5 Money Disorders That Prevent Business Growth

It is true that money can be a challenging subject, yet it affects everyone daily. Everyone has a relationship with money. Be it positive, neutral or negative, money is rarely out of our sightlines. We’re either thinking about it, spending it or earning it.

It is common for people to carry limiting beliefs, habits, and emotions related to money. Many people are still struggling to have a healthy relationship with money; this often manifests in unhealthy spending or savings habits, chronic underearning, shopaholic tendencies, and buyer’s remorse just to name a few.

So what exactly are money disorders? In short, they are financial behaviours that negatively impact our lives. These can lead to significant distress, which in turn can affect business growth. Here are some common problematic behaviours that can jeopardise your financial health.

Working for yourself can feel empowering and freeing, especially when pursuing something you’re passionate about. But being an entrepreneur often means working extra hours than the 9-5 to keep your business going. 

Workaholism can be the result of thinking your net worth equals your self-worth. Generating money can give a sense of worthiness, but it’s important to separate the two. Your self-worth is defined by who you are, not a figure in a bank account. 

Taking breaks, weekends away or holidays are essential to being able to step back, rest and reflect – all crucial things for running a successful business. So why are you feeling so guilty for taking that much-needed weekend for yourself? 

Unfortunately for most freelancers, time away from work means no income. Your inner pressure to generate more business or revenue can cause a guilt-complex when you take time away. This can become a vicious cycle and can quickly lead to burnout. Remember that you’re human, and you need time away from your work like everybody else does. 

Being successful in your work is all about balance, so don’t forget about the ‘life’ part too!

When you picture ‘hoarding’, your mind probably jumps to a house full of clutter. Hoarding can apply to many things, and money is no exception. Financial hoarding is a less-known term for something that many new entrepreneurs and business owners are guilty of. Seeing the money coming in and your business finances grow can make it hard to part with your hard-earned cash, but this is all part of growing a healthy business. 

By sitting on your income/revenue, and not reinvesting in your business, you are most-likely stunting the growth of your company. It’s near-impossible to grow a company without investing in the tools you need to help streamline your business. 

Underspending is often connected with the so-called ‘scarcity mindset’; people are fearful (consciously or unconsciously) that their flow of money will dissipate. This is heavily linked to childhood as a learned money mindset from parents or those around us growing up, especially if they have experienced financial trauma, loss, or bankruptcy. It’s important to understand the origin of these habits in order to heal them. This concept is not exclusive to those who have experienced financial hardship in life; wealthy people can suffer from underspending too. They may have the resources and means available, but still be scared to take risks and use them.

Don’t ever be afraid to invest in outside help – be it coaches to guide you and help you develop a strategy for going forward, employees or freelancers with specific skills and expertise, or training for yourself – all of these things will ultimately help you to succeed in the long-run. Outsourcing is a necessary part of being a business owner if you want to expand and grow. Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself.

Many of our early-formed money mindsets lead us to feeling unworthy or undeserving of money. Women are particularly prone to this, which can lead to female entrepreneurs underpricing their services. 

Our relationship with our wealth is deep-rooted in the kind of environment we grew up in. Although it’s acknowledged that we need money to pay the bills and to enjoy life to the fullest, it’s still easy to reject it due to subconscious beliefs. Many mindsets around money being bad and superficial can be formed from an early age, based on our surroundings. Those from religious and spiritual backgrounds can see money as unholy, and anyone can believe they are undeserving of wealth. 

Financial rejection is an avoidance of accumulating money or distancing yourself entirely from anything related to money. Your ‘financial worth’ is not just measured in numbers in a bank account, but also in how you see yourself within a money context. 

A person with a low self-esteem is more likely to show signs of financial rejection, which can lead your finances to spiral out of control.  It’s vital to notice the kind of surroundings you grew up in, and the rhetoric surrounding money. Did the adults in your life talk negatively about wealthy people? Were you led to believe that bringing bread to the table was the responsibility of a man? By unpacking how your relationship with money was formed, you can begin to address how to reset the balance.

Closely associated with financial rejection is financial denial. Again, as a result of early-formed and complex relationships with money, sometimes denial is the easiest option for our brains; a defense mechanism to relieve anxiety related to our finances.

Money can be an extremely awkward and difficult topic to discuss, both in your personal life and professionally. Discussing your fees with clients and freelancers might cause you great discomfort, or even have you questioning your ability and your worth.

Businesses that focus on ‘helping’, such as therapy and coaching, come with an extra level of difficulty when discussing fees for services, because a layer of guilt can be attached to charging someone for helping them. Likewise, Spiritual or religious workers can see money and ‘unenlightened’ which can cause a rocky relationship with their finances. 

By confronting your finances head on, and acknowledging that money in exchange for services is not only normal, but also necessary, you are taking the right steps towards a healthy money relationship. Your money is only dirty if you believe it to be, so take pride in your money and call yourself out when those negative feelings start to creep in.

Interested to learn more about breaking down the money taboo? Ask for help from a professional money coach to help you work on:

1. Your Money Mindset

2. Growing your Business

3. Attracting the wealth that you deserve