If You Want Financial Freedom, Stop Worrying About Money

Becoming financially successful takes time, but how do you stop worrying about money in the meantime while you’re working on becoming financially successful?

How do you keep yourself sane and joyful while working through the ups and downs of becoming financially successful?

And how can you develop a state of mind and belief that makes your success inevitable?

Anyone Can Overcome Financial Anxiety and Stop Worrying About Money

I used to be a negative, scarcity-minded person who constantly worried about money.

Mostly, about not having enough money.

For much of my young adult life, I was never really conscious about money.

This was because I didn’t have to worry much about it.

In a way, you could say I was lucky.

Privileged.

Unfortunately, that didn’t prepare me for the financial crisis and storms I’d meet later in life.

These money challenges affected my relationships, tested my marriage and even left me with a 6-figure business debt.

But it was these same crises and storms that taught me how to have faith in myself and my capabilities.

I learned how to make money work for me, rather than for me to work for money.

Here are the 7 steps that helped me overcome financial anxiety and stop worrying about money.

1. Stop Being the Victim and Start Being the Master of Your Life

Congratulations!

You’ve taken the first step simply by making a decision to read this article.

This step alone tells me you’ve already made a decision to be the Master of your life and stop being a victim of your circumstances.

You’ve decided to take this one, simple action to learn something to make your life better and stop worrying about money.

The belief of victimization is prevalent in our society.

We’ve been taught for years in genetic determinism that our genes control us.

This is a belief of victimization because you have no control over your life and what happens to you.

The new field of epigenetics has shown the possibility that our environment, our minds, and beliefs are what create our reality.

The function of our mind is to create coherence between our beliefs and our reality.

Our mind will match what we believe and create it in our reality through our thoughts, which drive our behaviors and eventually our outcomes.

The first step to stop worrying about money is to take back control of your situation.

No matter what’s happening in your external world, how you perceive it inside your mind will determine your outcome to a large extent.

Do you see what’s happening as something you have no control over, that you are a victim of your circumstance?

Or are you the master and creator of your life, no matter what the external circumstance is?

2. Let Go & Stop Arguing With Your Current Reality

The second step is to let go of the tension between your current reality and how you wish it was different.

We feel tension and frustration when we argue with our reality.

This makes us suffer because our thoughts are arguing with what is.

We wish things were different, how it could have or should have been.

We wonder why this is happening to us.

When we stop opposing our reality, and stop asking why this is happening to us or wishing things were different, the mind can become perfectly clear.

Action becomes simple and fearless when we accept our current reality.

3. Identify All Your Financial Goals

The third step is to identify your financial goals.

Is it to get your first sale?

Maybe you’ve lost your job so your goal is to generate income to replace your lost income?

Have you been asked to take a pay cut or reduce your hours so you need to make up for the shortfall?

Do you want to pay off your debt?

Increase your income or reduce your expenses?

You can have more than one financial goal.

At this point, you’ll want to list all your financial goals down.

This is a process of becoming aware and conscious of your current financial state and what your financial aspirations are.

Don’t worry about whether you can achieve all of them at this point.

We’ll do that in the next step.

4. Prioritize Which Goal To Start With

The fourth step is to review all the financial goals you’ve listed and picked one goal to work on now.

Which goal should you pick?

You can use the 80/20 rule to help you select which goal to start with.

You want to pick one goal that will deliver 80% of the impact that will improve your financial life at this point.

What is the one goal that if you achieved, will help you stop worrying about money or reduce your financial anxiety?

If you’ve just lost your job or customers, the obvious thing is to replace your income.

So the one goal you focus on may be to generate an income.

How can you do that?

Focus your energy and attention on generating income.

And pay attention to how it comes to you.

Remember that money comes to us through multiple sources.

Not just the ones we’re used to like a job, sales or customers.

Examples of How Money Can Show Up For You When You Pay Attention

When I was asked to reduce my hours in my job, I knew I had to make up for the shortfall.

While doing work for my job, I came across a portal set up by our government to help those who lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

I found a part-time role through that portal and started as a trainer at a rate higher than my full-time job and that could potentially make up for or exceed the shortfall.

Another less direct way money flowed into our lives was when a friend who manufactures dried noodles gave us a few cartons of his dried noodles.

We decided to share it with a few friends.

2 days ago, we got a call to collect prepared meals from one of the friends we shared the noodles with.

The raw, uncooked noodle that we got through another friend was converted into 2 days worth of meals for our entire family prepared by a fantastic cook!

That’s how money can flow into your life in unconventional ways.

You just have to pay attention and be grateful for all the ways it shows up.

5. Start With An Easy Action

The fifth step is to begin with the easiest action.

If your financial goal is to reduce expenses, maybe the first easiest action is to download an expense tracker app.

Or just get a small notebook and pen that fits in your purse or pocket to start tracking your expenses.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with everything you have to do when you’re trying to work through fear and confusion.

This can stop you from even starting in the first place.

To begin taking action towards your financial goal, start with the easiest action.

Don’t look down on this one small, little action.

Every big thing starts with the smallest action.

If you start too big with an action that’s too hard or something you don’t really want to do, it’s unlikely you’ll stick with it in the long term.

Without long term, sustained action, you can’t transform your life.

6. Celebrate Each Small Action You Complete

The sixth step is important.

Celebrate when you complete your first easy action.

I learned this in BJ Fogg’s book, Tiny Habits.

We are more likely to keep doing something when we feel good doing it.

This is what will keep us going.

Celebrating is about feeling good about what you’ve done.

It can be something as simple as just telling yourself, ‘Yes! I did it!’

This is exactly what I do when I get my simple actions done.

It’s helped me get from simple, easy actions, to bigger, more difficult ones.

7. Keep Going

Finally, keep going.

Too many people give up when things don’t turn out they want it to, at the time they want it to.

So they give up.

They give in to the frustration of taking action over and over again and not seeing results they want.

If that happens, see what you should be learning from it rather than arguing with the reality of what’s happening.

Then fine-tune your actions.

And keep going.

Don’t stop until you achieve your goal.

Your Success is Inevitable

No matter what happens, remember that you are the master of your life.

Let go and stop arguing with your current reality.

Instead, identify the financial goals that will change your current reality.

Then prioritize which goal that if you achieve, will bring the most impact and financial well-being to you.

Start with the easiest action that gets you closer to that goal and celebrate every time you do it.

If you take these steps as you work through your financial goals and keep going, no matter how small the steps are, over time, you will achieve your financial goals.

As you achieve one small goal, then the next, then the next, you’ll start to build faith in yourself and your capabilities.

Most importantly, you’ll know that no matter what’s happening in your external world, you’ll be okay.

When you have faith in yourself and know that everything will be okay, that’s when you’ll stop worrying about money and experience financial wellness.