You’ve had to confront your fears of being rejected, being alone, missing out, getting caught as a fraud, being uncertain, being afraid of money, being afraid of failing, being afraid of endings, and being afraid of losing your freedom.
Fear may enter our minds in a variety of ways and render us immobile.
But fear has a poor reputation, believe it or not.
The author of the recently released book “A Healthy State of Panic: Follow Your Fears to Build Wealth, Crush Your Career, and Win at Life,” Farnoosh Torabi, states as much. She says, “Unfortunately, fear has been the target of some PR.”
“They say it prevents us from leading our best lives,” stated Torabi, the podcast’s presenter and personal financial specialist.
It’s just not feasible to chase happiness and place so much focus on happiness all the time. In many situations, fear has really been the feeling that has saved us, therefore it may be pretty good. If it weren’t for fear, we wouldn’t be here right now. It is an advantage of our evolutionary history as humans. Fear arises from our body’s need to keep us safe.
The healthy course of action is to listen to fear as it arises rather than ignoring, fighting, or acting as though it doesn’t exist.
Money in general frequently evokes fears in us. We are afraid of these massive, unstoppable problems, like as bank collapses, stock market crashes, and recessions. These are real worries because they occur, and they are unpleasant to observe, feel, and witness.
Distilling fear is turning it from a fear that keeps you locked and spiralling into a healthy motivator to take action. Try to find a method to channel that anxiety into a sense of urgency.
The next time you have an abstract worry related to money, such as the dread of losing your job in the event of a recession, think about this. Customise it. How would a layoff manifest itself in your family? What effects may it have on your capacity to spend, act, and invest?
I will go check my budget if I truly fear that there will be a recession and I act as though I expect to lose my job tomorrow or have no money for the next six months. I’m going to review my expenses. I’m going to consider what I could be able to go without. You begin formulating a strategy.
As a financial writer, I am aware that unstable and unpredictable markets are normal and that it is necessary to persevere and take the long view. I did not change my stock investments during the recession. However, it has scared me lately. It refused to go away. I was astonished that it kept turning up. I needed to consider it. It was trying to tell me that something wasn’t quite right. I decided to follow my fear.
I’m forty years old. My two children. My debt is a mortgage. I own a company. Is it feasible for me to make the kind of stock market investments I did in my twenties? No, I am unable to. I listened to the dread instead of jumping to conclusions, but instead of doing so, I decided that I should first further my education. Now let me check the position of my equities in my portfolio. What role do I play in this portfolio? I went back and completed the online platform’s question again before deciding how to divide stocks and bonds. And it turned out that my risk tolerance and my current stage of life required me to reduce my equity holdings.
I was aware that reducing my stock holdings alone would not solve the maths problem. I’m taking a chance that I could have less when I retire. Therefore, you must consider the hazards before acting on your anxieties. What compromises are made? There is then still work to be done. To somewhat offset the possibility that I may receive a lower return, I raised the amount of money I contribute each month to my retirement savings fund. But in order to get my desired retirement income, I’ll invest more of my money.
As a child, you go through experiences. You see things happen. You are the model for everything. That will, of course, influence how you feel about money. You have an option now that you’re an adult and earning your own money. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we have the ability to choose and control how we want to conduct our financial lives.
If our parents handled money poorly, we might assume that we will too. We lack faith in our ability to do something different and in the possibility that we may choose a different route. This barrier is highly psychological.
Determining the source of your concern is therefore frequently a wise first step when dealing with money-related anxiety. You worry that there will never be enough. That didn’t simply pop into your head out of nowhere, either, if you’re worried that discussing money may cause your partner to argue and lead to a divorce. That tells a narrative. It may occur to you that this dread is unfounded. You now have the chance to alter the way you want your own relationship with money to be.
I used to be terrified of my financial goal when I was in my thirties. I didn’t think a woman like me could pursue financial gain without suffering significant consequences such as rejection and loneliness, maybe even a divorce and losing out on my children’s life. I simply didn’t think I could make it work. I was afraid of it because, as a child, I never saw women in positions of financial power and I never saw it modelled.
Women who aspire to be financially successful are often stereotyped by society as being immoral or lacking in virtue. They are unable to support a family. All these factors make them greedy since, as mentioned before, money belongs to men, and since we live in a patriarchal society, that’s what we adopt.
I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to pursue and succeed in my job for all these reasons. Subsequently, I discerned that my dread was actually a signal that I wanted to safeguard my connections and time during this endeavour. On the other hand, I was left to find out how to do it. And without wasting any time, I increased my pricing as my first action.
Having access to resources makes one rich. We believe that having a large bank account makes you affluent. That is, of course, a component of it. It’s critical to shed the belief that “I’m only rich if I have an accumulation of money.” Beyond only dollars and cents, wealth is measured in a plethora of other ways as well. It’s a gauge of your well-being—both bodily and mental—as well as your relationships, job satisfaction, community service, sense of belonging, and ability to access essential freedoms and resources.