Money Identity is defined by your consistent thoughts, feelings and behaviors around money over a period of time.
So how you think and feel about money is the driving force behind the financial decisions and actions that you make. Often times folks have the knowledge or financial literacy to change their financial outlook but still cannot move the needle on their money. Or they simply keep repeating the same destructive patterns of behavior. This is a clear sign the current Money identity is determining how you relate to your money. For the majority of my life, my Money Identity can be best described as the broke black girl from the hood. So even as my income increased it was hard for me to use and receive money like someone who "has money" because that did not align with my underlying Money Identity.
In our society, our prioritization of making, having, and keeping money over everything often causes us to have a Money Identity Disorder. A Money Identity Disorder is when you are not using and receiving money in a way that consistent with your core values:
Working a job you loathe, just to pay the bills
Buying items because they cost less, rather than getting the item you truly desire
One key attribute of Money Identity is our default level of Money Stress independent of how much money you have, make or spend. There are 5 default levels of Money Stress that can range from "In Crisis" to "Excelling." For Instance, my default level for most of my life is Surviving:
Coming up my frugal dad established in me we had "Just enough". In my mind, it meant we had enough for the essentials but never enough to satisfy our desires. Our needs where taken care of but our wants were always an after thought.
As a result, the concept of "just enough" or survival mode became deeply ingrained in me. So, even as I climbed the corporate ladder and started raking in a six-figure income, I still felt like I had just enough. I continued to feel like I was in the survival mode, despite the fact that my bank account and pay stubs reflected a different reality.
So I continued to settle for knock-off versions of everything and never purchased items I genuinely desired. Furthermore, I would not allow myself to do things I wanted to do if I didn't feel they were essential. Why? Because, I still felt like I was in survival mode and only had just enough to get by. When in reality I was actually had the financial means to do what I would like.
When we are in survival mode (one of the levels of money stress), it causes us to make decisions based on what we need to survive right now and without regard for our future. Investments and savings get neglected because there is "not enough" to do so. Another aspect of survival mode, is the cycle of incurring debt. This happens when you feel like you don't have enough so you borrow and then when it's time to pay the debt you feel you don't have enough to pay the bill so you pay the minimum. And so the cycle goes.
Therefore, it's important to note that your default level of stress will determine the decisions you make with your money which may ultimately becomes the true cause of your financial problems (i.e. debt from borrowing and not paying back because of survival thinking). At the end of the day, your Money Identity creates your thoughts related to money, and those thoughts often times lead you to make decisions that keeps you in a circumstance that reflects those thoughts like a self fulfilling prophecy. So it is important for us to become aware of our Money Identity and change it to truly take charge of our finances once and for all.