Money and Your Emotions 3.0

The Most Powerful Emotions that Affect Your Financial Intelligence

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Every time you let your emotions hijack your money making decision, you will feel a mixture of exhilaration, guilt, and regret.

My friend, Molly Triffin of “Life Hacker” identifies 8 emotions that could harm your Financial Intelligence, drive bad money decisions and how you can control them.

I am going to highlight and build on her points in today’s series…

★1. Anxiety ?

An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event.

Another name for it is worry.

If you worry a lot about money maybe because of a past mistake you are susceptible to making poor Financial decisions like being too conservative with your investments or not investing at all.

Anxiety will make you to always be afraid of investment, afraid of the stock market and afraid of losing money.

As a result, you may be missing out on great Wealth Creation opportunities.

★2. Jealousy ?

As social creatures that we are, it is perfectly normal for us humans to feel a little bitter or even jealous when our best friends buys something we cannot afford.

We are in a constant state of comparison.

But if you find yourself becoming obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses — who, for all you know, might be neck deep in debt — chances are you’ll end up overspending and sabotaging your own budget as a result.

★3. Regret ?

Are you feeling sorry about missing out on an opportunity to invest in something that is now making many rich?

Are you regretting why you did not start saving money at your young age?

It is usually said that the best time to plant an apple tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today.

If you allow your regret to get over you, you’ll end up not putting aside money at all and that victim mentality will prevent you from moving forward.

★4. Embarrassment ?

You are a student or young graduate barely surviving on your pocket money or monthly salary. Garri and beans is your stable diet.

But you want to impress that girl you asked out so you took her to Kilimanjaro or Apples. She ordered for two plates of fried rice and chicken @ N1,200 each + N300 soft drinks.

When you’re done, you feel too embarrassed to ask her to split the bill even if it means living on biscuits and groundnuts for the next 2 days.

That’s your emotions affecting your money making decision.

★5. Sadness ?

Most times, some windfall (free) money comes with a cloud of grief. For example, a sudden inheritance that comes to you from the death of a loved one, a divorce settlement or any other sad event.

When there’s a sense of grief attached to money, people could decide to avoid taking about it altogether or touching it.

There money becomes a symbol of mourning and brings them more sadness whenever they think about it.

In this emotion, it is easy to make a poor financial decision just to get rid of the money.

★6. Guilt ?

Perhaps you just won a lottery or the returns on an investment comes out 10 times bigger than you expected.

You now have a feeling that you don’t deserve such a luck hence you begin to overspend the money without a financial plan.

You buy lots of gifts for your merry friends who are so eager to help you squander the money….and before you know it, it’ll all gone.

That’s emotion at work.

★7. Feeling Overwhelmed ?

You just graduated from school and you’re feeling overwhelmed about making money decisions for the first time.

You are deep deep in bad debts and bank loans and you don’t know how to go about setting yourself free.

Whatever your financial story is, feeling overwhelmed about any money issue can paralyze your thinking capacity and might deteriorate into anxiety.

It is one of the sabotaging emotions that prevents you from taking action and tackling what needs to be done to improve your finances.

★8. Overconfidence ?

It is very good to be optimistic about your financial situation and keep up a cheery look. But the moment you cross the line into denial, you know something is wrong.

There is cause for alarm if you are reluctant to have a careful assessment of your financial health because you feel all is well.

In as much as, you need to be optimistic, you also need to be clear headed, realistic and logical about your Finances.

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That’s all for today.

Next we will consider how to detach your emotions from your finances so you can make better money decisions.

Do you have any questions or suggestions? Ask in the comments section below.

Tell me, which of these EMOTIONS have been the most sabotaging for you and how have you been dealing with it?