Can We All Get Rid of the Financial SHOULDS?

The majority of my clients come to me thinking they have no (or almost no) financial skills. They often feel like they’re missing crucial information that everyone else has. With these two personal narratives intact, they come to me feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and, often, a little bit ashamed. 

While the financial knowledge and skills that I teach in my coaching sessions are incredibly important, what folks often tell me is that the kindness, support, and lack of judgment I show is even more meaningful. When I first started coaching I was always surprised by this reaction -- I mean, all I’m doing is being kind and honest! Kind, because I have always strongly believed that we learn best and grow the most when we are being patient with ourselves and others (and because I honest to goodness just like all of my clients!). And honest because I know that this lack of knowledge or skills isn’t a personal failing. 

Very few of us are taught about money growing up. Less than half of US states require some sort of financial literacy be taught in schools and only 57% of American adults are considered financially literate (for more sobering stats, check out this article). And, for some reason, once we are adults, society tells us that we should all just know this stuff and should have our financial lives in order. 

We should be investing! We should have our business systems running perfectly! We should never have debt! We should have at least 3 months of living expenses in savings! We should be able to take off work and go on multi-week vacations! We should, we should, we should…

It drives me bonkers. 

In my opinion, what we should actually be doing is being kind to ourselves, inquisitive about what we want and need, and then seek out resources (free or paid) that will help us fill those gaps. We don’t have do it all at once and we don’t have to do it the way other people expect us to. We just need to do it in a way that feels right and is aligned to our needs and goals. 

As always, I’m rooting for you. 

XOXO

P.S. And, let’s be honest. Those people who totally seem to have their financial ducks in order may be just really good at faking it, either with debt or additional money that you don’t realize they have. What seems to be true, isn’t always true.