What's Your Filter for Money?

Let's say you're in your house or apartment.  Outside are your kids or maybe your pet dog, doing something cute and funny.  You grab your device to take a picture. 

 

 

When you photograph through a screen, it filters your image, influencing the quality of the picture.  Value judgments aside, seeing through a filter changes what you see, sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically.  Identifying our filters can help us see more clearly what we are dealing with.  And like your Badass Fairy Godmother delights in reminding you,

 

 

Let's look at your filter around money.  First, notice that probably you're asking, "what filter?"  That's how filters work.  Yellow sunglasses at first show you a strangely colored view but moments after, your seeing adjusts and the new coloration becomes "the way it is."  It's the same with filters.  How you see the world of money is just the way it is.  Let's see if we can identify the way it is for you and get you more power and freedom around money.

 

Question:  you're considering a weekend away.  Do you look for a location you can afford?  Or do you find a location you're drawn to and then check the price?  

Do you choose to sacrifice time in order to save money, by using Priceline or Orbit when booking a trip, for example? 

 

When planning to buy a car or a meal, is your first question how much will it cost or, are you looking for a quality of experience?

 

Remember there are no judgments here.  I seek to help you see what filter you currently use to look at money.  

 

If you're like many people I know, the filter for money you use automatically is, "can I afford this?" I'd call that a reasonable filter.  Only it's not entirely that simple and here's why.  Our filters around money aren't only how we SEE money.  They are colored also by how we FEEL about money.  So combine the "can I afford it?" filter with the emotional tone of fear or lack and you have a scarcity filter.  

 

If you have thoughts of running out of money, you're likely looking through a scarcity filter.  When fear of spending money is present, I call that the survival filter.  Familiar?  It colors not only your money purchases but other areas of life, if you look, most noticeably time.

 

 

When fear appears concerning investing or purchasing, it's fear for your survival, not merely fear of spending money.

 

Emotions can be changed overnight using the services of a skilled practitioner and I'm happy to recommend someone to you.  Chances are though, you're looking for an answer here since you're still reading.  Here's what I suggest:

 

 

Try on the filter "will it bring me joy" ala Mari Kondo.  Try going through your day today asking not "can I afford it?" but "will it delight me?"  Delight is a filter just a surely as fear, as my friend Dana Lawrence could tell you.  

 

Rather than ordering from the menu of life according to what you can afford, try ordering the most memorable, delightful "meal" you desire.  Long after the bank accounts are settled, the tastes of the delicious foods, the sparkle of the well-laid table and the fragrances of roasting whatever-it-was will linger in your memory. 

 

Choose your filters so they give you that quality of life.  It's really up to you.  Learning to appreciate deeply is a skill and you can learn it with Karen in the E.M.B.R.A.C.E. retreat, starting Nov. 1.  It's free, it's online, for women who lead.  Register and let yourself be delighted.