Worrying about Money? 3 Ways to Cope

There could be an entire nation created just from people worrying about money. Money worries are ripping apart families, stifling corporate growth, paralyzing professional development, and creating stress and tension in gigantic proportions.

Worrying is not the answer. Many of us worry because of our misguided beliefs that it demonstrates we are concerned and focused on the problem. That may be true, but the wrong strategy. Focusing on the problem is exactly what we do not want to do.

Worrying points us in the wrong direction. We focus on what’s missing, what is gone, and the reasons we can’t do what needs to be done. It zaps our energy and causes stress leading to other problems that compound our worries.

Fight the urge to worry. Worrying becomes a habit that must be broken over time. Worrying will not add 1 ounce of solution to your money problems. Use these three steps to reduce worry:

1. Concentrate specifically on positive actions. Put all of your effort into moving forward doing anything possible to advance. Otherwise, you will waste valuable time, miss opportunities, and fight negativity.
2. Focus on today. Today is all that counts. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow will have worries of its own. Doing what you can today is all that matters. Stop futurizing as if you know what the future will bring.
3. Change your relationship with your money. Money is NOT security. True security is having an accurate self-worth. No amount of money will provide security, therefore, lack of money does not equal insecurity. Uncertainty maybe, but not insecurity.
   

Do not let money worries destroy your health. Change your money mindset to work for you and face the truth for empowering freedom.

Busyness = Importance

By today’s standards, if you are very, very busy then you are also important. Many people brag about how busy they are and how much of a load they carry. Most today are proud to say, “I’m off the chart busy,” as they beam in the glory of importance.

I’m not putting these people down. Heck, almost everybody is included and I can be one as well. What is busy, anyway? What if we had a busyness scale on which to compare ourselves with other extreme busyheads. Let’s see, there could be Obama busy on right and retired busy on the left. Where would you fit in this scale?

If you were around people that were high on the Obama end of the scale, would you dare brag, or complain, about being so busy? What would they say to you? Or maybe how long would they laugh or put up with you? It’s a fair question, because I think it shows that “busy management” is a skill set rather than something out of our control.

Aren’t the figureheads with worldly responsibility better busy managers than you and I? Isn’t our ability to grow and manage our busy lives what determines if busyness stops us or propels us forward? So is busyness your enemy or your friend?

Controlling our demanding schedules includes skills and mindset. Manage your busyness with joy and a positive outlook. If you learn to deal with this load, there is a bigger load of busyness just waiting for those able to carry the responsibility.

Busyness = Importance? Not really. But managing busyness = greater responsibility and that will land you in very important positions

Difficult vs. Hard

Seth Godin writes one way to set yourself apart is to do the difficult work. Hard work can be done by many ambitious soles. Hard work is doing reports, paper work, your daily professional duties, cleaning the house, running kids, and battling laundry.

Difficult work, however, is what we tend to procrastinate; writing, creating, having tough conversations, self-transformation, saving money, and learning new software. T. Harv Eker says that wealthy people do the difficult work that makes life easy. They do what is next in spite of how they feel, whether they want to, or if it's convenient.

My question is why do we avoid the difficult work? Here are at least a few of the reasons:

• We're out of our comfort zone with difficult work.
• We don't believe we have what it takes for completion.
• We believe our resources are inadequate.
• We get distracted. Difficult work may require deep concentration.
• Simply, it's just plain difficult and who wants to do difficult? It's just too hard.

Difficult work stops my clients' progress more than anything else. Mine as well. What about you? What additional roadblocks are stopping you from achieving an outstanding life? Or is achieving the most solid blockage of all? We keep thinking our best life will eventually "happen" to us, when in fact, we must earn it out right with the difficult work.

The solution lies in our perception of difficult work. We must change the way we think about difficult, which in turn, will drive a new way of processing these major challenges.