Many of us are aware of the need to change our relationship with money. However, even with the knowledge, we still have a hard time acting on it and sticking to a financial plan. Learn how financial therapy could help you break through the roadblocks and take control of your financial future.

Do you realize you need to make a change and manage your money differently? Do you make New Year resolutions, promises to yourself, create budgets, but still have a hard time sticking to the plan?

Perhaps, you could benefit from some form of Financial Therapy.

Financial Therapy helps you identify the influences your upbringing and past experiences have on your current relationship with money. It aims to move you past roadblocks that are keeping you stuck. It is a relatively new field, with a short track record, but it has been proven to help many people. Keep in mind that Financial Therapy can be helpful to anyone, regardless of the status of their wealth.

If you aren’t sure that you need Financial Therapy, ask yourself the following question: Despite knowing what is required, do you find you are unable to bring yourself to take that action? If so, it’s a financial therapy issue, not a financial knowledge issue.

If you cannot access a financial therapist at this time, try following some of their techniques:

Explore your scripts

How do you feel when you hear words like spending, investments, power and work? What are the scripts you automatically tell yourself? This is a form of psychoanalysis which allows you to uncover your core beliefs around money. Write these scripts down and then see how you can reverse your automatic responses. Try to identify the time in your life when you began following these scripts.

Create new responses to those scripts

Work with your Financial Advisor and use our Overhaul your Financial Behaviour Checklist in order to create a plan for yourself. Set some financial goals that you would like to achieve. Whenever you experience that roadblock again, recognize your script and re-frame your perspective with a more positive statement. In therapy, practitioners call this “amplifying the preferred narrative”.

Take your time

Recognize that all of these changes will take time and require support from your friends and surroundings. The goal is to visualize yourself as capable of overcoming these financial obstacles with the help of your tools, knowledge and those around you.