How Not To Worry About Money

We work all our lives with the goal of not having to worry about money. Maybe money isn’t your main goal, but you want enough freedom to pursue your real goals.

If you plan to delay your happiness until that moment, you’re going to spend a long time feeling unsatisfied. First things first, there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever reach financial freedom, even though it sounds harsh.

And worrying about money certainly doesn’t help you get there faster.

All that matters is to do the best you can with the time you have. They say you need to stop thinking about money in order to make money.

How Does One Not Worry About Money?

Well, money is a result of different factors. It’s a consequence you create for doing things right. It’s having a plan to build your wealth, so you needn’t worry about it.

You can have peace of mind TODAY by knowing you’re in the right direction to make it happen. You don’t need to wait until you’re successful to stop worrying.

Now, worry is a behavior we use when trying to protect something we can lose.

It’s funny how we think that we will worry less when we save more money. But really, you worry even MORE because you now need to protect a bigger amount. More money won’t solve financial stress. Financial confidence will. This article will show you how to do it:

Never rely on a single plan

In the beginning, it’s okay to focus on one thing as long you control what happens to it. But most of the time, that’s not the case:

None of these sources is perfect, but it’s smart to have all of them. They say the average millionaire has seven or more sources of income, not to get rich, but to stay rich.

One income stream will never be safe enough to create lasting wealth. But it’s more than enough to invest in other sources of income.

It’s okay to only work on a job or a business. But that shouldn’t be the whole plan, just part of it.

If your main income stream fails, you’ll still make profits from the others. With that stability, your main income stream has enough time to recover.

Don’t rely on your sources of income

I know this contradicts what we’ve just said. But when you think about it, it’s harder to create sources of income than it sounds. They certainly don’t appear by accident.

So how do you get more? You develop the skills and knowledge necessary to do so.

In other words, you are responsible for your financial freedom, not your sources of income. Imagine you lose all your streams, money, and contacts. What do you have left? That’s where financial confidence comes from.

“No matter what happens, I can make money.”

So even if you don’t have much saved up right now, you can still be confident if you’re always learning:

All this knowledge is priceless, and nobody can take it away from you. It will keep you rich regardless of the economy.

Sure, you can fail many times. But you really need to get it right once. Because once you do, you’ll never forget it. You can do it as many times as you want.

Emergency Funds

Can you believe that, at one point, even Bill Gates worried about money? You’re going to get crazy if you try to anticipate every single factor of the economy.

Yes, we all make mistakes all the time. But that shouldn’t affect your mental wellbeing. What are the consequences of making a mistake? You can already imagine the risk when Bill Gates couldn’t pay his employees. What did he do? He created a one-year emergency fund.

You know things are going to get tough at some point. Instead of trying not to make any mistakes, it’s a lot easier to allow yourself a margin of error. That’s the emergency fund.

So it doesn’t matter what happens: lose your job, your investments, your clients, or your business. With one year’s worth of savings, you can work your way back up as if nothing happened. Had you not saved that money, it would be Game Over.

As you can see, it’s not that the rich are doing everything right. More like the contrary: they expect them to fail all the time, so they prepare for it. It’s much easier to relax and think rationally when you’re not one mistake away from bankruptcy.

You might be in a tough situation right now. So if you don’t have any spare money (seriously, who does?), start by reserving part of your profits for emergencies.

Every month, you’re gonna put aside 10%, 20%, 30%. You can use the same strategy to save for retirement. 401Ks don’t tax your dollars until you withdraw decades later.

Know your numbers

Many of us have this strange, bad habit. When there’s too much going on in your personal finance, we try to feel better by not looking at the numbers.

Whenever you have to update your financial information, you have to recall all this mess.

Sometimes, we just delay the accounting because we don’t see any benefit from doing it. And when it’s too complex, it may take you the whole day to find out your numbers.

That also means you won’t stop thinking about it until you figure out.

The brain hates uncertainty. So it will try to make an (optimistic) estimate of what you earn or owe.

Naturally, what you think you have has nothing to do with what there really is. So whenever you check it, you get frustrated:

Nobody likes those revelations. But you can’t solve a problem you don’t know you have. It certainly won’t go away by hiding from it.

If you add this to your schedule, personal accounting won’t take more than an hour per week. And it does wonders for your mental health.

If you don’t want to worry about money:

Once you have a plan and follow it, you’re suddenly not worrying anymore.

