How can we begin to create the self improvement needed to create a positive financial outlook? When you think about money, do you think about financial abundance, financial sufficiency or financial scarcity? How do you feel about each of these terms, and what do they mean to you?

I think you will find, that you have many beliefs attached to each one, both positive and negative. How you think and feel about each three of these terms most of the time, will affect your financial success.

Let me take for example financial abundance. How do you feel about that term? What have we heard in the past concerning having large sums of money? Well, how about money doesn’t grow on trees? Or, in order to make a lot of money, you need to have a lot of money.  I’ve even heard people say that if they made a lot of money, they would have to pay more taxes. It’s amazing how much negativity surrounds financial abundance. No wonder most of us do not have financial abundance. We associate major negative thoughts and emotions to having financial abundance and therefore, we never even try. Even if we do try, we will quickly pull back due to those painful associations we have.

How can we overcome the negativity? Something that comes to mind is truth.  What is the true meaning of each of those sayings? We all know that money doesn’t grow on trees. However, think about this a little deeper. A tree starts off as a seed. Compare a seed to any sum of money, large or small that you have. If you take care of the seed, it will start to grow right? If you make good decisions in keeping the seed healthy, it will bloom into a tree. As time goes by, winters, springs, summers and falls will always pass. So how to take care of the tree in harsh winters will help it come back faster in the spring. Yes, money does not grow on trees, but if we take good care of our money, it can multiply just like the branches of a tree do, year after year. Just like the basic principles of nature, there are basic principles to money. Now, you can say, that money does not grow on trees, but it can grow if I follow the basic principles of its acquisition and growth.

Do you need to have a lot of money to make a lot of money? Although, it can appear help, there is no guarantee that it will. How about people that have hit rock bottom financially or grew up in the ghetto? There have been plenty of examples of people that have started with less than nothing, but found a way to create financial abundance regardless. The story of Andrew Carnegie comes to mind. Though Andrew Carnegie became a legend of the industrial age, he started as a poor boy from Scotland. His family had tough times in Scotland, so they decided to move to America. At thirteen, Andrew got a job at a cotton mill. He worked about 72 to 80 hours a week before finally getting a job as a telegraph messenger. His persistent work ethic got him a job with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He started to earn more money because of this job and began to climb the corporate ladder. He then began investing in railroad companies and made large sums of money by investing in the steel industry. His investments would eventually allow him to have his own steel company, which was able to earn him a cool 120 billion dollars.  After reading this, do you believe in the saying it takes a lot of money to make a lot of money? I don’t!

How about the saying, that if we made more money we would have to pay more taxes? Why are we so affraid of taxes? Income tax is always there right? It is the law? Regardless of the rate of tax, if you made more money, there is still more money right? So, if we made more money, why are we concerned with taxes? It’s like being worried about gravity.

The more I think about what people say or believe about having financial abundance, I think that we make excuses for things that we do not totally understand. To me, these sayings are no more than excuses. I think, the truth is, that we think it will take a lot of effort to create financial abundance and after all, we feel comfortable right now, so why give the effort? In the end, it’s up to us to decide whether we want to give financial abundance a shot or not. 

Creating a positive financial outlook begins within our own thoughts and beliefs. Whether we think positively or negatively about financial abundance will determine much of our financial destiny. To begin to create financial abundance, we need to denounce the negative feelings we have towards money.

Here are some great books to help you get another perspective on this subject:

The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Personal Power by Anthony Robbins