Many of us want to improve our well-being. But efforts do not bring results. It seems that everything is working against us: the crisis, loan payments, sudden expenses. I don’t have enough money, I want more... Or maybe I just don’t want it?
In this article we will tell you:
- Attitudes that prevent you from earning money.
- How parents convey to us their attitude towards earning money.
- Why are we sometimes afraid of money?
- How do traumatic events affect our relationship with money?
- How to understand your attitudes: practice.
“It’s better to be healthy and rich than poor and sick!” is an obvious statement that is often said ironically. But who would have thought that the obvious is actually not for everyone.
No, we are not talking about those who choose asceticism in search of their spiritual path. There are many ordinary people among us who seem to want material growth, but in fact... don’t want it.
Sometimes we ourselves don’t even realize how much we are afraid of money. After all, big money means big changes in life, big responsibility, and perhaps also changes in relationships with others. On this score, a huge number of attitudes have formed in our heads that play against financial success.
We talked about this with three practicing psychologists and psychotherapists, specialists in working with the financial sector.
Attitudes that prevent you from earning money
We asked psychotherapist Ksenia Blinova, who has been working as a financial and business consultant for more than 10 years, and psychologist Ekaterina Oksanen to highlight the most popular negative attitudes regarding money that experts encountered in working with clients.
It turned out that different people at the top have the same beliefs. Here they are:
- Money is a shame, it’s bad for yourself to take money.
- Me and money are not meant for each other.
- I'm a poor man.
- Money is dangerous, something bad will happen to me.
- Money spoils people.
- We didn’t live richly, there’s nothing to start with.
- You can't get rich honestly.
- Success attracts envy; it’s better not to stand out.
- All rich people are swindlers, swindlers and thieves.
- Money leads to conflicts in the family. Either money or love.
- Money comes only through very hard work.
- I can't earn more than my parents.
- Without connections there is no money.
- There is not enough money for everyone.
Such attitudes can manifest themselves, for example, in laziness, which prevents us from earning more. However, when we have a fear of success or active negative attitudes about money, our difficulties can look not just like laziness, but even more often as chronic bad luck, lack of job offers, sudden expenses immediately after earning something.
For example, we are offered a good job, and we suddenly feel that we have absolutely no energy to complete it (although before that we had enough energy for everything).
Or, in order to receive a substantial amount of money, we need to draw up some documents, but we constantly postpone this process, we always don’t have time.
Or we receive a large sum, but immediately spend it in stores on things that we actually don’t really need.
Treatment
Naturally, at the first symptoms of peniaphobia, you should consult a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. They work in collaboration so that if necessary, they will refer to each other.
Recommendations to go to a psychiatrist should not be frightening. This does not mean that you will be locked in a clinic and abused, as shown in many films about insane asylums.
No, a consultation with a doctor is necessary so that he can prescribe accompanying medication.
That is, sedatives to relieve anxiety to eliminate panic attacks and help the nervous system relax.
If the lack of money frightens him so much that the phobe cannot sleep at all and is tormented by nightmares, he will prescribe sleeping pills.
Or antidepressants, if obsessive ideas about possible beggary have led to a state of apathy and lack of any desires other than to finally stop suffering and die.
It is also important to undergo therapy with a psychotherapist. After all, how to get rid of a phobia without understanding why it arose, what feelings were not expressed, and in general, where to start?
The most effective areas in this matter are Gestalt therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnosis.
If you are surrounded by a peniaphobe, do not rush to condemn him and demand that he be less greedy.
For him, losing money is commensurate with death and coping with this fear by willpower will not work. If only because he is not able to control himself and his feelings.
How parents convey to us their attitude towards earning money
For financial success, love for your business is very important, which attitudes can also block.
Family history plays a role here, in particular, parents’ attitude to money and work. Did they enjoy their activity? Did you bring money into the house with difficulty or ease? How exhausted were you?
If our parents have suffered at work all their lives, we are unlikely to think that work is healthy and good. But without love for your business, it is extremely difficult to achieve financial success.
What does it take to love your job? The following beliefs:
- I love what I do.
- I am a professional in my field.
- The world needs me and the results of my work.
There is another extreme: our parents were so passionate about making money that they paid almost no attention to us. Then a dislike for money could also take root in our heads, or rather, a deep resentment towards work, because it actually took away our time with loved ones. Sometimes we decide to at all costs not be as workaholic as mom or dad, so as not to repeat their mistakes in relation to our children.
Psychotherapist Ksenia Blinova confirms that most often the fear of money, the fear of becoming rich are associated with negative attitudes put into our heads before the age of 10. This could be a family attitude, regularly repeated phrases by one of the significant adults, their examples. A child unconsciously develops a picture of the world that is quite difficult to change in adulthood. After all, it’s easier for us to rely on something understandable, on something already accepted by our psyche.
