“I Don’t Have Confidence with Money”
A practicing gastroenterologist and money coach, Dr. Latifat Akintade helps women physicians have financial peace of mind, something that so many of us are unfortunately lacking. But she wasn’t always a money expert.
When she graduated fellowship four years ago, Dr. Akintade knew nothing about money. She loved being a physician but when she looked around, she saw that there was so much burn-out in medicine, especially amongst women. Her goal was not to let that happen to her. She wanted to work because she wanted to, not because she had to.
See, Dr. Akintade was achieving her goals - but slowly, feeling like she was depriving herself. After learning about the psychology of money, she was able to integrate what she learned, achieve her goals faster, and ditch the sense of deprivation. Now, she wants to help you do the same.
And achieving this isn’t just a matter of having confidence in the amount of money you have, clarifies Dr. Akintade. It’s having confidence in money - period. There’s not a certain amount of money you have to earn before you can get this peace of mind. It’s all about your mindset.
What Money Coaches Can Do
There are a lot of different reasons why somebody may choose to work with a money coach. Maybe you’re tired of living from paycheck to paycheck. Maybe you’re afraid of money or don’t enjoy your money. Or you want more money but you feel bad about that. Or you have misconceptions about how money should be spent. Basically, if there’s an imbalance between what you earn, what you have, and what you spend, a coach can be of help to you.
Your Money Story
Like a lot of things in life, we all have a money story that’s a product of all of our life experiences and the things we’ve learned - mostly unconsciously - throughout our lives. For example, one of Dr. Akintade’s clients is very financially wealthy by most standards, but sought out a money coach because she felt she still had a lot of money issues. Through her work with Dr. Akintade, this client realized that her money problems stemmed from a lack of self-love. Ultimately, she learned that how we relate to our money is a reflection of how we relate with ourselves and those around us.
When you start evaluating your money story, you might be surprised about what you find. After all, these are unconscious beliefs. One client of Dr. Akintade’s came to her saying she’s a physician who lives paycheck to paycheck. They discovered that the client doesn’t spend money on herself. Rather, every time somebody is upset with her, she spends money on others. Essentially, she was trying to buy love. Again, here, the solution came down to working on self-love; when you love yourself, you don’t need others to love you.
The reality is, when it comes to fixing your relationship with money, it may not require conversations about money. Rather, you may need to talk about everything else first to get to the bottom of the true problem.
Scarcity Mindset
What we don’t realize is that the baggage that we’re carrying with us affects more than just what we make, but also how we enjoy what we have. That’s why it’s worth making investments in ourselves. That’s what makes expenses like coaching - whether they be a life coach or a money coach - so valuable to us.
When you have a scarcity mindset, saying things like “I can’t afford this,” it causes you to do things like hoard money which stops you from investing it - whether it’s in yourself or in the market. The result? You don’t have money. It’s a bit of a cycle. You think you don’t have money and, as a result, you don’t have it.
The same way that there are people who don’t know how to have money, there are those who hoard money. Some are so afraid of decreasing their cash reserve that they don’t invest or pay off their debt.
People will also often say things like, “I don’t have the money.” But what does that mean? Well, it’s up to you to define. According to Dr. Akintade, as long as you have enough money to afford your basics, you have enough. From there, you choose what you spend your money on. It’s like with time. When you say you don’t have enough, it’s not usually because you actually don’t have any time. It’s because you’re choosing not to spend your time in this way. Money is the same way; it’s all about putting your money where your values lie.
How to Become More Confident With Money
Somewhere along the line, fear starts to seap into some people about money. They worry they’re going to mess something up.
The first part of building money confidence is learning to overcome that fear or making the choice just to allow it to come along with you on the ride. The second part is breaking the taboo of talking about money, findind people who can talk about money openly, whether it’s saving, spending, or goal-setting. Having people who are understanding and like-minded to be your champions is crucial.
In fact, focusing on and writing down our goals can be incredibly helpful because the more we achieve our goals, the more confident we are. Before you know it, you start building a muscle that makes you feel more confident with accomplishing your goals.
Objectively rating yourself on a scale of zero to ten where ten is amazing confidence and zero is “I suck at everything money-related” can be helpful. If you’re currently at a one and want to be a four, you can make a plan for how to make that jump.
Dr. Akintade’s bottom line? It’s all about having choices. You can make as much or as little as you want to make.