Woke up this morning with high anxiety. The kind that floods in with the first conscious moment after sleep. Often brought on by overactive adrenals and other hormonal imbalances that can accompany this ever-changing 49-year-old body. The usual suspects? Caffeine, stress, no exercise. The real culprit? Money.

Without my hypersensitivity to “all things money” these days, I may have overlooked the single most important red flag being waved at me this morning. See if you can relate.

I’ve been making purchases without an eye on my bank balance. I have several big-ticket payment dates approaching and just depleted my savings to take care of my obligation to the IRS. I have avoided any substantive money conversations with my husband because I don’t want to feel inadequate, irresponsible, or ashamed.

Red Flag. Waving.

Whenever I find myself relating to my money situation with my eyes closed or crossed fingers, I am no longer standing on solid ground. And, for me, floating on hope creates anxiety. Only every time.

The prescription? Move my body, take a break from the morning coffee and “get real” with my finances. That translates to looking at my bank statement, listing the upcoming expenditures, and sitting down with my husband to face who I’m being with money. If I don’t have what I need, then I/we come up with a plan.

The anxiety dissipates with the admission. It will disappear entirely with action. Emotions come and go.

Menopause or Money? You might want to look into it!

Are you living the life you want for yourself? If not, do you find yourself saying things like…

• I wish I could live in (a certain type of house).
• I wish I could go on (tropical island of choice).
• I wish I could buy _______ for my family.
• I wish I could go ________ and do ________.

If you find yourself wishing you had things that you can’t seem to afford, it might be that you haven’t  identified the underlying reason for wanting these things. More specifically, you haven’t realized that, in order to begin manifesting or creating the life you really want, you have to know WHY you want the things you want.

There’s something magical that happens when you know (and state) your WHY. Let me give you an example and then a simple activity to start manifesting your dream life immediately (yes, immediately).

Let’s say you love to eat organic foods but you find them expensive so you only buy a limited amount of them on your monthly budget. The ‘why’ behind this want is…

• Because I value my health highly.

This now becomes one of your powerful WHYs. You use a WHYs as a motivator to keep you moving toward your goal, especially when you get tired, overwhelmed, feel lost or helpless. Staying focused on your goal (or goals) helps keep you on the path to that life you keep saying you want for yourself.

Here’s a simple, but profoundly effective, activity to do on a regular basis. Stop right now, get a piece of paper and your favorite pen or pencil. Write on top of the page…WHY I WANT MONEY! You don’t have to have a set amount, but you could do that as a next step. For now, just start getting your WHYs down on paper.

Once you have done this activity (and remember, if you don’t do it, it won’t work), put this piece of paper somewhere you can see it during the day. Also, make it easy to modify and add to. Do NOT type it. Put it in your own handwriting…there’s also something magical about writing by hand.

OK, that’s all for now. Get your Why List started and then watch what unfolds. You’ll be surprised at how things begin to happen. Have fun with this! And keep us posted!

Coaching women over the past several years in getting what they want in life has been interesting, satisfying and fun and there’s one thing that keeps women stuck more than most…or so it seems.

What is that one thing? The fact that women seem to struggle more than men when it comes knowing WHAT they want and then determining WHY they want it. Perhaps it goes back to caveman/cavewoman times when what we wanted wasn’t so tangible…strong man, healthy children, safety, enough to eat, berries that were sweet, a clan of girlfriends to help with the chores and the child rearing.

For whatever reason, though, when women DO figure out what they want and then uncover a powerful WHY behind what it is they want, whatever they want virtually can’t NOT happen.

Here’s a little video I did on Finding Your Why. Hope you enjoy it. Please leave a comment to tell me what you thought and what you want more information on.

With each passing day that I notch upon my proverbial age belt, the more I am sure that resistance is what actually ages us.

The resistance to what IS and the aching for what WAS. That, to me, seems the cause of our eternal angst.

Now I can only speak from my own personal existence and experience, so that’s what I’m going to do…

What am I resisting?

The fact that, as women, most of us have to take care of ourselves and our families now, financially that is. It hasn’t  always been this way. As a matter of fact, my OWN angst is from my seemingly hard-wired yearning to go back to the ‘way it was’ so that I could do on a daily basis what my soul seems to love doing.

