If you’re not familiar, the Enneagram is a personality typing tool that focuses on why we do what we do. It is a model of nine interconnected personality types – from the Ancient Greek word “ennea” for nine. A quick Google search will tell you what you need to know and guide you to free tests if you’d like to dig a little deeper.

Over the last few decades, the Enneagram has grown in popularity, proving helpful in conversations of meaning, value and understanding our core motivations. It enables us to spot patterns in our behaviours that speak to our intrinsic fears, triggers and unbridled inspiration. From how we spend money to how we react to the neighbour’s dog barking all night – the Enneagram can open our eyes to habits that keep us in a place where we feel stuck, frustrated and unhappy.

Money is a common blockage for many of us. Whether it’s a debt trap into which we keep falling, or an inability to enjoy our hard-earned moola, when we can see how our motivations influence our money habits, we can decide if and how we might change our situation.

Here are some money management tips from the Real Simple blog – let’s jump straight in! (Link at the end)

Type One: The Reformer 

Let go of judgement around your spending, as this only leads to harsher self-criticism. Check in with your values around what you want, assess how much it will cost, and set a little money aside each paycheck. 

Type Two: The Helper 

Ask yourself: Do you need this right now? Are you saying yes to spending on something to please others? This will allow you to save for what you truly love—even if it’s in baby steps.

Type Three: The Achiever

When you feel compelled to spend, check in with your true intentions. Is it to impress others? Is it to keep up with a trend? The clearer you are on your priorities, the more you’ll be able to invest in things that speak to your innermost happiness.

Type Four: The Individualist

You may not want to hear the B-word, but budgeting is your best friend when managing your money. Grab a pretty notebook and some coloured pens, and plan how much you’ll spend and save. Why? It will help you prioritise the bigger things that fill you with joy and purpose.

Type Five: The Investigator

Recognise how money can provide that sense of freedom and autonomy you desire. Create a “treat yourself fund” in your monthly budget that allows you to spend on experiences you love, whether it is a book you want or a friend you want to spoil. You may be surprised how much this opens up in you.

Type Six: The Loyalist

Take the time to understand your finances, from investing to budgeting and everything in between. Not only do you love learning new things, but this will help you feel more prepared to make those more significant decisions instead of letting fear drive your actions.

Type Seven: The Enthusiast

The trap of the Seven is “shiny object syndrome” and wanting new things to feel satisfied. Before handing over your credit card, reflect on your long-term goals vs instant gratification. Is spending money right now filling a void you’re not tending to? When you realise you have enough and are enough, you will find satisfaction that money can’t buy (and save more along the way).

Type Eight: The Challenger

Notice where you are spending money as a way to feel in control. Do you need to buy things in bulk every month? Do you buy products you don’t end up using? When you feel the impulse to spend, consider how your future self will feel. It may be a wiser decision to invest your money to build wealth over time.

Type Nine: The Peacemaker

Create a vision board for your finances. Not only does this get you to take action, but it’ll help you get clear on your priorities and build a structure. Get crafty by cutting out images and words that speak to your goals, and make sure everything is measurable so you can track your progress.

If reading through this has helped uncover some blindspots, or sparked some more questions on how you feel, think and behave with your money, please feel free to reach out for a chat.

We permanently activate our fight-flight-freeze-appease response when constantly performing at our peak. This acute stress response activates our sympathetic nervous system and keeps us unhealthy or from experiencing deeper joy and fulfilment in life.

Blogs and TED talks abound on how we’re living in an age where our stress level is way above a healthy normal, and we need to find ways to reduce our stress to enjoy more of life.

Stress can be relieved in so many ways – from meditation, making better choices, and learning to say no and establishing boundaries – but one way is to learn how to control the controllable and let go of the things we can’t control.

For athletes, they say that we can’t control the rain, road surface, wind, or competitors, but we can control our attitude, effort, focus, fitness and preparation. In psychology, they speak about realising that we can’t control other people’s behaviours and emotions, only our own. When it comes to financial planning, we say that we can’t control the markets, only our investing behaviour.

 

As we’ve often said before, not all stress is bad. A research paper by Crum & Crum (2018) noted that people who adopt the mindset that “stress is enhancing” experience more exceptional performance and fewer negative health symptoms.

If viewed positively, stress is essential to moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Having worked with athletes and Navy SEALS, Crum and Crum propose a three-step approach to harnessing the positive aspects of stress while minimising any negative health impacts.

Step one – “See your stress”

Don’t attempt to ignore stress. Label it. Seeing it as something positive rather than to be avoided can change our physical, cognitive, and behavioural response to it.

See it, and label it: “I am stressed because I haven’t completed the report yet.”

Step two – “Own it”

When you are at risk of being overwhelmed by stress, own it.

Own it: “I recently got the promotion I wanted; this is part of my new role.”

Step three – “Use it”

Your body and mind have evolved to respond to stress; use that energy, alertness, and heightened concentration to boost your mind.

Use it: Be open to the opportunity. Use the stress to energise and motivate yourself.

Once we separate stressful factors into those we can control and those that we can’t, we can begin to healthily see it, own it and use it!

Despite our best-laid plans and most honourable intentions, conversations about money can go south quickly!

