Wednesday 5 January 2011

When winning doesn’t come easy to women

First congratulations to Sarah Jane Russell from Manchester, the winner of our festive quiz. Well done Sarah Jane, copies of Sheconomics and The Do Something Different Journal are on their way to you.

And Sarah Jane’s response when we told her she’d won?
She was delighted but added,
 ‘I'm probably the most financially incompetent woman who did the quiz’!

This reminded me of how women are usually far more financially competent than they think they are. Just the opposite of men, who think they’re more competent than they actually are, particularly in areas such as finance.
Research into investment behaviour has repeatedly shown that men spend more time and money on security analysis, take less advice from brokers and make more transactions than women. They also have too much faith in their own predictions and potential returns.   


Yet all this frantic male activity and over-confidence caused the economy to implode in recent years, and I have argued that more women in senior positions will stop this happening again.

But women have to believe in their own financial self-efficacy. We have a whole chapter on this in the book. It’s our second Law of Sheconomics: Go Beyond Beliefs

Do you recognise any of these self-limiting beliefs?
  • Financial stuff is boring
  • I can’t afford to save
  • These days debt is a part of life
  • I can’t control my spending
  • I’m hopeless at maths and so no good with money

If any of those strikes a chord with you then you’re probably cramping your own financial potential.
Give those self-limiting beliefs a kick up the pants. Try some of the exercises in the book. 

Or have a go at filling in our belief-busting log, downloadable here.

And make 2011 the year you give your confidence a makeover. 
Like Sarah Jane, you're probably better than you think.

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