"Whatever's going on with a person internally is going to find some expression in their money," she says.įor example, are you afraid of losing control of something unrelated, so you're taking it out on your finances? "These opportunities to grow and evolve, often show up as a financial challenge," she says. There could be a deeper emotional reason why you are feeling anxious about your money. Think: What is my anxiety trying to tell me? Once you get more familiar with the way that your money ebbs and flows, you'll be less surprised and anxious when it's time to check in, she says. In fact, research has shown that increased financial literacy is associated with decreased financial anxiety. But having scheduled "money time" can make you feel more secure that you've made the best decisions to reduce anxiety. If you're only looking at your money when you're anxious, then it reinforces the idea that "money is dangerous and we should be afraid of it, because every experience we have with money is negative," she says. Choose three things to do each time you check in: For instance, review how your money is coming in and out, predict what expenses you might have coming up and make adjustments to prevent being reactive, she says. "Make that practice really simple," Clayman says. It's important to schedule time to look at your money, so you can approach it in a "safer, more focused setting," Clayman says.įor example, choose an evening on a random weeknight to look at money, rather than waiting for high-stakes situations when you need to make a decision or when something is threatening your financial stability. People tend to respond to this anxiety by either avoiding their finances altogether, or becoming obsessive about "fiddling with their accounts," she says. The part of your brain that handles cognitive function and allows you to analyze options and predict consequences "literally goes offline," Clayman says. In situations where you feel highly anxious, your body thinks that it needs to react to a danger immediately, so it goes into fight, flight or freeze mode. Set aside time to regularly look at your money When it comes to money, we often try to impose control or set rules in the face of anxiety, rather than looking objectively at our own money behaviors and practices to learn about ourselves, Clayman says.Ĭreating a money "practice," or getting into the habit of regularly checking in with your finances, is the simplest way to shape a relationship with your money, Clayman says. "In many of those cases people end up being very paralyzed." "We may be very worried personally about making mistakes, and we may feel like that's a significant threat to our self-esteem and our identity," she says. If your own adult financial situation and values don't match the framework that you were taught, it can lead to shame, isolation and avoidance. "Our family really provides that that first and most important layer of socialization around money," she says.įor instance you may have grown up thinking that your parents are really good with money, because they had stable careers as well as practices and processes, like savings. Much of what we believe about money is culturally based and taught to us by the people in our lives, like parents. "One of the best things that we can do is to create a relationship with money, and an understanding of money that isn't just treating money as a problem to be solved," Clayman says.
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