And what IS it that my soul loves doing? Caring for others. Tending to the things that make a person happy, healthy, wealthy and wise. Raising children…mine and other people’s so they respect the world and themselves enough to grow into responsible adults who have children who…you get the idea.

My soul loves to prepare cookies and muffins and soups for the people in my lives. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps I instinctually know that they need nourishment and I can provide it in a loving, healthy way. Maybe the smile on their faces as they lather butter on a hot banana muffin in anticipation of something yummy or watching them take a sip from a tall glass of ice-cold milk after the virgin bite of a rich, melting dark chocolate cookie freshly snatched from the hot oven.

All I do know is that the more women I talk to, especially women who around my age (51), the more I realize it’s not just me. It seems that women all over the world are craving the lifestyle they seem hard-wired to live; the lifestyle many of us witnessed our mothers living…until, and if, they got divorced that is. At that point, many of them lost their ‘do what you love for free’ cards and had to go to work. And many remarried quickly so as to reclaim that card as quickly as possible.

Ah, but the times they are a changin’ you might be humming to yourself. But don’t hum too loudly. You may ‘think’ they have changed, but if you talk to a few young women in your circle of influence, those about to leave high school and be off on their own for the first time (depending on what culture you belong to), they have their proverbial eye on the prince, the white horse in the distance, the picket fence, the apron and oh yah, the cookies.

Only problem is that that just ain’t happenin’ much anymore and I personally feel an elephant of sadness sitting on my heart about it. I see women struggling financially everyday who are trying to make it on their own, kids who rarely see their mothers (and fathers) because they’ll all ‘out there’ trying to make it in the world. And yes, I see men who are struggling also who pay, sometimes happily, sometimes court-ordered) child support and alimony to the ones they once called ‘family’.

There’s no obvious solution to this short expression of my emotion this morning. Just that I continually question why WHAT IS has replaced so deeply what USED TO BE and question if it’s really what’s best for our human beingness. At this point, I don’t think it is.

However, that being said, I also realize that the stress I feel is of my own doing. It begins in my head when I occasionally allow myself to think about my mom’s life…the one where she happily (or so it seemed) took care of all of us and appreciated the job.

I think I’d like that job. Though the financial pay was no where to be seen, the payment to our mother’s souls and spirits was often all they needed to be the women they really wanted to be.

Just something to think about…

If you are one way but you think you should be another way, maybe you should think again.

Many have told me that I needed to focus on one project and get it done first. Others tried to praise me into relaxing, focusing, finishing, doing other things.

Once in a while I would let other people influence what I knew to be true about me…what motivated me, what I enjoyed, what thrilled me, what drove me at my core.

Then I would decide that they didn’t have a clue who I really was…that they were only comparing me to how they thought a person should be.

Well, I have great news. I’m exactly the person I want to be and after reading Tamara Lowe’s new book, Get Motivated, I’m happy to report that I will never again question how I should be.

Tamara talks in the book about her Motivational DNA philosophy. D stands for Drives, N stands for Needs and A stands for awards. Each category has two options:

Drive: You’re either driven to develop Commonality (relationships) or Projects.

Needs: You either need Stability or Variety.

Awards: You either thrive on Internal or External rewards.

I am proud to announce that I am a card carrying PVI. I am motivated by projects, I thrive on variety and I am seriously internally rewarded.

Who knew? I did and I’ve known this (without the explanation and labels, of course) from as young as 13 years old. My mother always said I was happiest wearing a lot of hats and that I loved having projects to do. I was always sewing something or growing something or building something or working on something.

The variety thing? Oh my Gosh. I had one job at Hewlett-Packard one summer on an assembly line where they fill up the ink cartridges. The boss actually told me to stop asking everyone questions about how things were done. I think I lasted less than two weeks before I told her where to put her boring job.

And lastly, I have always been internally motivated. I don’t need others to tell me what a great job I’m doing…I need others to tell me HOW I’m doing, WHAT to tweak, HOW to make what I’m doing better…but I don’t need their praise to keep going. Do I like praise? Of course. I just don’t need it to keep going.

On that note, time to go work on something else.

Get the book. Get motivated, by Tamara Lowe. You’ll love it.

…or so it seems.

I have been working with women in a coaching and teaching capacity for years. One of the major differences I find when working with women is that their goals are more…how do I say this…intangible than men’s. 

Men can usually tell me what they want, when they want it, what it looks like, what color it is, ‘how big it is’ , etc.

