*** Can Beliefs Keep You From Becoming Wealthy?

A few months ago I asked people on our mailing list which beliefs they thought were keeping them from becoming wealthy. The top five were:

· You have to work hard to make money. · I’m not deserving. · I’ll never have enough money. /There is never enough money. · Money is a struggle. · Life is difficult.

If you have any doubt about the impact of beliefs on your ability to earn and retain money, ask yourself this question: Imagine someone having these five beliefs. Then ask yourself: Do you think such a person is likely to be wealthy? … Do you think Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or any other really wealthy person has these beliefs?

Here’s another way to demonstrate the power of beliefs to interfere with your ability to make money and accumulate wealth. Think back to the last book you read or the last workshop you took that told you exactly what you needed to do to make huge sums of money. You learned what actions you needed to take, didn’t you? Now answer this question: Did you do what you learned to do … on a consistent basis? For most people the answer is “no.”

Why People Don’t Use the Expensive Courses They Buy

In fact, as amazing as it might seem, people who sell courses that promise to help you make money report that many of the thousand dollar and up courses that are purchased at workshops are never even opened when the buyers get them home. Moreover, the free email support that accompanies many of these courses is rarely used.

The only way to make sense of these astonishing facts is to remember that knowing what to do is useless if you have beliefs in the way of acting on that knowledge.

· If you believe you have to work hard to make money, it just might not be worth the effort. · If you believe you aren’t a deserving person, you would likely sabotage any effort you make to become financially successful. · If you believe I’ll never have enough money, then what’s the point of trying? · If you believe money is a struggle, your life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. · And if you believe life is difficult, then you will create a life that is difficult in most respects, including a lack of money.

Anne Lieberman, ranked among the country’s top 100 financial advisors just a few years ago, recently pointed out: “Many people do not have a workable relationship with money. When they don’t, it shows up in one or more of three realms: earning, spending and saving/investing.”

Wealth Can Elude You For Many Reasons

In other words, wealth can elude you because you don’t ask for the money you deserve or do what you know you should do to earn it, because you spend money you don’t have and get into debt unnecessarily, and/or because you don’t save or invest wisely. Limiting beliefs can cause all three of these inappropriate behaviors.

We can guarantee that eliminating the relevant beliefs will change your behavior and feelings. But having wealth involves much more than beliefs, although getting rid of crippling money beliefs is certainly a precondition.

In order to insure financial success, it would be useful to have, in additional to the absence of limiting money beliefs, a positive attitude about earning and having money, an effective strategy for getting it, and then the commitment to fully implement your strategy.