Money Goals and Finance Goals – Movies are to blame!

Are you struggling with your money goals and your finance goals? I think a lot of people are these days, especially with the current economic climate right? Why do we all struggle with these goals to achieve in life? Why do we grapple with issues around accomplishing a goal in terms of our finances? In my experience, this is all deep in our subconscious and goes back to our childhood and throughout our teen and adult life.

In the past couple of years, I have been blessed to see some of the most successful business men and women in the world. I have sat for hours as they speak about how they struggled to overcome their own struggles with their money goals and finance goals. I have listened to speakers who slept on the streets, slept in train stations etc…to conquer their money goals and finally learn how to set life goals! I have seen the pain in their eyes and the emotional attachment that this period still has with them.

Why do people go through periods of struggle with their money and finance goals? Well, when you think about it, as kids we are very much subjected to a lot of “myths” about money and how it is viewed by society. Have you ever heard some of these common myths before…

✓Money is the root of all evil
✓Getting rich is a matter of luck or fate
✓Having a lot of money will make me less spiritual or pure
✓Money will change me
✓Money won’t make me happy
✓I’m too young to be rich
✓I’m already quite comfortable. I don’t need to push myself

I bet these sayings are familiar to the majority of you? We struggle with our money goals and finance goals because we have been so conditioned by phrases like “I’m not made of money” or “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, that it is inherent in our subconscious. It is almost like a disease and we don’t even realize it! I have been very lucky to attend various seminars on this subject that have really brought this to my conscious mind. When something is conscious, we can train the brain so that success in our money goals and finance goals becomes habitual.

After attending seminars and being aware of these myths and negative stories we have all heard about, I began to realize that this severely impacts our goals to achieve in life, in a negative way. I then started to see things differently and made an observation that many people I have spoken to lately, have agreed with. Movies, present or past, have a big impact on our money goals and fiance goals!

Before you try and send me to the “looney bin”, hear me out. I watched the movie “Hook” recently with Robin Williams (great movie, I highly recommend it). Peter Banning, played by Robin Williams, has a beautiful wife and two great kids. He is a big time sales man, working on his own goals for sales. He is very high up in his company and is on the verge of a major deal. His son has a vital baseball game coming up soon. He has promised his son that he will see his baseball game. What does he do? He shows up late and misses the game, focusing on his major deal instead. The family fight and he often screams at the kids, pays no attention to his wife, constantly argues and focuses on the money he will receive from the deal.

In my opinion, this is very symbolic of a lot of movies of this ilk (granted the movie is actually about how he becomes Peter Pan again, but that’s besides the point!). The movie subconsciously gives the audience a choice, either you can achieve your money goals and finance goals or you can be there for your family. You can’t have both, you must make a sacrifice. If you want the money, you must work extremely hard, with rarely any time for holidays or your family. Money, therefore, becomes the “root of all evil”! In the end, Peter, makes the choice of his choosing his family. He throws away the phone call (literally) that can close his sales deal. This depicts the fact that we have to choose one or the other, you can’t have both.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these movies. They played a big part in my childhood, but as you become older, you become wiser. Once you start to model and try and replicate successful people, you see things with new eyes.I often speak so highly of the seminars and the business speakers that I have been privileged to see live. After spending three full days at an event on “money goals” a year or so ago, someone once remarked that I was in a “cult”. It made me think, perhaps I have been in a “cult” with my money goals and finance goals before I began to see the light that the successful gurus have shown me.

So I guess its time to debunk some of the myths I eluded to above and leave you with some new belief systems to mull over:

✓Making money doesn’t restrict freedom, it PROMOTES freedom
✓To master money, I must MANAGE money
✓Wealthy and successful people aren’t smarter than me, they just have better money management HABITS

Some people think that the concept of changing your mindset is all “hocus pocus”. I beg to differ. I think that if we begin to look at things with new eyes, that we can really start to focus on our money goals and finance goals. In fact, you can focus on new ways to achieve your goals in life!

So what are your new money associations? Fill in the blank: Money is__________