Why am I broke is a question a lot of us ask when were struggling with money and abundance. We might think it’s because of our jobs, or expenses, or increasing cost of living, and more. And all of those things are valid! But many of these can become self fulfilling prophecies if we aren’t keeping other money blockers in check.
If you’re wondering why you’re broke, and starting to think that it’s more than just an issue of “making more and spending less”, then find out the hidden money bottlenecks below.
Today I am super excited to do a quick little training video for you on seven money blocks that are keeping you broke. So, I’m just gonna jump in.
Why Am I Broke? Money Blocks In Your Way
#1: Limiting Beliefs
The first thing I wanna talk about as far as seven things that are blocking you from money are limiting beliefs. I’m mentioning this one first because it’s probably the one you’re most likely to have heard of or worked on a little bit.
Limiting beliefs are things like…
- you have to have money to make money
- you’ll never be a millionaire
- there’s no way I can save money
- there’s no way I’ll ever pay off my debt.
These are all limiting beliefs that relate to money, and around our money goals.
The easiest way to work on limiting beliefs are actually these mindset card decks that I have are a really great tool for this. I usually give them away as gifts, but email hello@alisonreeves.co if you want to buy them. These all have affirmations on them about money. So for example, the first one that I just pulled to look at is “getting paid feels natural and easy, and I feel grateful and worthy every time I get paid”.
The easiest way for me to work through limiting beliefs has been to go through this card deck and choose a card. Then see if it feels true for me or not. If you read an affirmation and it feels true for you, soak it up and enjoy it. If you read an affirmation and it feels like baloney or a lie, that can help you uncover a limiting belief.
So it’s just something to be aware of when you’re setting goals or when you’re saying affirmations. Those are two of the primary things that can bring up limiting beliefs for you. But that is the first money block that people usually experience.
#2: Negative Self Talk
The second money blocker is negative self-talk. Negative self-talk is saying things like…
- I’m not worthy of it
- I’m not talented enough
Negative self-talk is overly focusing on whatever gap or problem you have.
So one thing that I still kind of struggle with is that like I at one point didn’t have any debt, and now I have some debt. Sometimes it’s easy for me to focus on making money for the purpose of paying off the debt INSTEAD of making money for the purpose of increasing enjoyment or abundance.
So even though I may not be poo-pooing on myself explicitly, you can kind of manifest more of a problem when you are focused on it instead of the solution.
Negative self-talk when wondering why am I broke is a huge block to money.
This should not be confused with like toxic positivity. So when I’m talking about negative self-talk, I don’t want you to be fearful of feeling your fears, feeling your anxieties, because those are giving you important information. What I want you to be aware of and prevent regarding negative self-talk is repeating negative words and thoughts to yourself about yourself and the world over and over and over again.
If you’re feeling anxious or fearful about money – or feeling any kind of negativity – we wanna leave space for that. That’s where like somatic and nervous system work comes in. We don’t wanna gaslight ourselves into thinking that you’re positive. But you also don’t wanna create a pattern of negative self-talk (because that will become a block to money).
#3: Restrictive Goals and Timelines
The third thing is money blocks related to goals and timelines.
So when I read about limiting beliefs, a lot of people teach that in order to manifest something, you have to have a specific goal and a specific timeline.
And I would argue that that’s not necessarily true.
I would argue that it’s important to be specific about your goals, and then the timeline is that has more to do with what’s aligned for you. So if you look at human design, it’ll show you that there’s kind of two categories of people when it comes to manifesting: specific or general.
If you’re a specific manifester, that means that what works best for you for setting goals is to be very specific with the goal and with the timeline. And for many people, that’s really helpful for setting goals.
I am a general manifestor myself. For general manifestors, if the goal is too rigid, it’s not going to be aligned with how we attract more of that than into our life. So instead of saying, “I’m gonna sell this many of this thing in this month month” it’s too restrictive. I need to open up the context of my success. For example: “I want to increase my profit every single year”.
So that opens up the goal a lot more than just saying, “I wanna make $10,000 this week”, right?
Lack of Alignment
So another block to being able to manifest what you want is not being aligned with the specificity of your goal or the timeline.
I do think it’s important to get clear about what you want; and I think that you can be as specific as is aligned to your personality and just feel this out for yourself.
When you’re setting a really specific goal with a specific timeline, does that make you feel really excited and energized? Or does it make you feel kind of stressed out?
If it makes you feel stressed out and constricted, you might expand the context in which you’re setting your goal.