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Now let's give a couple of examples from life.
Story 1: “Money is a shame, it’s bad for yourself to take money.”
This attitude appeared in a little boy when he decided to go into “business” at school: he sold his homework to his classmates. The teacher called the parents to school and shamed the mother and child. The mother could not withstand the pressure and also shamed the boy using her negative attitudes. A family council of relatives added fuel to the fire of children's shame, where the whole family once again condemned the boy's behavior. This is how the attitude was formed: “I can’t take money for my work, for my idea, for my product - it’s a shame, it’s not accepted.”
There are a lot of stories like this about children who wanted to sell the results of their work (drawings, crafts, chips, homework), but received negative feedback from adults. Most often, it is they who form the attitude that “it’s a shame to take money.”
Story 2: “I am a poor man.”
The girl really wanted a new beautiful phone, like her classmates. But my mother said: “I won’t buy you a phone, because we have a poor family and no money.” One of my classmates carelessly asked: “Oh, you don’t have a phone, are you poor?” This is how the label “I’m poor” stuck, which suggests a certain doom. After all, a poor person is a person who almost never has money, this is not about temporary financial difficulties, this is an attitude towards the future: there is always no money.
Of course, there are situations when there really is no opportunity to buy something. And here the task of parents is not to generalize this experience for the child, but to provide “loopholes” so that the general attitude “I’m poor, this is forever” does not form. For example: “Now we are buying new clothes, we have money for them, this is cool. We’ll buy a phone later” or “Let’s think about how you can earn money for it yourself. Do you want to try?".
But we talked about another popular attitude: “Me and money are not meant for each other.” Does it also come from childhood? Not always. Often this attitude is formed in adulthood, when some methods of generating income have already been tried, but they did not work. Then the idea arises that we are simply not created for money: “Someone is created, but I am not.” But this is a broad setting, which may also hide deeper ones, because something is definitely preventing you from earning money.
Or maybe, having earned money, we are afraid of losing our dreams and interest in life? Will we have nothing left to strive for? Or do we just not know how to live with money?
How to deal with money anxiety
Unfortunately, it will not be possible to describe some universal technique that is suitable for everyone in the fight against financial anxiety. However, among the most common methods, everyone can find something suitable for themselves. We will consider them further.
Analyze your budget
We don’t always think about how much money we spend - we just go to the store for what we need, pay bills, and put some money aside for a “rainy day.”
Or, on the contrary, we save too much on everything, although this approach is not entirely correct: you cannot save on food, clothing and medicine in the same way.
The first thing to do in both cases is to analyze your finances. For example, using a bank’s mobile application – there is a “statistics” item. Or you can download special programs for your smartphone, where you can enter the cost of purchases and other transactions in the categories “home”, “bills”, “entertainment”, “food” and so on. Such apps provide a clear picture of our spending and often make us wonder whether we are allowing ourselves more or less than we can. One evening a month is enough to add up the overall picture of income, expenses and savings.
The second important step is planning a budget before spending it or, conversely, postponing it. Is your best friend's birthday coming up? Save it for a gift for her a month in advance. You need to pay off your loan every month, but this time your premium is much higher than usual? Put the loan amount in the piggy bank for two months in advance.
Why do this? When we need to make a quick decision related to finances, we can't help but become stressed and anxious, not seeing all the options and getting fixated on just one. Accordingly, decisions are not always correct.
Another tip for those who like to make impulse purchases: make a list and take it with you to the store. Buy what you need according to the prepared items, avoiding adding anything unnecessary to your cart. And look at the thing you suddenly like more carefully and ask yourself: “Will it be useful to me in the future? Why do I need it? What's the use of it? In 80% of cases of impulse purchases, if you honestly answer these questions to yourself, the need to purchase such a product disappears.
But if it’s still difficult to refuse impulsive purchases, set aside a certain amount for them, beyond which you won’t allow yourself to go.
Improve your financial literacy
If you are interested in the topic of financial literacy and want to be inspired by its ideas, study techniques and simply learn advice from economically “advanced” people, there are many trainings, courses and presentations on this topic on the Internet. It’s also worth taking a look at the forums: communication and stories from real people are not only interesting, but also make you feel that you are not alone in your endeavor. Don’t forget about Telegram channels: if you often use this messenger, you can find a lot of interesting things there if you search for “financial literacy.”
Stop trying to be perfect
There is nothing ideal in the world, and that's okay. Just like there is no person who manages his finances 100% competently and well. Even millionaires commit financial stupidities - and this is in the order of things: they are people just like us.
If this month you spent more on lunches in the canteen or cosmetics, although you clearly decided that you would not spend more than a certain amount on them, forgive yourself and learn a lesson. And next month, achieve your financial goal.
By the way, goals need to be set that are achievable, and their “cost” may let you down the first time. If it doesn’t work out, in some cases it’s worth recalculating and calming down.
Don't turn into a piggy bank
Having savings is good. But sometimes it goes to the extreme: people save for years and enjoy the growth of numbers on their accounts, while, figuratively speaking, they eat only pasta and sleep on a creaky sofa. Is it worth it? It is necessary to calculate expenses both for savings, urgent payments such as loans and housing and communal services, and for things that bring joy and benefit. Pointless and pointless accumulation will not make you rich, especially if it affects your appearance, nutrition and quality of life.
Discuss plans for two with your partner
When you live with your loved one, new financial issues arise. Determine with him the economic “vector”: from whose salary to replenish savings, and from whose to pay for purchases and services. Distribute your budget together, while leaving each certain amount for personal needs - this way you will avoid not only economic troubles, but also simple misunderstandings in relationships.
Why are we sometimes afraid of money?
Let's imagine that we earned a lot of money and bought what we wanted. What's next? What will we do when we cover all our essential needs? Will we really have nothing left to dream about?
Our psyche is very afraid of emptiness, so it is necessary to always have some plans for life. Doing nothing with money will not work. They need to be constantly put into action, otherwise there will be no flow. Even just large purchases entail an increase in responsibility: the car needs maintenance, the house needs repairs, etc. Any capital needs to be taken care of.
Symptoms
This disorder can cause various manifestations, based on its degree:
- A phobic may refuse money. As a result, daily activities become difficult for him.
- Constantly calculating finances is another symptom of chrematophobia. Those who are poor often feel powerless or find themselves without resources.
- Many phobics isolate themselves socially and may be reluctant to participate in family activities. They find it pointless to purchase basic necessities, or even to watch movies or go to restaurants. This can affect relationships with family and loved ones, developing a feeling of isolation.
- Depression is the main side effect of this phobia. The sufferer is often aware of the irrationality of his thoughts, but feels powerless to control them.
- Sometimes simply looking or thinking about finances can lead to physical symptoms of a phobia, including shaking, trembling, sweating, dry mouth, shortness of breath, nausea, and the urge to scream, cry, or run away.
- When illness occurs, a person may refuse to see a doctor, which often leads to negative health consequences.
Chrematophobia is a debilitating phobia. It is possible that with the availability of electronic money transfers or credit cards, such concerns may be alleviated since the person does not have to physically handle the bills.
How traumatic events affect our relationship with money
Psychologist and business consultant Leonid Kulik talks in detail about how traumatic events experienced can make us consider ourselves unworthy of financial well-being and form incorrect attitudes about ourselves that affect financial success.
Psychological trauma is severe emotional stress from some external event (or series of events, because in the case of trauma regularity plays a significant role), which caused intense experiences that exceeded our adaptive capabilities.
The trauma in this case is not necessarily related to money, it can be any traumatic events that led to the conclusion: “I don’t deserve good things. If the world treats me this way, it means I’m bad.”
The source of such events could be child-parent relationships, when parents showed their love “crookedly”, often punished, led an antisocial lifestyle, ignored, and did not give the right to make mistakes.
If a child is harshly punished or ignored as a child, he will not blame his parents. He will believe that his parents are doing this because there is something wrong with HIM. He is bad and does not deserve to be treated differently, EVERYONE should treat him that way.
Money is a unit of exchange. When we enter adulthood, we begin an exchange with the world. We tell the world: “I am ready to do something, and you give me something in return.” And often the price in this exchange is determined not by market mechanisms, but by internal ones.
If a person is determined that he is one of those who will not earn more, for example, 30 thousand, then he will filter out all offers related to big money.
A person with low self-esteem will find hard work for little money. And having received money for his honest work and time spent, he will feel that it is just luck that will not happen a second time, and will be afraid to spend it. He will also be afraid of a promotion at work, and believe that he cannot cope with such responsibility and higher demands.
In the case of trauma, developing an adequate attitude towards money and oneself requires more serious internal work - psychotherapy. “Home” work with settings is unlikely to help here.
Where does financial anxiety come from?
For each person, the cause of financial anxiety may be different, and often there is even a combination of them. Let us note the most common of them.
Childhood experiences with money
The traumatic economic experience of the parental family can be present in the life of an already grown child, leaving an imprint on all areas of his life, including financial ones.
Many parents explain the refusal to purchase a child’s demand with a simple phrase: “no money,” without any explanation. This can be imprinted in a child's head in different ways. Some people take this fact for granted, others begin to feel embarrassed because of “poverty.” Other children are simply offended or take it personally, concluding that they are simply unworthy of the things they want.
To prevent a child from having a negative experience, and as a result, financial anxiety in the future, you need to explain to your child what money is, where it comes from, and how purchases are distributed. We have already told you exactly how to instill healthy financial habits in your child.
Another point is when the family really lives very modestly, for example, the living space does not allow for separate rooms for the children, the younger children wear out the clothes and shoes for the older ones, everyone is limited in delicious food and entertainment. Children compare themselves with their peers - and very often with those who have something more than them. The situation is even more serious for those who were offended by “wealthy” classmates at school: feelings of indignation, envy, confusion and resentment go side by side with growing up.
It is these children who become very anxious adults who love to count and save money.
Major financial failures
In the modern world, many people want to find their niche in business and work “for themselves.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s a coffee shop or a huge chain of gas stations – everyone has a chance to go broke or lose demand. Many businesses accumulate debts, credit obligations, and fines before closing. Having suffered financial defeat, a business creator faces enormous stress. Naturally, it leaves an imprint and causes financial anxiety. A person thinks about how to cope with debts, what to do next, how to regain wealth? Subsequently, the fear of repeating failure prevents you from adequately assessing your financial behavior.
Or consider a situation where a person received sufficient wages at work, but had to quit, and there are no suitable and decently paid vacancies. Worried that the money will run out completely, the employee gets a job at the enterprise and receives less - now he is overcome by the fear that there will not be enough finances for everything he is used to. This reaction to stress is also quite normal, but only if it lasts a short time. If you worry too much about money and do it constantly, you can get used to restrictions as a norm of life and stop trying to achieve more.
Anxiety due to the abundance of negative news around
News and social media feeds are another trigger for people prone to financial anxiety. They may closely monitor exchange rates and be seriously worried about stories about inflation and the cost of products and services in the market. By the way, many observers really escalate the situation and talk about the economy in such a way that absolutely anyone can experience their share of unrest.
How to understand your attitudes: practice
If attitudes against financial growth have become entrenched in our heads, we will unconsciously do everything to ensure that money passes us by. That’s why it’s so important to discover our attitudes and at least realize that we have them. To work independently, we suggest taking the following steps:
Step 1. Write down on a piece of paper everything that comes to mind regarding money and wealth (quotes, phrases of loved ones, images of rich people), without filtering the bad and the good, but honestly absolutely everything. By the way, if a task causes difficulties, this is also a demonstration of our attitude towards money).
Step 2. Opposite each phrase, write how it is reflected in your life now. For example, if we have the conviction that we don’t need to spend money on ourselves, then we save on things that can bring us joy, we save a lot or give to others.
Step 3. Think about how we would behave if we believed not in these negative attitudes, but in others that lead to success. What would we do if we allowed ourselves success? How would our environment, schedule, and everyday life change? These changes are instructions for overcoming difficulties.
Having carried out such a thorough analysis, many things will become clearer to us. And what we understand, we are able to change. At a minimum, choose new beliefs about money, write them down on paper, and try to live according to these beliefs for at least a week.
Objective reasons for the shortage of money VS internal blocks
Perhaps the reason is that the girl is on maternity leave or her profession does not have much money. Or at work she is paid a fixed salary, asking for a raise is pointless - there are no prospects for career growth. It is impossible to retrain and find another job, because there is no time and money: the girl sits on a salary needle and lives from paycheck to paycheck. It’s difficult for her to open her own business because she has no connections/experience/money.
If you dig around, you can find a bunch of other fairly logical reasons why you don’t have enough money and why it’s impossible to earn more. But here’s the problem: there are specialists worse than you, novice amateurs, only their results are 100 times better! And they are not shy about asking for more money for their services, and they have recognition. Hm. What's the catch then? Is it really in the outside world? Or is the golden key to wealth hidden somewhere inside?
The human subconscious contains programs that distort reality.
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They, like dust or dirt, hide the true state of things. One of these programs is fear of money
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Identifying him as a secret criminal and bringing your fear to a conscious level
is the first step that will instantly bring you closer to a financial breakthrough.
Stop worshiping money
The demonization of money also has a flip side - the deification of the golden calf. A person sees only money, and perceives it not as a tool, but as a deity, as an idol. The desire to have money turns into passion, mania, obsession. Greed pushes some to unseemly and sometimes even criminal acts, while others force them to take excessive risks. For a trader, the deification of money gives rise to those emotions that lead to catastrophic mistakes and ruin: greed, fear of losses, excitement, hopes of hitting the jackpot...
Keep your cool. You should manage your money, not money should manage your thoughts and emotions. You are the owner of money, not the other way around.
