Mothers, Money and Business
How core beliefs stop us investing in ourselves
When I started my business in 2018 I thought I “couldn’t afford” software that cost £15 a month. I told people I “couldn’t” hire an assistant until I had at least 10 paying clients. I used an old/failing laptop and I wore clothes that I hadn’t updated since 2012 and that made me feel self-conscious.
Worse than all of this? I felt that my “contribution” to my family was worthless unless I was single-handedly paying for extortionate north-London childcare fees and I was wracked with guilt every second that I spent working. My initial marketing efforts were about as successful as you are probably imagining.
I am furious that no one shook me by the shoulders and gave me a reality check. The fact is, I had options. I just couldn’t see them. I could have put those modest business investments on a credit card, or accessed a local authority loan that would have covered them. In business, investment is required to grow. If you look awful and it takes 10 emails to book someone in you are not attractive to work with, especially in an age where people are used to being able to buy a product or book a service with one click. If you refuse to pay for software that makes it easy for your clients to pay you, guess what? They are very unlikely to pay you on time and you will have cash flow problems.
But it isn’t just me. Lack of investment is the biggest problem UK businesses face across the spectrum from micro businesses like mine right the way up to the corporate big dogs and it seems to impact female founders far more than their male counterparts. I have attended a lot of “mums in business’ networking groups over the years and I am always horrified by how many of them are expected to contribute full time wages to their households, while carrying all the cognitive and practical load with minimal childcare to “keep costs down.” So many of these women feel guilty because the business is constantly struggling. They never invest a penny and resent every unavoidable expense so they never get to find out where their entrepreneurial talents could lead if they were nurtured with proper support and equipment. We need to give our heads a wobble.
Why do we have a problem investing in ourselves?
In my case, coming off the back of one paid and one unpaid maternity leave, we didn’t have savings and I didn’t look beyond my own bank account for opportunities. At the time my I would have told you there were no opportunities available but I can see now that I did not actually invest any time in looking for them.
Most of the time I did not take myself seriously enough to imagine a world in which I had smooth admin systems, glossy hair and an assistant. When I did allow myself to fantasise about my business becoming a success it felt egregious. I feared the narcissist I might become if I let my ambitious grandiosity percolate within me so I squashed it, and myself, until it fit within the air tight container of my identity. Put another way, I felt more comfortable with a life of struggle, always feeling behind and just about managing financially. So that is what I created.
This is what tends to happen when we hold core beliefs that (unconsciously and consciously) undermine our success. Much of therapy, business and life coaching is about unearthing and addressing core beliefs that threaten to pull us away from the lives we want to live.
Getting to the core
Core beliefs can be tricky to shift. What do you believe about yourself, the world and others at your core? A pretty inaccessible question, right? Any therapist knows it can take weeks, sometimes years of therapy to get close to the core beliefs that underpin our cognitive and emotional experience of the world. By definition, they sit beneath the stuff we are conscious of and guide us, for better or worse, without us ever needing to acknowledge them. They simply become part of our operating system. In a way core beliefs are like the satellites used by Google and Apple Maps. You perceive the map your phone presents you as truth but if the satellites are faulty or have a gap in their coverage, your map could fail to show you something important. The satellites shape your reality as you can only take the roads and avoid the obstacles they show you.
Because they influence how we see the world, core beliefs influence the decisions we make every day. They dictate how we spend our time, the boundaries we set and (fail to) keep, what we expect from the world around us and how we relate to others.
How much is our work worth?
It isn’t difficult to understand what shaped my core beliefs about motherhood, work and pay. I’d absorbed the message that women, especially mothers, should expect to work hard and pour their resources into others for little appreciation or financial compensation. The myth of the “supermum” that somehow does it all and doesn’t mind that she is underpaid and under-thanked is powerful, we all grew up singing songs about it, and my career up to that point had firmly cemented the “virtue in suffering” mindset.
The work I did in my twenties was HARD. Actually unbelievably hard. As a 37 year old woman I struggle to comprehend the roles we took on for (very) little more than minimum wage in challenging environments when we were barely adults. I highly value the experience I gained in HM Prison service and the NHS in my twenties but I was not fairly paid for it. I knew this at the time. I watched unskilled male colleagues being paid more for menial labour than I was paid for coaching hardened prisoners through anger management programmes but the optimism of youth and the joy of doing work that stretched me intellectually and allowed me to use my talents meant I didn’t really mind.
