In last week’s Tuesday blog we started to talk a little about money coaching and our behaviours about money.
According to Deborah Price and the Money Coaching Institute, there are 8 Money Types.
The money archetypes are not our personality or “who we are”, but are symbolic metaphors that help us to understand our patterns and behaviours. Simply stated, they show us “where we are” so that we can become aware of, and change our unconscious behaviours.
This week we are focusing on 2 types – The Innocent and The Victim.
Are you an Innocent?
The Innocent takes the ostrich approach to money matters. Innocents often live in denial, burying their heads in the sand so they won’t have to see what is going on around them. The Innocent is easily overwhelmed by financial information and relies heavily on the advice and opinions of others. Innocents are perhaps the most trusting of all the money archetypes because they do not see people or situations for what they are.
They are not unlike small children in the sense that they have not yet learned to judge or discern other’s motives or behaviour. While this trait can be very endearing, it is also precarious for an adult trying to cope in the real world.
We all start out our journey in life as innocents. However, as we grow and develop, the veil of innocence is lifted and replaced by our experience with the outer world.
Are you a Victim?
The Victim is prone to living in the past and blaming their financial woes on external factors. Passive-aggressive (prone to acting out their feelings in passive ways rather than through direct action) in nature, Victims often appear disguised as Innocents, because they seem so powerless and appear to want others to take care of them.
However, this appearance is often either a conscious or subconscious ploy to get others to do for them what they refuse to do for themselves. Victims generally have a litany of excuses for why they are not more successful, and they are all based on their historical mythology. That is not to say that bad things haven’t actually happened to the Victim.
More often than not, Victims have been abused, betrayed, or have suffered some great loss. The problem is that they have never processed faced their pain, and so it has turned on them. Victims are always looking for someone to rescue them, because they believe they have suffered enough. They carry a sense of entitlement: “I paid my dues, look at my battle scars, where’s my due”?
Do you recognise yourself is either of these money types? Next week we will focus on the Warrior and the Martyr!