Five Insidious Ways Money Fears Will Thwart Your Success
By: Rebecca Shepard
Tags: Self Improvement, Money, Women, Money Management, Personal Development

A childhood of poverty against the backdrop of upper-middle-class privilege left me feeling worthless and afraid. I equated money to security. Money was the ticket to acceptance and contentment. In other words, I couldn’t be happy unless and until I was financially secure.

How do you know if an unhealthy relationship with money drives your life choices?

See if these five scenarios resonate with you:

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1. You catastrophize, and it makes you risk-averse.

Focus on one problem at a time and trust yourself.

This is my number one struggle, and I’m really good at it, especially at 3 AM. Catastrophizing is best described as warp-speed worry. It’s your brain exercising its need for guaranteed survival, triggered by something small, like a late notice or an overdrawn checking account. That past due electric bill is today’s version of a ravenous lion, chasing us and threatening our very lives.

We take innocuous, short-term problems and blow them up. They provide evidence that feeds our story of imminent financial ruin. Before long, we are envisioning bankruptcy court and cardboard boxes under the freeway overpass. I take it even further by allowing my fears to inform my self-worth, which in turn keeps me stuck in unfulfilling (read: safe) circumstances. I falsely believe the alternative will result in financial ruin, so I stay right where I am.

Try this: Focus on one problem at a time (past due electric bill). Write down the worst-case scenario (I can’t pay my electric bill; they’re going to shut off the lights; I’m going to be evicted; I’m homeless; I have nothing). Ask yourself how you’re capitulating to unrealistic outcomes. Once you examine how your doomsday thinking is motivating your behavior, you can bring your attention back to the short-term problem (the electric bill) and find a solution (call the electric company, ask for an extension) instead of assigning it more meaning. Small wins will build self-trust and give you the confidence to take bigger risks.

2. You are underemployed.

Design an exit plan.

I took an admin job after dropping out of college. It turns out I was good at subservience (the only necessary admin job skill in the late 1980s), and the mindlessly repetitive work suited my lack of confidence. Day-after-day, I traded minimal effort for glowing feedback and traveled farther away from myself in the process. Over time I developed a successful sales and business development career, and I hated it every minute.

It wasn’t until I quit the grind and leaned into full-time writing that life started to make sense. Here’s the rub: I’m making far less than I ever have (far less), but I’m happier than ever. I’m also more afraid but better equipped to deal with it because I’ve lived the alternative of chasing a bigger paycheck, and it made me miserable.

Try this: If you’re in a dead-end job or find yourself settling for a predictable career path, ask yourself why. If your decisions are centered around earning money, it’s time to reexamine that. What do you love? Is there a way to monetize it? Design an exit plan. Enroll in community college. Make a clippings.me portfolio and apply for freelance writing gigs. Work your passion after hours until you find enough success to lean in. Micro-actions that slowly build self-trust will lead to bigger change.

3. You set unrealistic goals.

If you hate the climb, you’ll hate the view from the top.

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Do you follow motivational speakers and seek inspiration from YouTube hype mash-ups? The popularity of productivity gurus like Gary Vaynerchuk shows that we are buying into the insidious and constant societal message that it’s cool to worship wealth. It’s everywhere: on news feeds, in storefronts, and on our favorite Netflix shows. Wealth is intoxicating; so is achievement.

Vaynerchuk, a productivity vlogger who built a media empire by targeting the young and wealth-obsessed, is the standard by which we measure our own commitment to monetizing our lives. The sales dynamo Grant Cardone — Mr. 10X Everything — follows a similar business model, teaching companies how to optimize sales teams for maximum close ratios by posting self-important ‘work harder’ missives while traveling on his G550. Unfortunately, Vaynerchuk and Cardone promote a one-percenter wealth-building principle that most of us aren’t built for.

Try this: Be realistic about your strengths. Are you really going to live on four hours of sleep and maintain a 75-a-day social media posting schedule? Do you see yourself making 100 cold calls a day? What are you willing to trade for financial freedom? Adjusting your goals to match your work style and what actually makes you happy is more authentic. If you hate the climb, you’ll hate the view from the top.

4. You practice excessive consumerism.

Spending is just longing disguised as need.

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We use materialism as a buffer for our feelings of lack. We think that once we buy a new car we’ll finally be happy. It doesn’t work. In fact, overspending has the opposite effect of driving us deeper into financial despair and further fueling money insecurity.

Our screen lives continue to reinforce the idea that nice things are necessary, so we adopt a French Bulldog, buy into the latest skincare regimens, and one-click purchase clutter we don’t need. When that doesn’t work, we buy something else and order takeout for the fifth night in a row. We’re suffocating under the weight of stuff — and convenience — that was supposed to make us happy. Spending is just longing disguised as need.

Try this: Can you adopt a less stuff- and convenience-centered lifestyle? Try unfollowing people and companies that fuel your materialism. Delete the food delivery app. Skip the overpriced coffee shop and make yours at home. Quit the gym and start running. Follow a debt-reduction plan (like this one) that refocuses you on a more positive and tangible goal. Your overspending habit is a sign of discontent, and breaking the pattern requires quitting cold turkey and removing yourself from exterior forces that romanticize consumerism.

5. You stay in bad relationships.

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Perhaps the most damaging effect of money insecurity is how we backfill with relationships. So many of us choose to stay with our partners for the wrong reasons, primarily for some form of security or to escape our circumstances. Marrying for money a la Anna Nicole Smith is pretty rare: what’s common is staying in a bad relationship for fear of not having it.

CNBC’s Stacy Francis points out that many women believe financial security is more important than happiness, even to the extent that they’ll sacrifice true love and connection to maintain it. She writes that “…a significantly large number of women stay in marriages that are unhealthy and even border on dysfunctional”. There is hope, though. Francis writes that 73% of women ended up feeling happier after divorcing, even if their financial health declined substantially.

I feared divorcing my first husband, believing that financial ruin would surely follow. We had the big house and the Porsche, and these objects represented security to my fearful mind. Unfortunately, I was miserable. Once I finally gathered the strength to pull the plug on my mismatched marriage and endure the terror that immediately followed (facing our fears is always terrifying), the happiness that followed eclipsed my fears — by a factor of infinity.

Are you becoming more and more unhappy in your relationship? If you are, it’s actually a good sign. What began as a small niggling doubt is now full-blown discontent, and it means that you’re returning to yourself, and eventually, you’ll reach a tipping point. Don’t go back.

Try this: Recognize the correlation between your financial insecurity and your stagnant relationship. Don’t be hard on yourself; you found the relationship you needed at the time to feel secure. Is it enough, or is it getting harder to find contentment? Gather the courage to face your unhappiness and seek support from friends or a counselor to help you decide if it’s time to make a move. The first step is gaining confidence, and you don’t have to do it all at once.