the life you feel called to live. Financial planning is all about creating a better life for yourself - one where your financial resources propel you forward rather than weigh you down or hold you back. That’s why I believe financial planning can help you lead a life which is authentic, balanced and abundant.
Ok, so that sounds great - but how do we get there?
That’s where this blog comes in. It will help you move forward in your financial life by offering empowering content in two different areas.
The first, is establishing a foundation of knowledge around the basics of the financial world. You don’t need to be an expert - but I believe it is critical to have a basic understanding. Unfortunately, this foundational knowledge is hard to come by. But don’t worry, I’ll help guide you through it.
The second area is just as important, and that’s working to shift your mindset, or your perspective around money and finance. This isn’t really about the work itself, but rather about acknowledging and working with the sometimes strong emotions we all have around money. Money can be a huge source of worry, anxiety and stress. I really believe financial planning can alleviate that suffering - that’s why I’m so passionate about this work - it helps people lead better lives.
Alright, so let’s jump into a quick overview of the two different areas this blog will cover.
Foundational Finance
Let’s start with that foundational knowledge around finance and why I think it’s so important. I’ll call it Foundational Finance.
Because most of us haven’t received this foundational education, managing our financial life becomes much harder than it needs to be. We’re forced to just sorta figure things out on our own, without any roadmap or context around the matters we’re navigating.
The good news is that personal finance - and finance in general - is actually quite simple. There are some basic, simple concepts which you need to learn first. Once you’ve established that foundation, layering on some of the more nuanced complexities becomes much easier and understandable.
It’s important to point out that building this foundation doesn’t mean that you have to become an expert or spend hours mastering this content. The idea behind Foundational Finance is to provide you with the basics. That foundation won’t make you an expert, but it will provide you a view of the bigger picture and an understanding of how the financial system works.
It will provide you with the knowledge you need to make more informed and empowering decisions, including whether it would be helpful for you to hire a financial planner, or other professional like a bookkeeper, CPA or coach.
The goal of my Foundational Finance content will be to provide you that education in bite-sized, digestible pieces that aren’t overwhelming. So keep an eye out for the Foundational Finance posts I’ll be publishing in coming weeks.
Ok, so that’s an overview of the first area. Now onto the second, which is the mindset component, which I call Money Mindset.
Money Mindset
The goal of the Money Mindset content is to introduce you to a different way of thinking, or a new perspective, about your finances.
Changing mindset around money and finance really boils down to navigating the emotion we all experience around money. I believe it’s empowering to simply acknowledge the world of personal finance can be really emotionally charged. Money carries a lot of weight in our culture, and it directly connects to a lot of emotionally weighty items like security, status and even self-worth.
So when we sit down to take care of some of our financial to-do’s, we might encounter resistance, anxiety or even self-judgment. Often the biggest challenge isn’t figuring out the to-do’s themselves but rather navigating those emotions. And if you’ve ever experienced emotions like this, you’re not alone. It’s common. But - fret not! There are two pieces of good news here.
First, no one navigates their financial lives perfectly and perfection is absolutely not required. We want to stay focused on progress rather than perfection. We’ve all made mistakes. Yes, that includes financial professionals. I have absolutely made decisions that in hindsight were sub-optimal. So whatever you’ve done, or not done, in your financial life - it’s ok! I’ve never encountered a situation in life where shame or self-judgment improves matters or makes it easier to move forward. And that applies to our financial life just as much as it does to any other emotionally charged area of life.
The second piece of good news is: whatever your emotional experience attached to money and finance, that’s also completely okay. It’s normal to experience some hard-to-hold emotions. Such an emotional experience doesn’t mean you won’t be able to engage with your finances in an intentional and empowering way. This blog will give you ideas and strategies on how best to move forward. And there are financial professionals, like me, who welcome discussion of emotional experience as a critical component of the financial planning process.
Financial Planning as Self-Care
Before I wrap up, I want to give you a little preview of what I really think this Money Mindset stuff is really all about. My perspective is that developing a financial plan is a critical element of self-care.
Financial planning is very similar to other ways we take care of ourselves, such as diet, exercise and meditation. And these are all areas where there can be a lot of “shoulds” and judgment - both from others and from ourselves. I think it’s critical to remember that the entire point of any self-care is to make our lives better.
The motivation for self-care comes from a place of compassion. So, I’d encourage you to keep that compassionate motivation in mind when dealing with your finances. Remember that you’re taking care of yourself. Looking more carefully at your financial life need not be an opportunity to be unkind to yourself or to unearth reasons why you’re not good enough or less than.
In fact the opposite is true, we need to celebrate the progress we make - even if it seems small or insignificant at first. And, actually, that’s all that’s required to become more financially empowered: small, consistent and imperfect steps forward. The goal of the Money Mindset posts is to encourage and inspire you to keep taking those steps!
Inspiring You to Move Forward in Your Financial Journey
So those are the two types of content I’ll be offering here! Foundational Finance will help you establish the skills to better see and understand your financial reality. Money Mindset will help provide you new ways of seeing, approaching and thinking about your finances. I hope the combination of the two will inspire you to keep making progress on your financial journey.
I think it bears repeating: financial planning is all about creating a better life for yourself. A life where your financial resources propel you forward toward your ideal life. A life which is authentic, balanced and abundant.
That’s the journey - that’s what this blog is all about.
If you have questions or thoughts about what I’ve covered here today, please reach out. I’d love to hear from you. You can always shoot me an email at dave@turningpointHQ.com. Or you can schedule a complimentary 30 minute no-obligation meeting where we'll simply have a relaxed, no-pressure conversation about whatever financial matters are on your mind!
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