This is the fourth and final Money Gremlin that I'll be talking about in this series of articles, and is perhaps one of the sliest. This Gremlin lives in our self-identity regarding money. The way he sabotages our money lives is by having us make decisions and choose behaviors that only continue to support how we see ourselves with money.

If your self-identity with money is good, then you are actually doing well by this gremlin. But if you have a less than constructive image of yourself around money, this gremlin can cause you to keep getting the same results (that you don't want) over and over again.

Birth of a Gremlin

We give birth to this gremlin between the ages of 3-7, as we put together our initial "skeleton" of money attitudes and beliefs. This skeleton isn't based on educational material, but rather the emotional climate, intensity, and events that we experience and associate with money during those years.

This gremlin then filters your later experiences so that you see the world through and reinforce only these early perceptions countless times before you become an adult. This gremlin is doing his job by keeping you within the limits you've set for yourself.

Sometimes this can be added to by later key experiences, like a teacher telling you that you'll never do math well. Or a tragedy might happen. Or someone might take you under their wing and give you positive training about money.

Nonetheless, these skeleton attitudes and beliefs are a significant part of how you identify yourself around money.

What Are You Saying?

To get a handle on them, listen with particular awareness when you're talking about money to others. What are you saying?

A client of mine would always tell her friends how bad business was, how hard she was working, and how little she was making. When we were working together I suggested she change that story so that she could support the new truth. She was shocked by how often she had to stop herself from saying the old story. The new story was that she was working only on jobs that she wanted, in the hours she chose, and making good money. The new story was reflecting the money person she was becoming.

Up to Now

You have probably seen that we create more of what we know. In order to change your money identity, you need to be able to shove a door stop in the doorway to the new identity so that the possibility can even be heard.

Here's a "door-stop" to use: if you hear yourself once again proclaiming a money identity that you don't want, then insert the phrase, "up to now." One of my clients used to say that he was someone who could never save money. I asked him to insert "up to now," so that the door could at least be kept ajar to his being able to save money.

If your self-identity is so strong that you're proclaiming it often, then you need to have this trick in hand to remind yourself that you're doing it differently now. That's why the "up to now" insertion is so crucial.

Keeping Me Safe

I actually have compassion for this particular gremlin because I really believe in my own life that he was just trying to keep me safe (but small). When I was first working on my own money, my gremlin would whisper in my ear that I couldn't add up a column of numbers and get the same answer twice.

He was very strong with that message, and it took me three years to do it enough to prove him wrong. He would still whisper it in my ear, but I knew by then it was really bad advice that I didn't have to believe.

Three key steps:

1. Listen to how you describe your money self to others. Actually write it down so that it processes through a couple of senses and gives you something to look at later. (We tend to have an instant-erase factor with this particular gremlin.)
2. Re-write your story. You made up the first story so you can make up the new one. The new story is about the steps you're taking to bring better results.
3. When one of the old stories pops out of your mouth, add, "Up to now." That gives you and your listeners the understanding that the "new" you is different.

If this particular gremlin is winning in your money  life, I'm good at taming it. I have been helping clients develop new, positive money identities for over 20 years. Because these identities are based on new sustainable behaviors and better consequences, as well as the words used to describe them, you can "prove" to this Gremlin that there's a new sheriff in town.

It's up to you...who do you want to be around money? Let's make that so, together.