It occurred to me recently as I reflected on my clients over the last 11 years that many became stuck or unstuck in their lives or business ventures because of their relationship with money! I have seen many clients over the years who have been in very senior roles in organisations or running their own very successful business’s and they are miserable! Individuals who have been promoted into positions of responsibility through their years of experience and skill and now earning six figure salaries or running their own business. Actually, if I was honest, I was probably one of them before selling my business!
Many of us find ourselves in senior roles because that’s our gauge of success and because that’s how we earn more money. Our society gauges success from how much we earn and how much we have to show for it. As an employee, if we don’t get a pay rise, even though we might have had a very successful year, we see it as failure. When we compare our success with others we do this by monitoring how much we earn compared to them. That’s just the way it is! What we earn gives us status and can define our success criteria. Money gives us a sense of our own value.
So when we come to a crossroad in our lives either personally or professionally, naturally the first and last block to moving forward and changing our focus is usually around our relationship with money. By relationship with money, I mean how we perceive the importance of money in our lives and how tied we are to the notion that money is the key to our successful refirement. Let’s face it we spend to the level of what we earn and in some cases beyond what we earn. So we become trapped in the perception that we can’t do without the level of income we earn.
I was recently interviewed by Val Leverson from the Herald (Saturday, May 21, 2011 Weekend Herald), in which I was able to share my experience over the last 11 years around how money has a huge effect on your work life, the success of your business or even your sense of general wellbeing.
So when you are heading towards your retirement and you are contemplating the refirement options is there a block to moving forward because you can’t face the loss of income? Even though you may often no longer need as much – children have left home, you are mortgage free on the house and beach house, you have all the toys… what do you need to let go of to achievement your perfect refirement over the next thirty years?
About Patti Gwynne