There’s never going to be a perfect time to talk about money dreads or financial dreams, but preparing our partner or family for the chat, and finding a space where we won’t be interrupted is always helpful. It’s also helpful to think about what you want to say, but you can never know exactly how others will feel about it.

In a recent blog from moneyhelper.org.uk, they offered several insightful ideas to help us talk to people we love when we disagree about money.

Here are some of them…

If they disagree with the situation as you see it…

Ask what their reasons are and listen with an open mind. If you feel they have a point, say so. If you disagree with them, suggest how you can move forward.

If they blame you…

Listen with an open mind, and figure out what’s making it frustrating without getting defensive and blaming them back. Are their comments justifiable? If so, how will you address these comments? Are their remarks simply shifting blame? If so, ask them what they feel you can both do to resolve the problems.

If they are impatient or attempt to change the topic…

Explain the aim of the conversation and let them know their choices. Listen to what they’re saying to address later. Express your understanding that it’s a difficult conversation while highlighting that it will be easier to have it now rather than later.

If they all talk a little too much…

Make sure you leave plenty of time for the chat, yet keep them on the topic by referring to what they’ve said and asking relevant questions. 

These are only a handful of possible responses; if you can think of others, write them down and challenge yourself to keep an open mind. Often, we only respond negatively when allowing our emotions to drive us. The sooner we can identify and acknowledge those emotions, we can allow them space and then move forward with rational intention.

Also – if the conversation is completely derailed, don’t give up hope. Try again and keep the channels of communication open.

“I love talking about money with my family!” said no one ever.

Most of us will agree that there is more to life than money, but regardless, it’s very important for most of us — especially when we feel like we do not have enough. Money can become a consuming focus that leaves us feeling powerless and sometimes even worthless.

Talking about money is a helpful way to regain our sense of power and remind ourselves that our worth is comprised of much more than our bank balance. If you’re in a relationship, start talking about money with your partner as soon as possible to ensure that your different attitudes and approaches are not a deal-breaker for either of you.

One of the reasons why it’s so important to be able to talk about our thoughts and feelings around money openly is because it’s linked to so many perceptions of value and what we deem to be fair. All of us (ashamedly or otherwise) have an amount of money, or a lifestyle, that we think is either beneath or above us. Whilst we can generally overlook this in the company of others and look past it to form friendships and connections, it can become challenging and complicated when it’s close to home.

In an intimate or family relationship, we might feel like others don’t pull their weight, or we might feel like we’re not doing as much, and it’s unfair. Talking calmly and rationally about money can avoid this type of problem.

Open conversations can also help us understand different perspectives and realise that we may need an objective point of view to get good advice about our financial situation. Financial planners are used to discussing money, and we are not embarrassed by it.

At the end of the day, it is okay to explain how we feel about money and be concerned about the possible consequences of our situation — but ultimately, we need action, not emotion. 

We need to talk and work through the emotions to achieve productive and positive action.

Here are some ways to begin talking about money:

• I’d like to talk to you about something I think would help us reach our goals more effectively.
• I want to speak with you about […], but first, I’d like to get your point of view.
• I need your help with what just happened. Do you have a few minutes to talk?
• I think we have different ideas about […], and I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.

Talking about money will always be challenging, but we must start somewhere. If you’d like help with this, please feel free to reach out.

We spend months or years preparing for many significant life events. The first for many of us was the build-up to going to ‘big school’. Our three-, four- and five-year-old selves grew increasingly excited, right up until the day school started and then there was an overwhelming flow of emotions that may have been more negative than positive. When you stand in the playground of first-graders on the first day of school, you’re bound to see plenty of tears.

Similar things happen when we move on to secondary and high school, when we turn 13, 16, 18 and 21, when we get accepted into college, start a dream job, buy our first home, get married, and have children. Sometimes there’s a honeymoon period, and we float around in a state of bliss at how awesome life is, but very soon, we realise that each decision has its challenges, and each day is often just like any other.

If you ask a child who’s just turned a year older how cool it is to be seven instead of six, they’ll be happy to be a year older. But you ask someone who’s just turned 27, 37 or 57, and they’ll probably admit it’s just a day like any other.

A significant event we possibly anticipate most is the day we stop working and allow our savings to support us. Traditionally, we call this retirement, but we’re trying hard to change the language around this because so many of us are not ready, no matter how much time we’ve had to plan for it. And, just like that first day of first grade, it may not be as impressive as we’d imagined.

We could call this “Financial Independence Day” or “Life after work” (as Douglas Fletcher coined in his 2007 book of the same title), or anything else that helps us make sense of what life will look like for us as we enter a new phase of life and change the pace of our work-life balance.

It could happen anytime, from our thirties to our eighties; the timelines are increasingly expanding. But however we plan for it, we cannot only focus on the money side; we also need to look at the emotional side of life after work. It’s easy to overlook this side as we spend so much time planning to have enough money, and often only plan to stop working when we finally have what we feel will be enough.

But life doesn’t always work out exactly as we plan, nor does it fit into the boxes and timelines we like to create. Starting to look at a fuller picture of what life will look like, not just our cashflow model, is helpful to make this transition smoother and more accessible.

With this approach, we can begin to break free of old habits and beliefs and celebrate the life stage. We can intentionally create deeper relationships and not just deeper pockets, having better conversations and expectations for life after work.