No matter how much money you have or don’t have at this current moment, financial fears can be a huge knot for anyone. With the goal of understanding and untying that knot, read my article below to figure out your own tipping point to financial peace…
I should buy some stock in Lowe’s. I mean, I personally seem to keep the company afloat with the twice-daily hundred-plus-dollar trips I make there now that I’m a homeowner. Sure, I walk out of there with energy-efficient washing machines, ceiling fans to keep me cool in the AZ summer, and discount shelving for the most inspired of closet organizing. Did you know that you can buy solar-powered plastic owls to scare away pigeons? I’ve got a crew of pigeon regulars that hang out on the roof right outside my office window… every day… all day. I’m guessing they think my banging on the windows is a game to see who can fly away and get back to the roof the fastest. Hmm. Anyway, lately, Lowe’s is getting a lot of my cash, and just like the pigeons, it flies away pretty fast.
I’m a person who lives in abundance. Which is the life-coachy way to say, I am pretty much always cool with spending money on what I want when I want it. I’ve never balked at swiping the credit card for skydiving or tunnel time. I was happy to write that big check when it came time for the down payment on my house. Plane tickets to see the world and my loved ones? Yeah, easy purchases.
Thing is, I always had a job.
I am now a fully free, self-employed free agent skydiver and life coach. I worked my ass off, and earned my freedom. And I’m loving it. Wickedly grateful. I’m also just now realizing the unseen benefits of when I used to get a steady paycheck.
So anyway, back to Lowe’s… in shelling out all that cash, there came a moment where my feelings shifted… I looked at my open calendar, towering stack of receipts, and started to get worried. My next paying skydiving job wasn’t for a number of weeks, and I wasn’t sure how many of my life coaching clients would continue, or how many new ones I’d get. What I was sure of was my mortgage, my credit card balance, my weekly team training commitments, and that persistent rumble in my tummy every three hours. All things I have to pay for to maintain this amazing life.
Clearly I had passed my threshold—the tipping point in our minds where instead of feeling free in our financial status, we feel fear at our lack thereof.
My thinking is that we each have a financial threshold—that when we cross it, we get scared. We enter our own unique financial danger zone. Our freedom, our well being, our lifestyle… all feel at risk. When we’re operating above our comfortable threshold, we feel good, free, light, happy. When we’re below it, we feel nervous, tense, stressed, short-tempered, etc. There are certainly plenty more emotions to add to both of those lists, but in reading them… where do you fall right now? Are you above or below your threshold.
We all have our own unique relationship to money. This relationship can completely drive our life choices, and often does, so figuring out yours can have huge value in a-ha moments and future life choices. It is a common feeling/belief, that freedom is directly tied to financial prosperity. We know that freedom is in exiting that aircraft, or inside us at any moment we close our eyes and summon peace. That said, jumps cost money, tunnel time ain’t free, and only the big dogs get sponsored. It’s tough for sure… I hear people say all the time that they can’t afford jumps, tunnel, new gear, whatever… all things that bring joy to our lives.
So when we cross our threshold into our financial danger zone, what do we do?
Take action. Take on a new thought. Perhaps both. Maybe saving to you feels like loss of freedom… which is completely understandable. Perhaps instead we can look at saving as purchasing a lighter, happier self. Maybe spending to you is what makes you feel un-free… which is also completely understandable. Perhaps we can look at spending as living our lives.. making that extra skydive.. doing the extra tunnel time.. collecting one more story to tell our grandkids.
Whatever your threshold, it’s cool. Figure it out, take action to get above it, and feel content making decisions knowing your own deal. Being above this mark is guaranteed access to a lighter happier version of ourselves. And it doesn’t have to come from winning the lottery or never jumping, it can come from small choices we make every day—eat in, pack our own parachutes, etc. Banging on the windows is cheaper than a solar-powered plastic owl, and at least for this week gets me back to my best Melsinore. Cash in on your pigeons. Melsinore, out. 🙂
So anyway, back to Lowe’s… in shelling out all that cash, there came a moment where my feelings shifted… I looked at my open calendar, towering stack of receipts, and started to get worried. My next paying skydiving job wasn’t for a number of weeks, and I wasn’t sure how many of my life coaching clients would continue, or how many new ones I’d get. What I was sure of was my mortgage, my credit card balance, my weekly team training commitments, and that persistent rumble in my tummy every three hours. All things I have to pay for to maintain this amazing life.
