Overcoming Financial Fears

Fear can be incredibly debilitating. When it comes to money it can cause anxiety and financial problems to become magnified more than they need to.

There is a lot of mindset work behind this – Beliefs from childhood, habits that aren’t serving you that feel like a cycle you can’t get out of.

Feeling overwhelmed and out of control is how this begins to spiral. In this post I’ll go through a process to help break this cycle and bring some calm to the fear surrounding money.

Before I go into that, I wanted to talk briefly about Courage (which I see as something to combat Fear). Courage is a word that came up for me as I was planning 2023. The process I was taken through as part of a mastermind group I’m in asked us to choose a single word to be a theme for the year.

I chose the word Courage. It has been pretty bang on. I’ve been challenged in ways I didn’t anticipate, and have need to tap into my inner courage to deal with things. Most of these challenges are situations I put myself into knowing I would be challenged!

Courage is defined as the ability to do something that frightens one. Fear is something that holds us all back at some point in our lives.

Many years ago I went to a Dr John Demartini seminar, and he defined FEAR as:

• Future
• Events
• Appearing
• Real

Quite often our imagination kicks in and begins to play out certain scenarios, and because as humans we are wired for survival, we go for worst-case scenarios.

That triggers a “negativity-bias”, that unless we have some tools and strategies to overcome, will hold us in a constant state of fight or flight. The cortisol levels in our bodies (aka the stress hormone) then prevent us from thinking rationally and making decisions that are aligned with our Core Values.

What a domino effect!

So, with that in mind, are you ready to work on your fears around money and start letting them go?

Your mind and body will really thank you for it!

So, here are the five steps to go through to help release any fears you have around money:

1. Face it – fear grows when it doesn’t have a face. Our imagination kicks in. Remember back to when you were a child – the monster in the dark. As soon as you turned the light on, you realised there was no monster, only shadows or emptiness. It’s not always quite that simple for adult problems, but there is still validity to the concept
2. Break it down – often our biggest fears have grown over time. The sooner we confront them, the less chance they have to grow. Take one of these areas around money and break down some of the things that you are most concerned about – Income (need to make more money); Spending (how to save on things like insurances, groceries and takeaway); Saving (need to save for a new car or a holiday, instead of increasing credit card debt); Investing (look into micro-investing and salary sacrificing into super); Legacy (get a Will & Enduring Power of Attorney drawn up by a lawyer).
3. Prioritise – now you have a list (possibly a long list) of the money things you have been avoiding and know that you want and need to look more at, take one of the areas (income, spending, saving or investing) and then take the top 3 things within that area that you feel you can do in the next 2 to 3 weeks.
4. Take Action – all of the previous 3 steps are just theory and lists if you don’t actually do something about them. It will start to feel really amazing once you start ticking things off your financial to do list! The momentum that follows feels wonderful. Even if you just do 1 thing in a week – it’s better than not doing anything and seeing the problem grow…
5. Recognise – one of the things I see a lot is that we tend to look forward towards a problem, and then look back and feel guilty about the things we haven’t done. It’s time to break that habit and replace it with recognising the things you HAVE done and the progress you have made. The things you need to do are now captured, and as you take action, acknowledge it and celebrate it (within your financial budget).

Fear does not need to define you and remember that you CAN do this. One step at a time. If you have any questions, send them to [email protected]