You're Overthinking Your Money!
The average person thinks about money six times a day, and most of those thoughts are spent worrying about money.
I get it. Money is super important. But what I've learned is that there are a lot of folks who worry about money, who don't need to and that worrying takes up so much time and energy.
But what if you didn't have to worry about money? How much time would you get back in the day? How much anxiety would you relieve? How much energy would you have to devote to the things in this world that you actually truly care about?
What we've found is that people are often in a much better financial position than what they think they are but many folks treat their finances like a Pandora's box. They think what's inside of the box is bad, so they avoid it like the plague until the day that they are brave enough to look inside. They quickly realize, that simply "knowing" where they stand is powerful and this allows them to regain confidence and clarity in their finances.
If worrying about money is something you do, know that you're not alone, but that you can work to relieve those worries overtime. We've made a list of some of the actions you can take to reduce the worrying that money can evoke.
Set Aside Time to Worry
Anxiety experts advocate that people with severe anxiety who worry often, sometimes just need time and space to get out all of their worries. Consider setting aside 10 minutes everyday to worry about your money, but that's all you get; 10 minutes. After your 10 minutes is up, make the internal decision that the rest of the day is a worry free zone. Nothing but good vibes from here on out.
Make & Keep Your Promises
Our todo list keeps growing, exponentially and let's face it, organizing our finances isn't at the top of the list. But you become more confident in your ability to manage your money, the more often that you make promises to yourself and keep them (hint - this works for exercise and eating right too). You might not think of yourself as a financially savy ninja, however, overtime as you continue to keep your financial promises to yourself, you gain confidence overtime and begin to see yourself in a different light.
Make Time Everyday to Interact with Your Money
You probably have things you do everyday to better yourself. Whether its working out, eating well, reading, meditating, painting etc. you have a list of things you do with some degree of regularity that you enjoy that help you be a better human.
Consider spending 10 minutes everyday interacting with your money. Login to your bank account, review your balances, your transactions, and just get a baseline for your money in and money out. You don't have to do anything strenuous, but creating time and space for a short period every day to focus on your finances creates a process where you financially grow confidence and reduce anxiety.
Take a Financial Health Day
As a society we've become so accepting of mental health days. We work our tails off, our families are crazy busy, and we're just plain tired. We deserve a day to decompress! But, our financial health is no different and many times we worry about the things on our to-do list that continue to grow, and grow, and grow. If your money is impacting your mental and/or your physical health or your financial to-do list is growing and giving you grief, set aside time to knockout your financial to-do's. Set up that 529 for the kids, increase those Roth contributions, and increase automations to debt repayments.
Automate, Automate, Automate
If you worry about how much money you're saving or investing, you're worried about paying certain bills on time, or you're committed to paying down your debt, automate it - all of it! The less time and space money takes up in your life, the more time you have to devote to other things. Automation allows you to create financial systems that self manage themselves. You're hands off.
Now stop worrying about money, and look in the box. You might be surprised to find you're in a much better financial position than you think you are.
We're here to help. Let's look in the box together and make a plan. Drop us an email at Breakthroughinnovationsbti@gmail.com