And please, keep finance simple. Accounting systems only work if you use them. Complexity confuses the brain.

Build up your credit score

You might think that those who have a higher score worry more about money. Because it’s harder to keep that mark.

Actually, you can’t reach an excellent credit score unless you build your history. These people have spent YEARS working on their financial habits, which is why they’re so confident. The higher your score is, the more help you receive, which makes it easier to keep it high.

It’s not because they’re lucky or frugal. They don’t worry because they trust a system, not themselves.

Do you think they worry about making a mistake? Maybe. But if they do, they can easily borrow money at the best rates. And they have no debt.

It certainly didn’t happen overnight. So if you want to improve your FICO score, you should start as soon as possible.

Learn about scam prevention

There’s nothing worse to keep you up at night than a scammer stealing your money. How can you relax with all these crooks trying to get into your account?

Easy. Educate to avoid being the next victim. And have a recovery plan in case that happens.

There’s no easy way to do it. You can learn it the hard way or learn it by yourself.

If you’re lucky, you may never fall for a scam. Perhaps you think you’re too smart to fall for one, or that scammers can’t find you. But when you worry about money, you want to be prepared for everything.

Not everyone will approach you the same way:

Each of us has a weakness. That’s why we suggest you start with the category that appeals to you the most. If you’d like to make a surface sweep instead, here’s what all scammers have in common and what confidence tricks they use.

Keep in mind that scammers can steal the identity of your friends or family, and they play with that to con you. You’re not safe unless you share your knowledge with everyone around you.

Quit chasing the money

When you don’t have much money, you neither know where to get it. But you start hearing of all these opportunities, and how you should get in fast before it’s too late.

Almost every week, you find a new business model that’s supposed to change the game. Or you find videos explaining why a stock is going to explode. So you don’t want to miss out.

With so many distractions, you end up splitting your time across dozens of projects, most of which make no money. Why is that?

Almost every business model works. There’s not one that’s better than another. And you certainly don’t make more money by starting multiple. It only increases complexity.

Wherever you spend the most time and money will be your best source of income. So instead of worrying about opportunities, pick one and stick to it.

The same philosophy applies to investing. You want to always do your own research regardless of what the world is screaming at you. By trusting your strategy, you stop worrying about what others think about the situation.

Why You Should Stop Worrying About Money

It’s true that obsessing about money will raise your standards. You’ll be much more likely to achieve your goals. But the effects of worry are much more concerning than money:

It’s impractical

Worrying about money can be strategic to know how to earn more, save it, or invest. But most of the time, we think of money while in the middle of a completely unrelated task. That means we can’t apply any advice we give ourselves. We don’t have an active trigger.

So all you’re doing is putting pressure on yourself and consuming your mental capacity.

Work gets harder

When we think of all our problems, it’s much harder to enjoy what we have. Which makes it steeper to do the necessary work to solve those problems.

Is being grateful important for you or not? One thing we do know is, problems require attention. If you don’t stop worrying, you’re not being present and can’t focus on the solution.

You get tired easily

Let’s ignore the fact that you constantly bombard your mind with money issues. Too much worry prevents you from recovering from work.

Haven’t you ever tried to sleep but can’t stop stressing about money? Or maybe you just finished your work for the day, but you’re still thinking of all you need to do. So you never truly rest on those moments. You come back to work sleep-deprived.

It affects the people around you

When worrying about money, it’s common to focus too much on oneself, trying to protect from all those problems. Ironically, it feels like nobody understands your situation.

That’s because people can only treat you the way you treat them. If you stay trapped in yourself, others will not give you the support you want.

Opportunity cost

You spend huge amounts of energy when you could have used it instead to make more money.

That doesn’t mean you should never think about your finances. But it’s not the same. If you’re doing logical reasoning in accounting, that’s good. But if instead, you’re trying to justify your situation with excuses, that’s not that good.

The Bottom Line

People have legit reasons to worry about money. After all, your obsessions become your possessions.

And yes, there’s always something you can do better. It doesn’t matter how much you prepare.

But the fact that you know your mistakes and what to do already says that you’re ready for this situation. So instead of worrying about what you haven’t achieved, worrying about being the right person.

To stop worrying, you need to trust your ability to succeed. “No matter how hard it gets, I’ll figure out. Even if I don’t know the answer yet.”