Feeling anxious about money weighs people from their daily lives. The burden of balancing wants and needs creates chaos and anxiety in our heads.
We all have payments that are due at the end of the month. It may be hospital bills, electricity and water bills, food, student loans, or other necessities.
Financial stress goes a long way.
It is proven that it will lead to insomnia due to feeling anxious about money.
It can also disturb your appetite. This may be due to wanting to save more money or just the anxiety that makes you forget to eat.
Of course, it will lead to depression. You are sleep-deprived and not functioning correctly due to debts and incoming bills for the month.
You can not concentrate on what is in front of you, living daily gets more complicated, and feeling like nothing is right for you.
Feeling anxious about money may affect your current and future relationships since you are irritated about everything because of your financial burden.
You will feel wrong about everything. Hence you will withdraw from society. You will create a safe zone for you which can be unhealthy and harmful for you.
⚠️ Feeling anxious about money can get you sick
You are stressing yourself about your bank account, so you tend to cut the things you think are unnecessary and prioritize paying your debts and bills.
You forget that health is wealth, so you will assume a two-week-old cough can just be cured by water therapy.
If you get to this point badly, you will resort to unhealthy coping methods: gambling, sexual pleasure, excessive drinking, unhealthy diet, or even illegal drugs.
And you will feel bad because you know you did these things to yourself, which will lead you to get suicidal thoughts and such.
Feeling anxious about money affects your mental health, which may be the result of your declining mental health.
Declining mental health leads to poor decision-making in terms of money and life also.
It is harder to make decisions when you’re either afraid of making anything or just feeling bad for every decision you make. This sequence becomes a cycle and will become destructive to your life.
Here are some strategies on how to control your finances:
🧐 Stop peeking at your purse regularly
Stop creating unnecessary stress.
You know that you must be careful when spending your money. However, this will make you feel anxious. Minimize checking your accounts because it may create the idea that using money will often lead to bad experiences.
We know that every time we spend big-time and go broke the other day, we always feel traumatized somehow, and it certainly creates anxiety in our future decisions.
When you are checking your account when you are anxious, it will always negatively impact the consumption of money since using it often leads to bad experiences.
To loosen your stress, set a schedule to compute and calculate the money that goes into your account.
Yes, it is essential to check your money regularly. However, feeling anxious about money doesn’t bring any good either.
💪 You are your own person
Well, for starters, you are your own person. Stop getting envious of someone’s financial situation; it will mess up your reasoning or perspective about life.
Pace yourself, everybody has set its own goals and standards, but none of it should bother you.
Sometimes it is healthy to get a little envy about someone as it will spark competitiveness in your heart, but anything over the top will do no good to anyone.
⛱️ Do not pressure yourself
When you are feeling anxious about money, do not think that you are on a different level from other people.
Stop measuring someone’s worth by his bank account because you will do this to yourself too. Always remember that you are worth more than any form of currency in the world.
Do not let the world define the meaning of success. We build our success. We fulfill our void.
Do not let the standards make you feel ashamed about something. Do not let them define you. You live to your realistic standards.
When you feel that you are late about something that does not require a deadline, it will always drag you down. It will always make you feel anxious about your future and may change your reasoning for decision-making which may affect you big-time.
↗️ Always prioritize the needs over the wants
Please do not get into things that you can’t handle or will make your life harder than it is.
You know you’ve got to pay bills and debts with a job that pays minimum wage. Don’t make things harder for yourself. It may be true that getting the items you want keeps us feeling alive; however, be realistic.
Do not compromise yourself on things that are just for your desires. Always prioritize the needs over the wants.
Always look at the bigger picture. Look what is in front of you and what is ahead of you. Always clear the things dragging you down, not put heavier things that will pull you.
🕶️ You are what you consume when you are feeling anxious about money
Do not settle on cheaper products since they may hurt you in the future. Try not to put yourself on dangerous deals that may damage your own finances in the long run. Promises may be sweet, but nothing good comes from things that are quickly done.
We know that we need to be entertained in a way to refrain from being something that we do not want. However, if it hurts your wallet, then try to divert or find a substitution that will make you happy.
For example: playing video games with your friends is fun, but you can’t keep up with the latest upgrades due to financial problems. Try to divert your attention to something else that can be more productive or find games that perfectly fit your gaming set-up.
Do not force yourself to be a person you are not just because of peer pressure or just wanting to check with the trend.
You can always find a substitute for everything. However, do what makes you happy since it will lessen the anxiety that you feel.
Always be rational, be realistic.
“What comes easy won’t last. What lasts won’t come easy.” If you want to pamper yourself with things that you have always dreamed of since you were a kid, work hard for them. Make a strategy yourself, do research since knowledge is power.
Always get the right things done first, do not indulge in the idea of romanticizing fun over anything. But you are your own person, do what suits you.
💭 Think things through
There are instances that you are just anxious about something, and you lash it out to other things, and this could be your finance. You feel wrong about something that you waste money to feel better.
Think things through, do not suddenly trash your hard-earned savings because of your emotions.
Imagine saving money for months and wasting it over a night because you do not feel good enough. And will it solve your problems? No. But it will create another set of problems.
Nothing good comes from rash decisions.
If it feels like nothing good will happen in your life, find help, talk to someone whom you trust. It will surely help ease the burden that you are feeling. Go easy on yourself. We all have it hard, do not make it harder.
You can ask for suggestions from a person you trust or a family member on how to solve one of your many problems. Create a framework on how to solve your problems, set goals, but do not rush yourself.
Upon enacting your plans, track your progress, see the pros and cons, and adjust accordingly. And if you still feel bad because you are being held back by something, it is okay. Rome wasn’t built overnight.
Your plan will take days, months, or even years to make it work.
Don’t do things that will eventually make you feel bad about yourself. Never hurt your confidence. Stand firm and face your problems with your family or trusted someone.
🤔 Feeling anxious about money: Can’t understand what’s going on?
If you feel like you are not having an inch of control over your life and things keep going south, it is best to seek professional advice.
❓ You Might Ask
1. How do I stop feeling anxious about money?
When people are feeling anxious about money, they either avoid their finances altogether or become compulsive ‘account doctors’ who try to spend more time managing their money. You should set aside time to look at your money because doing so allows you to approach it in a more stable and focused setting.
2. Why do I feel anxious about money?
Fears about money can occur in any financial situation, whether or not you’re very wealthy or well-off. If you’re anxious about your money, there could be a deeper reason. There is a direct correlation between a person’s emotional and financial state. Do you, for example, fear that you’ll lose control of something unrelated and that this will result in your finances suffering?
3. Does perfectionism lead to anxiety?
Yes. Many people who try to be perfectionists fall prey to a dark side: setting unreachable standards, making rigid rules, or making impossibly high goals. When people attempt to live up to this ideal, they are setting themselves up for failure, disappointment, and negative self-evaluations.
People who are perfectionists are often highly self-critical and will likely focus on how others perform if their efforts don’t meet their overly high expectations.
Additionally, perfectionists are excessively concerned with how others perceive them, scrutinizing their self-worth based on the unobtainable accomplishments of others.
Many individuals experience such excessive stress and pressure and cannot get started on a task.
