STEP 1

Answer the following questions as honestly as you can.

How do you feel:
About your debt?
About your income?
About your savings and assets?
About anyone who owes you money?
When you pay for experiences and outings?
When you go grocery shopping?
When you shop for gifts?
When you shop for clothes?
When you shop for decor, art, or collectibles?

STEP 2

Identify what pure positivity with money would feel like. Let me say that another way: What positive spin can you put on all things money-related in your life? Happy thoughts, the bright side. If you have negative feelings that showed up in some of your answers to the questions above, think of the positive feelings that would have the power to take the negative charge out of things. For example: if how you feel about your debt is heavy, burdened, or resentful, perhaps the positive contrast would be feeling promising, empowered, and grateful.

STEP 3

Choose just one of your positive money emotions—the one that feels the most vital and exciting to you— and think of one action you can take in each of the money areas below that will help you feel that way:

How you spend money
How you save money
How you give money
How you receive money
How you manage money

For example, if the feeling you want the most around money is gratitude, what can you do when spending your money to feel grateful? Is it keeping a gratitude journal for the things you buy or being extra polite to sales clerks or saying a quiet “Thanks for the ability to pay my bills” when you’re writing a check to the electric company? Say your most positive feeling is security. What can you do in regard to how you manage your money to feel that way? Create monthly cash flow projections, join an investment group, write your will, start a new savings account?

There are unlimited ways to create the positive feelings you want in every interaction you have with money.

. . . . . . .

xo.

Danielle LaPorte is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide for Creating Success on Your Own Terms(Random House/Crown). An inspirational speaker, former think tank exec and business strategist, she is the co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan. Her next online program launches November 2012, called DESIRE: The Map to What You Truly Want.

Over a million visitors have gone to DanielleLaPorte.com for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality”, and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes.

You can find her on Facebook and Twitter @daniellelaporte.

*Photo by fauxto_digit.

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