How to Create a Money Mantra That Works for You — Just Start Investing

Having a money mantra can help improve your personal finances, but it is not a silver bullet that can fix all your money problems overnight.

Improving your personal finances requires you to change behaviors and take action, whether that means saving an extra dollar, starting to invest, or sitting down and creating a budget.

Money mantras serve as reminders and motivators to help you take that action. Below, we’ll walk through in more detail what they are and how you can create one of your own.

What is a Money Mantra?

To understand what a money mantra is, we first need to understand mantras. The definition of a mantra is:

Mantra Definition: A word or phrase that is repeated often or that expresses someone’s basic beliefs.

The word “mantra” dates back thousands of years and was used in several different religions. Today, I think many people use mantras more broadly than in the past and treat them more like a daily reminder to stay positive and focus on what’s important.

For example, “remember who you are” and “happiness is a choice” are two popular mantras today.

Naturally, a money mantra is simply a mantra that focuses on money and personal finances. I view the definition for money mantras as:

Money Mantra Definition: A phrase or affirmation related to money or personal finances that is repeated often to remind you of your money goals and empower you to accomplish them.

A money mantra should help focus you on what’s most important in your personal finances so that you can manifest money and have financial success.

Below are some examples of money mantras and money affirmations to help bring this definition to life.

Examples of Money Mantras

• I manifest money
• My investments will grow over the long run
• Investing comes easy to me and does not have to be complicated
• I control my money and finances
• Money is a tool
• I will reach financial independence
• I will achieve financial freedom
• I spend money on things I value
• My credit cards work for me
• I am a money magnet
• I save more than I spend
• My personal financial situation will improve
• Getting out of debt is easy
• My emergency fund is ample
• Money comes easily to my bank account
• My financial future and retirement are both important
• I will not live paycheck to paycheck each month

You get the idea…

There is an infinite number of money mantras that could work for you, but the key is to only have a few (or one).

Otherwise, you will be spread too thin and miss out on the benefit of money mantras — keeping you focused on improving and growing your personal finances.

How to Create a Money Mantra:

To create a money mantra of your own, I recommend going through these three simple steps.

Step 1: Identify Your Area of Focus

First, you need to determine what area to focus on within the personal finance space. Some common categories to consider are listed below:

• General Money and Personal Finances
• Investing
• Saving Money
• Credit Cards
• Budgeting
• Making Money
• Money Mindsets
• Paying Off Debt
• Frugal Living

You can keep your mantra high level and focus on your total personal finances, like the example above, “I will reach financial independence.”

Or you can get more specific, which would be my preference. For example, if you focus on credit cards, your mantra could be, “My credit cards work for me,” or “I will pay off credit card debt.”

Step 2: Determine What You Want to Improve or Grow

Once you know your area of focus and how you want to grow in that area, you need to determine exactly how you want to improve or grow within that area.

This step is the core step of creating your mantra.

As an example, let’s say you focused on investing in step one. Remove any negative thoughts from your head and ask yourself, what specifically do you want to improve or grow upon within that area focus?

It could involve:

• Investing more frequently (for example, every month)
• Choosing more diversified assets
• Gambling less on risky investments
• Taking advantage of your retirement accounts
• Investing while paying off debts
• Or anything else

The couple of words in your mantra should hold a lot of meaning, and step two ensures that happens by thinking through exactly what your mantra should help you accomplish.

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Step 3: Write it Down, Remind Yourself, and Take Action

Once you know what your area of focus is and how you want to grow in that area, you need to write down your mantra.

For example, if you wanted to focus on investing, and specifically focus on investing more frequently, you might write down something like, “I will prioritize investing my money.”

It may take a few iterations to get the wording right, which is totally fine.

You don’t have to nail on your first try.

Once you have your mantra finalized and written down, make sure to place it somewhere where you look at it every day and remind yourself of the meaning behind it. Whether it’s on a piece of paper next to your bed, in the notes app on your phone, or anywhere else, make sure you will see it at least daily.

After all, a mantra should serve as a reminder to take action, not just a wish for good fortune. If you see the words, “I will prioritize investing my money,” every day for 30 days, it will help you become eager to invest your money, rather than dread it or second-guess it. It should help motivate you to open up your 401(k) account, Roth IRA, or brokerage account and actually invest instead of continuing to put it off.

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Benefits of Having a Money Mantra

There are a lot of benefits of having a money mantra, but below are the top three:

Staying Focused: Money mantras can help you stay focused on improving your personal finances. It’s easy to tell yourself that you will start budgeting tomorrow, and then never get to it. But having a money mantra holds you accountable every day to the words you put down on paper and should help you focus every day on achieving your long term financial goals.

Building Good Financial Habits: Holding yourself accountable by looking at something and reminding yourself of it every day should help build good habits over time. For example, if your money mantra is, “I spend money on things I value,” it might take time before it is natural to spend less of your hard-earned income on things you’ll forget about a few days later. But after a while, it should become second nature, and your spending habits will improve.

Adopting an Abundance Mindset: Most money mantras require you to have an abundance mindset (not a scarcity mindset), which is great. Having an abundance mindset is synonymous with having an optimistic outlook on life (whereas a scarcity mindset is more of a negative mindset). Not only is there enough money and resources to go around for everyone, but there is certainly enough for you to get your fair share and accomplish your money goals.

Summary: Money Mantras

Creating a money manta can help serve as a powerful reminder and confidence-booster to make good decisions with your money so that you can attract wealth and grow financially.

Simply writing down some words will not solve all your money problems, but it can help spur you into action. And action is what is needed to make improvements in your life.

If you are hoping to improve your personal finances, or simply want to continue to practice good habits you already have, creating a money mantra (or two) using the steps outlined above can be a good first step to keeping you focused on achieving your goals.

And it doesn’t have to stop there!

As you grow and improve your financial life, your money mantras can grow and evolve to help you focus on new areas of personal finance or continue improving more and more in the area you already selected.

Originally published at https://www.juststartinvesting.com on April 18, 2021.