My story with money coaching

By Christeen Haddadin
Certified Money Coach

Throughout my 20s and well into my 30s, I was stuck in a toxic money pattern — random and reckless spending, few savings and no investments. Surprising? 

Perhaps not, but as I was a finance professional with no personal financial plan or clarity, it made no sense.

In 2011, 10 years into my career, I found myself jobless for a few months, even though I had been a high earner throughout my career. 

Those few months made it very clear how fragile my financial position was and the question that kept haunting me was, “What is stopping me from managing my money properly and taking charge of my finances?”

The search led me to money coaching

I started as a money coaching client and the journey was nothing short of transformational. Before I started the session, I had all my financial data ready. I accumulated information from my bank accounts and credit card statements and ran some numbers on an excel sheet. I was prepared to fire up my laptop to impress my money coach with my knowledge about finance. I never got the chance to do that. 

The coaching sessions had very little to do with financial knowledge. They were exploratory conversations, where my coach would ask probing questions to uncover what my subconscious has been telling me all these years.

Money is emotional

The exploration started with my first money memory as a child. As I slowly shed the shame, guilt and fear around money and opened up about my money history, experiences and challenges, the reason behind my struggle became crystal clear. I understood what money beliefs were guiding me and what money personality type was behind the wheel, driving my money decisions and behaviours. The realisations were so intense, so emotional – my husband would walk in mid-session, see me in tears, shrug and say: “who knew money was so emotional!”

We think money is crunching numbers and complex maths, but it’s so much more than that. There is a big emotional side at play. Prominent examples are retail therapy when you feel down, impulse purchasing when you feel excited, and withholding money when you feel angry. Most of the time, we are not even aware of those feelings and how they guide us.

Discovering my unconscious money beliefs

“Money unconsciousness is the root of our pain,” said my coach, and she was right. Once I became aware of my money beliefs and emotions and was guided by my coach to rewire them, I was able to take significant steps towards revamping my financial reality.

Budgeting became part of my routine. I started a savings plan with clear and meaningful goals. I began investing and allowing my money to grow and multiply.

Realising how effective and impactful money awareness is, one of my first saving goals was completing the training and certification programme to become a Certified Money Coach.

Combining money awareness with money literacy, and having a basic understanding of personal financial management, is the foundation of living a life where we have a conscious, purposeful and satisfying relationship with our money.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine