How to Stop Carrying Too Much Financial Anxiety

Jacob Schroeder   Mar 16, 2021

Your heart starts racing when a credit card rep calls about a payment you accidently missed, and then you turn on the news to see the stock market plummeting 10%, so you log into your 401(k) account in a panic as you berate yourself for not saving more and then wonder whether to sell your stocks to stop the bleeding, which reminds you of John from accounting who told you weeks ago to buy bitcoin, which is, of course, up 5,000%, and you just know he's going to gleefully boast about it at work tomorrow, and since his son plays with your son on the same soccer team, you suddenly remember that you need to spend another freaking $100 on new cleats, along with league registration fees, but you're tired of buying all this sports equipment because you don't even know where to store it, which is one of the reasons why your partner wants to move into a larger home in that one neighborhood everyone wants to live in, except you worry it's too expensive, but now you realize, after several tense arguments, you may have to surrender, though what you really would rather do is just run away and live in an apartment by yourself curled up under a warm, safe weighted blanket.

Any of it sound familiar?

There are certain financial situations when feeling anxious is a rational response: loss of a job, stock market crash, high unexpected expense.

This article is not about those. In a time of elevated financial FOMO (fear of missing out), many people may suffer from self-induced financial anxiety.

We are anxious creatures. Some psychologists suggest anxiety is a by-product of our transition from hunter-gatherers to sedentary citizens. After the agricultural revolution, we started to spend much more time thinking and worrying about the future. The problem is that we often worry more than necessary, our thoughts high-jacked by innumerable possibilities that never come to pass or undesirable situations that are never as bad as we feared.

Seemingly, nothing makes us more anxious than money.

Money-related issues are the death knell of love. Heck, some of us fear running out of money more than death itself. And it doesn't matter if you're rich. According to a Northwestern Mutual study, 85% of Americans reported feeling financial anxiety, spanning all levels of income, race and gender -- and that's before the pandemic.

Financial anxiety is unavoidable. We suffer because we want. Anything you want to achieve in the future is going to cause some friction in the present. But that doesn't mean you should carry more than necessary.

"The heaviest burdens we carry are often the thoughts in our own head."

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://rootofall.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-carrying-too-much-financial-anxiety