Just recently, I’ve been working hard on my money mindset and wealth consciousness after taking part in a 7-day intensive group course with my own coach back in August.
It’s been emotional and brought up a LOT of interesting concepts I feel are highly relevant to us as vets.
Despite the topic, this course has not been about how to make, generate or create more money, but on all the strong emotions and feelings money can bring up in us. We all need it to survive. Most of us would love to earn more so that we can have the freedom to make the choices we want on how to live our lives and be free from financial worry. It’s the oil in the cogs of today’s modern life and yet most of us still find it an uncomfortable topic to talk openly about.
Hands up anyone who’s had either a stressful or awkward conversation with your partner or a family member about money??? That’ll be most of us I would bet.
And let’s not even go there on the emotional turmoil that money brings up at work for a vet in the consult room, trying to balance their own sense of value, the client’s financial means and keeping the practice running.
The main theme of the week, which I feel is so relevant to much of what I hear on my client calls, was this:
“If we truly want to have more money, we need to get better from a mindset perspective at being able to receive and feeling worthy enough to receive.”
You might think, “Hang on a minute – not sure I agree with that – I definitely cognitively feel more than ready and able to receive!”
The problem is that often subconsciously we struggle with our ability to receive and with feeling that we are good enough, hence how rife perfectionism is in the profession.
This isn’t just about money either – it’s receiving in general. Whether that’s compliments, praise or offers of help.
Many people were brought up with the unhelpful affirmation that, “I want never gets!”.
Somewhere along the line we dial down our wanting, we become reluctant to bother people or ask for what we want, or we’re not sure if it’s ok to even want what we want.
The work I’ve been doing from the coaching week has been much around how to reclaim, own and cultivate your own self-worth and on how to feel enough unconditionally.
Something I think a lot of vets I speak to would find really helpful.
My message to you is that we were all born worthy of love and belonging and perfectly imperfect. Just bring to mind a tiny new-born baby, or your own baby on the day of their birth. It would be ridiculous to say to that baby, “You’ll be worthy and a good person but only when you’ve learned to walk or to talk”.
Our inherent worth and value does NOT depend on whether you nailed that really difficult diagnosis last week or that surgery you did that was a bit touch-and-go, and you’re not sure if you chose the right technique.
Nor does it depend on whether you are a perfect parent, amazing friend, brilliant supportive partner and generous family member while simultaneously contributing you your local community or any of the other pressures we can put ourselves under.
It’s about making a commitment to a daily practice of proactively choosing self-acceptance over self-approval.
Self-approval: “I’ll feel like I’m an ok person when I’ve passed my Certificate/bought a house/gone back to work full time/reached my desired weight”
Self-acceptance: “I’m choosing to know that I am an amazing and worthwhile person right now, and that ALL the parts of me are acceptable, including my flaws, my weaknesses and the bits of me I’d like to disown or change.”
The reason that it’s so important to work towards more feelings of self-acceptance rather than self-approval is that with the latter, our brains then feel like the world is going to end or something dreadful happens if we cock up, drop the ball, have a bad day or aren’t at our best.
We then suffer with not being able to receive, not asking for what we want or need. We experience perfectionism and life-paralysis where we don’t move forwards with things and don’t take action because we’re too worried about what people will think if we fail.
Your give-and-and-receive cycle gets out of whack. You cannot just keep giving, giving, giving to clients, bosses and family or friends without ever receiving back, because this inevitably leads to burnout and compassion fatigue or mental health challenges.
This is something I work on a LOT with my clients. Many people are tolerating a role or career choice that isn’t fulfilling to them because they don’t believe it’s ok to want to feel happier or less stressed at work.
This is especially pertinent when you’ve ‘achieved the dream’ of becoming a vet, and are also vicariously carrying the weight of friends, family or random strangers’ opinions about how they would have loved to have been a vet, or how amazing they perceive the job must be.
If you can come instead from a place of knowing deep inside yourself that no matter what anyone has done or said to you in the past, you ARE worthy already and unconditionally, then it starts to feel much safer to try different things.
You become braver.
You can ask for what you’d like and receive it with much more ease and lightness.
You don’t feel as scared.
You know it’s all going to be ok anyway whether this works or not in the long run.
You can get started with stuff imperfectly instead of procrastinating endlessly.
Where do you need to work on your ability to receive? Is it regarding money? Taking the time you need to recharge? Giving yourself permission to explore potential other roles or career moves?
We did a LOT of work on releasing negative limiting beliefs on the course which is something I go deep on with my clients in the Map Maker Experience as well.
I hope this blog has resonated with you, as I think we’re all making that lifelong journey from, “What will people think?” to, “I am enough”. If you’d like any help with doing the mindset work on this for yourself, book a free 45-minute chat with me here.
I send out my blogs/vlogs and free mindset tools, techniques and top tips once or twice a month. It’s a good way to do bite-sized chunks of reflective thinking while you’re reading your emails so why not join the Vet Harmony Community here to get them straight to your inbox!