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Uncover Your Money Story

Before we can design our future, we need to know where we’re coming from.

Expected Time: 25 minutes

What You’ll Need:

📝 Money journal and pen

🥰 A comfy blanket and a warm beverage

Why This is Important

It might be hard to believe, but the way you use money today is rooted in your earliest interactions with it.

Someone who experienced positive emotions around money as a child will likely develop a very different relationship with money than someone who grew up around financial stress. And even if the differences in upbringing around money seem small, there is a significant multiplier effect on the impact those experiences have on the way we value money and what behaviors and habits we form around money.

And these in turn are often directly related to how we think about our own success, and our careers - equating our worth and ambitions around money.

Your future success depends on your ability to develop a healthy emotional relationship with money. So let’s start by looking back.

Instructions

Get in a comfortable, quiet place, and respond to the questions below in your journal.

Part I: Money and Family (10 minutes)

In your journal, answer the questions below type in your answers to the questions below 👇

How was money talked about in your family growing up?

Were your parents savers or spenders? What about other family members?

Did you feel financially safe?

How did you feel about people outside your family in terms of money? Were wealthy people or those without very much money talked about in a certain way?

Where do you see similarites in your own financial situation and money habits and those of your parents?

What differences do you see in terms of your financial situation and money habits and those of your parents?

Reflecting on your upbringing with money, how has what you experienced impacted what you believe about money today?

Part II: Money and Work ( 10 minutes)

In your journal, answer the questions below type in your answers to the questions below 👇

What did your parents do for work?

What role models did you have growing up around work and money?

Who in your life is supportive of your career choices? Your financial choices?

Are there conversations or scenarios around work that you get anxious about?

When has money been a source of stress, confusion, or conflict in your workplace?

Reflecting on your work experiences, and your answers above, where do you see room to step outside your comfort zone, and be bolder in your choices?

Reflecting on your work experiences, and your answers above, where do you see influences (either your parents or role models) that are in alignment with the life you want to have? Where do you see differences?

Part III: Money Memories (5 min)

In your journal, please describe your three most significant memories of money (good or bad). Provide the age and year for which these events occurred, and be sure to describe the emotion you experienced as a result of this memory.

Reflection

Was this activity easy or difficult for you?

What did you learn about your relationship with money?

Are you able to see any connections between your experience with money, and how you use your money now?

Why This is Important

Instructions

Part I: Money and Family (10 minutes)

Part II: Money and Work ( 10 minutes)

Part III: Money Memories (5 min)

Reflection

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