Women, on the other hand, describe their goals in nebulous terms; saying things like this:

I want to grow and learn and set an example for my kids. I want to make a difference in the world and live my passion. and on and on.

When I ask women I coach, “So, can you tell me what you really want?”, they often can’t. I used to think this was simply because they didn’t know what they wanted. I don’t necessarily believe that now.

I’m beginning to think that it’s not that we, as a gender, don’t know what we want; it’s that what we want can’t be spoken in terms of what, when, color, how big, etc. What we want is more an experience or a sensation or an emotional response or feeling. And it’s sometimes hard to put these types of a goals down on paper or illustrate them on a dream board or vision board.

If you’re a girl and this is you, please know you’re not alone. You’re perfect just the way you are. Just because we need to know WHAT we want before we can HAVE what we want, doesn’t mean WHAT we want has to be tangible. Let’s explore the idea that we can create exactly what we want…tangible or not!

A long, long time ago, wealth was something those ‘other people’ had and enjoyed. The nonwealthy looked wistfully toward those who bought items of luxury, employed the services of others, enjoyed visits to spas, vacation destinations, etc. Many times the nonwealthy simply went about living their nonwealthy lives wishing and hoping something might be different, but rarely did their financial situations change.

Nowadays, the idea of wealth and creating it is as common place as, well, the air we breathe. It’s insidious. The headlines beckon us each day…

“Learn this trick and $10,000 a month will drop into your checking account.”

“Learn to market on the web and be a millionaire in 6 months!”

“Come to this seminar and you’ll miraculously know how to build your fortune like never before.”

“Watch this video…the experts will show you how!”

We’re pulled this way and that, as we experience what is commonly referred to as the “shiny object syndrome.” I love that term because practically all of us fall for it at least part of the time. Even me. We WANT to think that someone else has the clue, the answer, the secret, the key. But do they? 

But maybe we’re looking for the wrong key.

And maybe the key is different for women than it is for men. I believe so, and this is why (and these are what I call Genderalizations so if they don’t fit you, it’s OK):

For men, money is the primary way they provide for and protect the ones they love and care for. Money is a way they compete in this world; i.e., I have a bigger gun than you do so I will make a better provider! sort of thing. Money, for men, is tied to success and ego and their natural competiveness.

For women, on the other hand, money is generally looked at as a way to both provide security and take care of others. Because we’re naturally born ‘takercareofers’, money, to women, is the way in which we take care of those we love.

Sometimes the difference between ‘providing for’ and ‘taking care of’ can be fuzzy. Think of it this way: men give money to women who then use that money to buy groceries in order to be able to take care of the feeding, clothing, educating, etc. of the children. It’s subtle, but there is a difference.

Both genders, however, see money as freedom; the freedom to do what they wish to do with their lives. Whether it’s being the best provider, being the best takercareofer or being the best whatever it is you want to do, money buys you the freedom to do those things.

What does money mean to you? Just something to think about…

Here’s a thought…

EVERYTHING in the world starts from nothing so being in NOTHING is the perfect place from which to build and create exactly what you want.

If you’re feeling financially stressed and on the edge, allow yourself to be in your discomfort zone (others refer to it as your comfort zone but we disagree). Hang out there for awhile… in your discomfort, on the edge. Why not? It’s where you are.

As soon as you stop fighting the edge, you’ll see it for what it is. And from here, you can move to a place you’d rather be. 

Take a moment if you will and write down exactly what you DO want in life. Create something. Imagine something. Desire something. 

Write us and let us know! 

We’ll help you take it from there!

You only have NOTHING to lose!

Jan & Elisabeth

One of the things that I, Elisabeth, am known for is having ideas that stretch the limits of what is generally considered ‘normal’. I love what this lady says about having a healthy disregard for the rules. It’s one of the premises I teach in all of my financial literacy programs for kids and adults. 

I like to teach people to “Question Everything”

I like to teach people that “Rules are someone else’s opinions of what your behavior is supposed to look like.”

In other words, bringing into the conversation the idea that you may be doing something for some other reason than that it’s really what’s in your heart to do.

Here’s a cool video from a fellow blogger named Misty Gibbs about a woman talking about what it means to be a gusty gal. I’m not sure it’s all about having guts, but you get the gist of it. 

Enjoy…