When you hear the word “mindset” your brain may automatically flip to the concept of growth vs fixed mindset, terms originally coined by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck. In her research, Dweck found that people with a growth mindset tend to embrace challenges and believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. In contrast, people with a fixed mindset tend to avoid challenges, give up easily, and believe that their abilities are innate and can’t be changed.

The concept of money mindset shares many commonalities with Dweck’s pioneering work. Whether launching, growing, or expanding your health and wellness practice or launching a new program into the world, a positive money mindset is critical for influencing your long-term financial stability and success. Keep reading to better understand money mindset, learn how to challenge your ingrained attitudes toward money, and get guidance on adopting a more positive, growth-oriented perspective.

What is Money Mindset?

Money mindset refers to an individual's beliefs and attitudes around money, along with their relationship to it. A person’s money mindset influences the way they approach their financial decisions, including how they earn, spend, save, and invest money.

Your money mindset can be positive or negative:

• A positive money mindset can help you build healthy financial habits and make smart decisions. Business owners with a positive money mindset are more likely to step outside their comfort zones in the pursuit of growth, demonstrate resilience, and learn from their mistakes. A practitioner with a positive money mindset might make the following types of statements:
  • "I’m capable of earning a good living while also helping people improve their health and wellbeing.”
  • “My services are valuable, and I deserve to be compensated fairly for my time and expertise.” 
  • “By charging what I'm worth, I can continue to grow my business and make a positive impact on the lives of my clients."
• A negative money mindset can lead to limiting beliefs and even financial self-sabotage. It’s more likely to involve a scarcity mentality, fear of failure, or an unhealthy attachment to money. A practitioner with a negative money mindset would sound more like this:
  • “I’m not going to make any money off of my new course.” 
  • “I only deserve to make x amount of money.”
  • “I’m in the business of helping people feel better so making a profit off of my clients is wrong.”

What Influences Your Money Mindset?

Your money mindset can be both conscious and subconscious. Let’s explore the two through the lens of a practitioner who is actively thinking about ideas for future proofing her practice. She believes creating a course with self-directed modules could be a solid source of passive income.

Consciously, this practitioner can tell herself that time is money and she needs to take into account how many hours she spent creating the content when deciding what to charge. However, her subconscious money mindset could sabotage her efforts. For example, if her parents did a lot of volunteering when she was young, she may have a deeply entrenched belief that it’s not “nice” to ask people for money when you’re helping them. This may inadvertently cause her to undercharge for the course.

Here are some common factors that can influence a person’s money mindset: 

1. Early experiences with money: The way a person was raised and the messages they are sent about finances can significantly impact their money mindset. For example, a child whose parents continually argue over whose purchase habits keep causing the bank account to dip into overdraft may grow into an adult that feels anxious spending money and needs a large financial safety net in place to feel comfortable. 
2. Knowledge of personal finance: Financial education can influence a person's money mindset. People who have learned more about managing their money may feel more confident and empowered when making financial decisions.
3. Financial successes and failures: Personal experiences with money as an adult can also shape money mindset. A serial entrepreneur who has experienced financial setbacks may be more risk averse than one who has enjoyed a series of successes.

Is Your Financial Mindset Holding You Back?

A negative financial mindset can leave you feeling stressed, fearful, and managing your practice from a place of emotion. The impact on your business growth  – and bank account – can be significant. Let’s now look at a few negative financial mindset examples to better understand how they can influence your outcomes.

The Power of a Positive Money Mindset

Your financial mindset may be so deeply ingrained that you can’t clearly see the barriers it’s placing between you and your best financial health. Adopting a more positive financial mindset can lead to plenty of advantageous outcomes. 

• It becomes more palatable to take calculated financial risks, such as confidently launching that new program. 
• It can help you believe in abundance and see opportunities where others may see challenges or limitations. This opens the door to innovation when it comes to building future programs and courses to serve your clients. 
• It frees you from constantly ruminating and stressing over money. You can channel that energy into helping more clients achieve their health and wellness goals in creative ways. 
• It can result in a sense of confidence and empowerment, leading you to seek out and attract your best-fit clients who value what you offer and won’t question your rates. 

Now that you understand the positive outcomes, keep reading for ideas on how to change your financial mindset. 

3 Money Mindset Tips to Uplevel Your Program Success

Launching your next program into the world with a bang requires you to feel confident in both the content you’re creating and your pricing. Here are three money mindset exercises you can use to cultivate a healthier financial attitude that will continue to serve you as your business grows. 

1. Practice Daily Money Mindfulness

Practitioners everywhere know that you need to invest in building good habits if you’re going to change behaviors for good. By carving out time each morning for a meditation mindset exercise, you can train your brain to adopt a more positive attitude when it comes to your finances. 

• Begin by setting some intentions to focus on your money mindfulness. Intentions should be centered around what really matters to you (e.g., having your effort and expertise appropriately valued) vs goals or tangible things you want to achieve (e.g., getting a stream of passive income flowing for your practice).
• Practice gratitude and take a moment to appreciate the money you do have, regardless of the amount. Gratitude can help shift your focus away from scarcity and towards abundance.
• Identify limiting beliefs and work on replacing them with more empowering beliefs. Let’s revisit our negative financial mindset examples from earlier and look and how to reframe them into positive affirmations. 

2. Spend Time Reflecting On What Success Looks Like

As part of your money mindset challenge you can record what success looks like for you. For example, it could be about attracting a certain number of new clients over the next six months or adding a defined number of registrations for your latest program. 

Don’t forget to think through how you will track and measure your success. Having the right software in place can ease the workload for you. For example, Practice Better’s built-in reporting and analytics lets you generate reports for key business areas, including bookings and packages. You can also compare metrics against previous periods to clearly understand growth trends. 

One final note about success: don’t forget about community. Aligning yourself with colleagues or mentors who hold a positive money mindset can offer lots of support and encouragement when doubts or old thinking patterns start to creep in. 

3. Revisit Your Financial Goals 

Make sure you have clear and specific financial goals documented and revisit them frequently. Remember that goals are not one-size-fits-all and specificity matters. “I want to grow my revenue this year” isn’t as actionable as “I want to convert x percent of my email list to see x revenue by the end of the year.”

You also might want to invest in learning more about finances. Educating yourself on topics like budgeting, investing, and debt management can help you to break legacy financial mindset patterns that aren’t serving you and replace them with facts that will propel your success.

Finally, take action towards your financial goals. Even a small step, like giving yourself an absolute deadline date for locking down reasonable pricing on your next program, can help you build momentum and develop a sense of control over your financial mindset.

Get in the Driver’s Seat

When you have a negative money mindset you’re less likely to take risks or pursue opportunities for growth and development, which can leave you feeling stuck in your current financial circumstances. A positive money mindset will cultivate confidence and experimentation that leads to creative new business ideas that fuel your sense of purpose and possibility as a practitioner. 

Which endless loop would you rather be operating in?

Yes, developing a positive money mindset takes time and effort, but the benefits of having a healthy relationship with your finances for the long term make it well worth the effort. If you need some help to get on the right track, download our handy Money Mindset Checklist.

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