Propel Your Progress by Searching for Money Worries
Welcome to Part 3 of my series examining how to address anxious thoughts about money. Read Part 1: How Thoughts Shape Financial Anxiety and Part 2: Challenging Thoughts Related to Financial Anxiety before delving into this article.
Having set a strong foundation, we will explore how to develop a more balanced perspective on money systematically. Commonly, clients complete a few Challenging Your Financial Thoughts Worksheets and find benefits. However, people often fail to apply this method widely enough to experience large changes.
To maximize your progress, you must search for and examine your money worries. The first step in this process is to use the Thought Log to create a master list of your primary money-related thoughts. To fill the list, consider the following ideas:
Review your monthly income and expenses for the last 3 months. You can do this with bank statements, your online bank account(s), or budgeting software (e.g., Rocket Money, Simplifi, You Need a Budget). Consider positive or negative emotional reactions to specific items. If you have a notable emotion related to an item, there is certainly a related thought or judgment. For instance, pride related to a donation to a charity, shame about multiple shopping expenses, or anger that your partner spent money on something you view as unnecessary. Record your thoughts related to each emotional reaction on the Thought Log for further examination.
Notice any money conversations you feel compelled to avoid (e.g., How much to save for education, how much to spend on the next vacation, what to do with an inheritance, how to address debt). Identify the related thoughts and add them to the Thought Log.
Consider any spending you have been hiding from or minimizing to a partner and the related thoughts.
If you have a money habit you are trying to change–such as reducing spending, increasing savings, or initiating a regular financial check-in with a partner–record your thoughts related to these habits.
Judgments about yourself or others can be very fruitful avenues for exploration. Everyone makes money mistakes, so use this to your advantage and add the specific judgments to the Thought Log. Often, we judge the actions of others harshly because we don’t like the same behavior in ourselves. This can be a useful path to identifying more financial beliefs.
Seek out news about financial markets, layoffs, or the economy and record the thoughts that arise.
Finally, the workplace is a goldmine for financial worries. Pay attention to your emotional responses to reports on the company budget, downsizing or expansion, changes in benefits, or beliefs about the likelihood of promotion.
By now, you should have a substantial list of money worries on your Thought Log. Start working through the list by challenging each thought using the Challenging Financial Thoughts Worksheet. If additional worries arise while challenging one thought, add them to your Thought Log and continue focusing on one thought at a time. Approaching your financial worries methodically will allow you to think more flexibly and realistically. You will be less likely to make money mountains out of molehills. In turn, your anxiety will decrease and you will take healthier, more values-congruent actions in your financial life. The next article in this series will explore what to do when a distressing financial thought is true.