The biggest worry there is- what if i run out of money?
I’m a big believer in self imposed cognitive dissonance. Questioning our beliefs, perceptions and opinions is essential for our personal evolution as human beings. It’s even more challenging when it comes to our worries and fears. It’s said that worries are nothing more than a corrupt use of our imagination. It creates a reality in our mind that couldn’t be further away from the truth, yet we perceive it as real and tangible and react to it physically and mentally. Our reaction is often unconscious and gradually brings us down, making us feel sad and flooded with negative thoughts. For me it has been a struggle recently, as i try to remain positive and negate the corrupt worries despite the work overload and the many challenges i have been facing running my businesses.
We worry about many things, too many things. Relationships, our future, our appearance, our abilities, they are all high on the list of worries. But perhaps the biggest worry there is has to be about money. I never truly understood my worry about money, as rationally it doesn’t make any sense. Firstly, when properly defining what money actually is, the worry for it should vanish. For me, for example, money is the tangible value we give products and services. Often this is not entirely our own value but a value which was set by others. We do, however, have the choice of giving our consent to the valuation, simply by purchasing the product or service. This is also true when we are the ones offering our product, service or time. Society sets the rate for the value of what we offer, especially our time, to ensure that everyone’s time is equally valued when their skills aren’t specialized. But when we offer something special, unique and in demand or when we invest in ourselves and our skills or knowledge, our value increases and thus we are worth more. It’s therefore clear that we should strive to increase our value on a daily basis, gain knowledge, develop useful skills and develop a healthy self confidence. It’s often the case that people do possess incredible skills but aren’t aware of them due to low self esteem.
In a future article, i will focus on how to develop your self confidence, but for now remember this- you always get what others perceive you deserve and worth. Whenever you find yourself worrying about money, immediately reflect on your skills and ask yourself what can you do to increase your value. This way of thinking has truly transformed my life and while i still worry about money, it has become another driver for self improvement and personal growth.
There’s another reason why worrying about money isn’t rational and it has to do with our lifestyle. Our worries are nothing but liars but their lies our quite effective. They take over one of our most amazing tools, our imagination, to create a horrific yet vivid image of everything that can go wrong. Sometimes it’s outrageous how far these worries can go, especially when it comes to money. For instance, my worries often tell me that if i don’t have money i won’t be able to pay my bills which will force me to close my business, get me evicted from my apartment and will ruin my life. It tells me i will embarrass myself in front of everyone who knows me and will live in shame, lonely and miserable.
Rationally we can negate such worry in less than five minutes. By creating a list of our expenses, we can see that we need a certain amount to pay all of our expenses. We can also examine our lifestyle and see whether we should make some changes to start saving. When we lack clarity and live on autopilot, worries have a much easier time penetrating our mind and planting poisonous seeds that grow slowly. When we know our numbers, our expenses and our personal value, we can clearly see how ridiculous this fear is.
I will end with this- in case you truly don’t have much money, think of yourself as a success story in the making. The success story we all love always involves a poor beginning, a struggle, a life changing moment and amazing success. The struggle, is often in our mind and you must beat it and invest in your value to be prepared when your life changing moment comes.