How to Stop Worrying About Money (Part 1)

Ever wonder how it would feel to stop worrying about money?

Before I hit financial rock bottom at age 26, I constantly worried about money.

Will I have enough money for all the bills this month? Will that check clear my account before payday and cause me to be overdrawn? Where in the world will I come up with the money to pay for this major car repair?

Sometimes the intensity of money worry was high, and sometimes it was low.?But it never went away completely.

About a year after I embarked on my journey to financial health, I remember driving to work one day, and the thought struck me:?“I’m not worried about money!”?It shocked me because, for the previous seven years, all I did was worry about money.

I didn’t realize how much money worries affected me until they disappeared. I still hadn’t achieved debt-free status at that point, but I had my plan and was making tangible progress month after month.

How to Stop Worrying About Money

Woman’s World Magazine recently interviewed me for an article on this very subject. The editor quizzed me on how I help my clients to stop worrying about money for over 30 minutes. Of course, only a tiny snippet of our conversation made it into the final article. And several of the most vital pieces of advice (in my opinion) weren’t included.?So, I feel compelled to give you a comprehensive approach for how to stop worrying about money.

Step 1 - Face the Financial Facts

The first step to decreasing money worries is to face the facts. Yes,?it’s time to get organized?and get your arms around your current situation. We dread facing the reality of our personal finances because we’re afraid of what we’ll discover.

But the “not knowing” actually causes more stress than facing the financial facts. Once you know what you’re dealing with, you can see where positive change is needed and make a game plan for action.

Step 2 - Shift from Negative to Positive

Telling yourself a new story about your finances helps propel you in the right direction. It’s easy to fall into a pattern of negative self-talk, especially when we clearly see the money messes we created.?What you focus on, you get more of in your life!?That’s why it’s important to shift this negative self-talk to positive money mantras.

There's a problem that can crop up when creating these mantras though.

Your current negative self-talk might be this:?“I never have enough money for all of my bills! I’m always worried my account will go negative!”

You decide your new mantra will be,?“I’m a multi-millionaire! I have more money than I could possibly spend.”

The problem??Even though your new mantra sounds good, it makes you feel bad.

Why? Because being a multi-millionaire seems light years away from where you are,?it feels impossible.?And that certainly doesn’t feel good at all. ??

Your positive money mantras need to both sound good AND feel good to you. What you need is a “bridge mantra” (or maybe two or three of them).?A bridge mantra is a step in a positive direction that feels good to you.?In the example above, you tried to go from a negative bank balance to a net worth of millions, which felt impossible.

Instead, your first bridge mantra might be this:?“I have plenty of money for all of my bills, and I keep a minimum balance of $1,000 in my account.”?This feels really good because it’s not so far out of reach for you.?Plus, you can put together an action plan to make it happen.

Once you achieve this mantra, you can decide what is the next better-feeling thought that will bridge you closer to your ultimate goal: being a multi-millionaire.

Stay tuned for steps 3 and 4, coming next week!