How We Underestimate Our Financial Strength

Do you have financial strength?

I think we often underestimate our financial power.  We dismiss what is possible simply because we don’t believe we are capable of more.

For example, I think most people think it is next to impossible to pay cash for a nice automobile.  Cars are undoubtedly expensive, but it is possible to buy one without borrowing money.  I’m a regular guy and I recently paid cash for a car for the first time in my life.

I’m not bragging (okay, I am a little), but I’m using this as an example of how we reject our own financial strength and accept a weak position.  This mentality of weakness robs us of our ability to prosper.

We Accept False Limitations About Our Strength

The whole idea for this article came one day when this thought occurred to me, “Look at all the stuff that I’ve bought over the course of my lifetime.”  If you add up the value of all of it, I bet it would be a pretty astounding total.

This got me thinking about how we underestimate our financial strength.  Since most of our purchases are small, we automatically believe that’s the limit of our monetary might.  We’ve never tried “lifting” anything any heavier on our own so our brains accept a false limitation as reality.

We Are Elephants

Let me explain.

Restraining elephants is a difficult problem, but one that was solved ages ago.  When the elephants are still very small, their handlers tie them up with a heavy rope.

They struggle against the rope for hours unable to break free.  Eventually, the baby elephant gives up and the fight is over.  They accept that they are too weak to break the rope and never challenge the belief again even once they become 8,000 pound giants.

Their handlers are then able to tie them up with a rope for the rest of their lives.  One that as adults they could easily snap.  However, the imprinted belief they hold about their strength won’t let them test the rope that holds them back.

We also accept false beliefs about our financial strength early in life and then never test these beliefs again.  We just continue to live in a position of weakness.  We need to stop acting like elephants!

The Way This Plays Out in Our Lives

I think there are a number of ways that our beliefs about our financial strength limit our ability to prosper.  I think regular people subscribe to several of these. 

Here are a few examples of how we underestimate our financial strength:

1.  We falsely believe that we have to live on loans.

I already gave the example of how we think the only way to buy a car is by going into debt, but what about other purchases?  What about paying cash for a home?  Does that sound completely insane?  I’ll admit that this notion challenges my thinking.  However, I used to also believe it was impossible to pay cash for a nice, late-model car unless you were Bill Gates.  Maybe paying cash for a house isn’t all that crazy after all.  You certainly wouldn’t ever have to worry about losing your home to foreclosure if you paid cash instead of taking out a mortgage.  How would that feel?

2.  We falsely believe that living on a budget is too hard.

We have all kinds of false beliefs about living on a budget.  I wrote about a lot of my mental struggles a while back in a series called Things I Learned Living on a Budget – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.  Obviously, I held a lot of wrong notions about budgeting.  These false beliefs held me back from prospering for years.  Without a budget, I wasted money and drained myself of most of my financial power.  We need to break free of our elephant-like behavior so we can reclaim our true strength!

3.  We falsely believe that we are powerless to change.

An old dog can learn new tricks.  I’m a living example.  A few years ago I challenged my thinking on personal finances and embarked on a Total Money Makeover.  It has changed my life.  I no longer wonder where all the money I make goes.  I know how it is used because I track it and it isn’t all that hard.  I also paid off all my debt except for my mortgage.  It feels good to be able to keep more of my money to do with it as I please instead of having to send it to credit card companies every month.  If this sounds attractive to you, then follow my free guide to budgeting and living debt free.  We are NOT powerless to change.

These types of false beliefs about our financial strength drains us of all our power.  They hold us back and keep us from doing the things necessary to become financially independent.

The Truth About Our Financial Strength

I’ve come a long ways, but I still hold false beliefs that are holding me back.  I’d like to encourage you to do what I’m doing and challenge your long-held beliefs about money. Again, think about all the stuff you’ve bought over the course of your lifetime.  You have financial power.  You’ve just bought into some lies that keep you from using your true strength.

It is time to stop acting like an elephant!  We have to break free from these weak restraints that are holding us back so we can truly prosper.

What false beliefs do you hold about your financial strength?

Photo by Patrick Hoesly

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