#4: Relationships with others
Number four: this is a block for money that people don’t think about very often. The fourth block for money is your relationship with others.
So one thing that feels obvious: if you don’t like people who have money, that could be a block to having money.
Said another way: if you think that people who have money did bad things to get there, that could be a block to making money.
That’s kind of an obvious thing that you might have heard me say before.
If you think people with money are bad, you will avoid money subconsciously for fear of becoming “bad”.
But you can also block money in abundance by having other kind of problems and blockers in your other relationships. So for example, if you’re not an integrity in your relationships, or if you resent someone, or if you’re really judgmental against people? All this can block you from money and abundance.
Relationship inventory
So one really good routine to have around all of this is just doing kind of a check before bed. At the end of the night, every day, you can have a journal by your bed and do a mental check of how your day was and how you treated people.
How were your interactions today with other people? Did you feel loving and integrity? Or were there moments where you were resentful or judgmental or dishonest that you need to clean up the next day?
This isn’t for the purpose of shaming yourself or doo-doo’ing on yourself. This is just for the purpose of keeping our side of the street clean. And if you can keep your side of the street clean in your relationships, you can ensure that this won’t be a block to you having more money in abundance.
#5: Lack of self compassion
The number five hidden block to making more money is a lack of self-compassion. Or a lack of self-forgiveness is another way to say this.
This could have to do with anything generally in your life like a mistake that you made that you’re judging yourself for. Or most more specifically, this could have to do with your past behaviors and patterns and mistakes around money.
So for example, if you are someone who has debt and you feel a lot of shame around that, that could be preventing you from abundance. It’s important to recognize that debt is often not an ideal situation, but feeling shame around it doesn’t help pay it off any faster.
Feeling shame around debt or your past doesn’t help you resolve it any faster.
Compassion inventory
Another great check for this is – again – to do an inventory. Checking in on any resentments I have, any judgments or shame I have around myself, and then doing some exercises around those things to create space.
With number four and five when it comes to your relationships with others and self-forgiveness, you wanna make sure that you take some kind of action around those things to create space.
#6: Money avoidance
Number six, another block to understanding why I’m broke, is avoiding money.
It is amazing how many people both with and without money I encounter that are not comfortable looking at their finances.
And so if you’re someone who’s already great at looking at your finances, that’s wonderful. Keep going.
If you, you’re someone who feels a lot of anxiety about looking at your finances, you might consider easing into it. So some of my clients, I just have them start like looking at your bank account once a week or once a day. Then before we do really intense spreadsheets or other trackers, we’ll just start tracking my client’s income in a notes app.
Making sure that you are paying attention to money is one way to start attracting more of it.
But you have to get comfortable with that relationship with money and looking at it. If you think about money like a relationship: if you were in a romantic relationship with someone, you know avoiding them is not a way that we show them love. Same with money.
Read more about money avoidance.
#7: Forgetting purpose
On the other wide of the coin, obsessing over a person, or money, is also not a way to show love effectively.
And that’s number seven: where we can actually push money away if we are worshiping money (if money is too much of the focal point).
The point of making more money, of having more abundance, isn’t just to have more money, right? The purpose of making more money is to give us more options to enjoy life more. To be of better use in the world. So if you are obsessed over money in and of itself, rather than what money will bring you, you can block money.
Your motivation for making more money and bringing in more abundance needs to be around passion and joy, not in the money itself.
And then focusing on the joy and the passion that money allows you rather than focusing on having the money itself will help you expand and bring more of it into your life.
Money Blocks Are Real
So money blocks are real. And the thing is, even if you’re great at looking at your finances and you have really good habits, if you’re not focused on your mindset, your subconscious can hijack all of your best plans.
And I’ve seen this over and over again, which is why when I’m helping entrepreneurs to have more success, we wanna talk about the ways they’re making more money, what they’re selling, how they’re selling it…
…Then eventually we talk about building resilience and allowing more of your success through energetics.
But the first thing we have to address is the mindset, because that is the first bottleneck to creating more abundance.
Conclusion
If you’re wondering why am I broke, I hope this video was helpful for you.
The beautiful thing about creating a routine around mindset is the ability to work on your mindset as a daily practice. This is what eventually becomes embodiment.
The purpose of having the routine is so that eventually you don’t have to rely on the routine as much.
So this is something I’m really passionate and excited about: starting your own mindset routine.
Thank you so much for everyone who joined!
Free: Mindful Marketing Newsletter
Join 6,500 others on our newsletter.