But my young mind soaked up the message it sent - the kind of thing I am good at is not worth much.
In her book “We Should All Be Millionaires” Rachel Rodgers explains how history, politics and culture often lead women to believe their work is not worth much money.
She explains how societal and family messages can lead women to make decisions that keep them stuck at the level they, deep down, think is appropriate for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if local dog walkers actually saw the lightbulbs pinging on in my head as I walked in circles around my local recreation ground with this book in my earbuds.
Even mothers care about money
What’s your relationship with money? Do you think you are “bad” with money? Or that you “don’t care about” money? Do you judge people you think are “motivated by money”?
Let’s take a moment to rationalise some of the stories the mind might be telling us. The fact is we DO care about money. Everyone does because we live in a capitalist society where if you don’t have any money you will live a life of poverty and low status. Whatever you think about the inadequacy of that system and however virtuous you are the brain you carry on your shoulders is frightened of that outcome and the anxiety about financial stability usually intensifies when we become parents for the same reason.
The only people who are truly unconcerned about money in our society are those who have a lot of confidence in someone else who is doing all the worrying about money for them. To deny it is to suppress your humanity and, like with all things we suppress, it will come out in painful ways.
Money is also the mechanism through which we can provide for and protect our families and the lever we can use to instigate social change. Of course, this is deeply problematic but it is reality.
So, it really doesn’t make any sense to try to live a life where we are unconcerned about money. Instead, we need to get comfortable with it, know our numbers and crucially understand what we need to earn to live the life we want to live. Then we can start taking practical steps towards that life, even if they need to be small at first.
Today if you are a woman with a business, or a mother or someone who recognises they may not have made the best business or financial decisions over the years I want you to grab a pen and paper and ask yourself the following:
Consider the decisions you make every day, are you really doing all that you can to create the life you want to lead?
Are you really happy with the money you are making in your work/business?
If not, is there anything you could do differently (even if it feels intolerable at the moment)?
What would someone who did not need to be liked by anyone do differently?
Using these questions as journal prompts might bring up some interesting ideas. I know when I have done this exercise I have landed upon the unshakable truth over and over again that many of the things I could be doing to grow my business I will not do because I want to be liked and seen as a “good mother”. Rachel Rodgers puts it perfectly when she says “people don’t like rich women” but I would argue that people just don’t like self-assured, opinionated and financially independent women.
We receive much more positive feedback when we keep our businesses small and don’t ask for any support from anyone else, martyr looks good on us. And that might be OK if you can love your values within those parameters. The trouble is that I can’t. My values require me to reach people with messages about mental health that disrupt the dominant, medical narrative. Those projects all cost money and keeping me fit, well and creative enough to do it costs money too. So I have to make money, and enough of it to sustain me, my family and this business up and over the top of the giant mountain I’m climbing.
For the mental health professionals
If you feel your attitude to money might be sabotaging your practice or you find yourself caught in a doom loop of over working with not enough money coming in this week’s Business of Psychology podcast episode is for you. In it I’m answering the question “how much can I earn in private practice” and I can tell you now it is not a straightforward answer!
Enjoy and let me know if it resonates.
For everyone
I’m thinking about creating a paid monthly newsletter here. It would be low cost and every month I would take some new research in psychology and share how you can use it to make a change in your life and work.
I’ll include special actions to take for parents, mental health professionals and anyone who cares about living their best life so each month you can make a small change that will eventually make a big difference.
Ways to work with me
If you are a parent struggling with your mental health or recovering from a traumatic birth my practice offers specialist therapy to help you thrive again. Book a free chat with us over at www.knowyourmindconsulting.com
If you are a mental health professional venturing into private practice, possibly because you NEED the flexibility we have everything you need from legal documentation, courses and coaching to create a fulfilling and profitable practice (whatever life throws at you) over at www.psychologybusinessschool.com
If you are a parent struggling to find your spark for your career or business due to the changing needs of your family, maybe due to SEND or caring responsibilities. You can book a free call here to discuss coaching to reignite your spark and help you reconnect with your professional values.
A thought provoking article thank you. I find investing in training and therapy equipment easier than investing in systems, software, help etc. And the need to invest in keeping fit, well and creative to run a demanding business is something I haven't thought of before.