How To Practice Conscious Finance In 2020
The new year is a potent time to choose and practice new ways of being.
Money mastery is about more than earning more, saving more, or even giving away more.
Money mastery is about the way we relate to money. And today I want to share a concept with you: that of practicing money stewardship.
Money stewardship is one of the most powerful ways to master and deepen our relationship with money.
Money stewardship means taking responsibility for our financial decisions with integrity, as caretakers of our financial resources.
It means we're actively in touch with the impact of our financial decisions.
“When we commit to being a money steward, incredible things become possible in our financial life.
We move out of a small self-orientation with money (how do I get my own needs met?) to a collective orientation (how do my financial decisions impact the greater collective?).”
This is the path of financial mastery.
If you want to practice conscious finance and become a money steward, here are 3 keys you can start applying now:
Key #1: Right relationship with money
From the big picture to the day-to-day, take every opportunity (conversations, exchanges, agreements, interactions) to be a money steward.
In other words, be a leader in conversations with money. Be willing to talk about money when no one else really wants to.
Key #2: Right effort
Be clear about where your decisions with money are really coming from.
Are your financial decisions coming from fear, desperation, obligation, or guilt? Or are they coming from prosperity, integrity, faith, and love?
Key #3: Right worldview
Practice a state of respect with all resources — including money.
Consider how you can be more sustainable with your resources, keeping future generations in mind.
Are you spending in ways that reflect who you want to be in the world? Are you practicing sufficiency? Or in other words, earning and saving in a way that supports enoughness but not excessiveness?
Providing enough for you and your future, or for others and their futures, can look really abundant — but obsessively trying to increase money or assets without enough purpose behind it can be a fruitless path.
Money is a valuable resource, and one to be cherished and respected, because it’s what we have as the primary source of exchange on the planet.
Money is also what allows us to have clear agreements with each other.
Each of us has the opportunity to caretake our resources as a sacred act. We have the choice to hold money as sacred, and to relate with it in a conscious, respectful, and intentional way that honors ourselves and others.
In my experience, this is what wealth really feels like.