Managing Your Money Stress in 3 Crucial Steps
Intellectually, everyone knows that stress is just an unavoidable part of life. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that the same applies to money stress: Experiencing it is just part of managing your finances, right? Well, not quite. In this post, we’ll define what money stress truly is and what you can do (starting today) to manage it. Shall we dig in?
Here’s a funky challenge: ask your close friends or family to give you a definition of money stress. I almost guarantee you’ll get all sorts of answers, all shapes and lengths included. Now ask them if they’ve ever felt their stomachs sink a little bit deeper every time they see the total at the grocery store checkout. Or if they recognize the slight hand tremble one is bound to get when the medical bill for a random ER trip finally hits the inbox.
I bet everyone will be able to relate.
These situations may not immediately yell “money stress” to you, but at the end of the day, that’s exactly what they unleash: a tidal wave of anxious feelings, a sense of impending doom, a slight panic attack, and sometimes, all of those combined. Although every human on the planet has probably experienced these feelings and sensations at some point in their lives, not everyone knows there’s a way out.
But before we get there, we first need to understand what money stress is and what causes it.
Defining Money Stress
Simply put, money stress is the series of feelings (and bodily reactions) that arise whenever you find yourself in a situation/scenario that pushes you to see your current financial situation in a negative (or even slightly distorted) way. Before we move on, allow me to stress the importance of that last sentence (pun absolutely intended): you experience money stress every time you add negative judgment to your current financial situation.
You don’t have to go all in with the negativity. Something as small as a comparison (“Wow, I’m being underpaid”) or even a statement of fact (“Food is getting so expensive!”) is enough to trigger all sorts of unwanted reactions.
To better understand the implications of this, let’s consider a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say you have a lunch date with a friend you haven’t seen in a good while. It’s Wednesday, and your mind is busy with work thoughts, so to make things easier, you let your friend pick a place near your office. When you are finally seated and browsing through the menu, you feel your heart skip a beat. This is the first time you have visited this particular restaurant, so you had no way of knowing that it’s the kind of place that does Caesar salads at $30. And with that single thought looming over your mind, the long-awaited catch-up with your friend suddenly feels a tad less exciting. How is that possible?
Quick answer: money stress might just be the main culprit.
Even if you do have the money to buckle up a $30 salad, you were not expecting to pay this much for a simple lunch, and the unexpectedness of the whole situation sends a shockwave through your system. Suddenly, your thoughts are racing in all directions. You are mildly annoyed and taken aback. You may even feel disappointed or cheated. In other words, you are now, in fact, stressed.
The interesting part? Your gut reactions have nothing to do with the objective state of your finances on this specific Wednesday. What’s fueling your reaction is the (generally) unconscious belief that, somehow, this “unforeseen” expense will set you back. Beliefs, whether limiting or not, are what trigger money stress.
Having made that precision, we can start thinking about the best ways to deal with it.
Managing your Money Stress: 3 Different Ways.
Knowing what money stress is and how it gets to you is only half of the equation. The other part is, of course, accepting that financial stressors will always be a part of life. No one, not even the most financially savvy people, can escape from this reality check. The key to success is learning how to coexist with it in a way that doesn’t drain you (plot twist: yes, finding a balance is possible).
Here are 3 things that can help you get ahead:
1) Uncovering your Money Story.
That is, the collection of beliefs, past lived experiences and cultural expectations that shape the way you think and behave around money.
Since beliefs (and the subsequent thoughts that come after them) are what triggers the full chain reaction that is money stress, it follows that trying to understand why you hold those specific beliefs in the first place (aka, your money story) is key for reframing your habitual reactions.
If you’re interested in learning more about what a money story is and how it impacts your life, check out this post.
2) Understand your triggers.
That series of feelings and uncomfortable reactions that we call money stress don’t happen in a vacuum. Yes, they might be anchored in an old or unconscious belief, but what sparks the chain reaction is a specific circumstance. Maybe the culprit is an after-dinner conversation that went south when someone mentioned crypto investing. Maybe the trigger is that new colleague who is celebrating the purchase of her first home. Or maybe your brain only needs to overhear a partial conversation on the current state of the economy to go wild.
Once you have that trigger nailed down, ask yourself: What can you do tomorrow to avoid finding yourself in those specific situations? Give yourself permission to think this through.
3) Give Yourself Grace.
Even if you find the whole idea of being “gentle” to yourself a lil’ bit silly (double down on that grace if this is you!). When we don’t allow ourselves not only to feel our feelings fully but also to accept that experiencing those reactions is normal and expected, things feel even harder. Acknowledging that something is not going the way we envisioned it is healthy and absolutely ok.
The Bottom Line: Beliefs Have Long Legs.
Their impact on our thoughts (and all the reactions that follow) cannot be underestimated. Understanding how those beliefs came to be and what kind of impact they have on your everyday life is the best way to keep things like money stress at bay.