229 | When You’re Afraid to Look at Your Finances

Feeling afraid to look at your finances? You’re not alone.

Many people are in the same boat. The good news is there are a few things you can do to reduce and even overcome that fear.

In this episode, let’s talk about a few tips to help you get past your fear so you can get your finances where you want them to be.

• • fear of looking at your finances

  • educating yourself about what’s going on with your finances

  • taking things one step at a time

  • building your tolerance with repeated exposure

  • getting support

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You’re listening to Personal Finance for Lawyers. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom, and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords. By the way, if you’re a lawyer who’s struggling with debt, you’re probably making at least one of five common mistakes. Grab my free guide on how to correct those mistakes and finally get out of debt for good. Head on over to rhothomas.com/guide. That’s G-U-I-D-E.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today, we are talking about when you feel afraid to look at your finances. I have had so many lawyers tell me that they’re afraid to look at their accounts, and it’s actually really common. I saw a statistic that said something like 75% of Americans feel afraid at some point or another to look at their finances or to check their checking account or whatever. And don’t quote me on the statistic like it was somewhere around there was just a large majority of people have felt afraid to look at their finances at some point. Now, let me start by saying I am not a mental health professional. I’m not licensed. I’m not a, you know, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, any of that kind of thing. So if you are in a situation where you feel afraid to look at your money all the time, like it’s an ever present thing, and you think it might be a symptom of a broader mental health challenge, definitely get professional help. But in this situation, I just want to talk to people who are, you know, feeling afraid to look at their checking account or look at their finances from time to time. So this episode is not intended to treat any kind of mental health challenge. What I’m thinking about is people who maybe feel afraid from time to time, but when they’re not thinking about their money, they’re not feeling afraid. So I’m gonna share some tips to help with that situation, and the first one is to educate yourself about what’s going on with your finances. There is an inverse correlation between fear and knowledge, and what I mean by that is often when we don’t know about a thing, we feel afraid about it, right? When we don’t have the details, we don’t have the knowledge, it feels scary and a lot of times, our minds build things up to be bigger than they actually are, but when we take the time to look into the thing, when we take the time to get the details, when we learn what’s going on, it feels less scary. So an example that I give a lot is a kid who is afraid of the monster in their room. When they turn off the light like they can’t see the details. They don’t know what’s going on, all they see is this scary figure in their room. But when you turn the light on, it’s actually just their, you know, chair with their jacket and some toys on it in the corner. When we shine a light on things, and we get that knowledge, we learn more about it, then it feels less scary. That fear dissipates. So one of the things I do with my clients is I have them look at their spending for at least the last month. Getting that information allows us to see what’s been happening with their finances without any sort of guidance or help, like before they got any sort of help with it, what’s been going on. And doing that exercise also allows them to see where their money is going, where they’re naturally spending so that we can create a workable plan to achieve their goals. They always feel better being able to see where their money’s going, even if they don’t necessarily like everything they’re seeing, even if they want to make some changes, like just being able to see what’s happening gives them a sense of relief. And so I want to encourage you to actually look at what’s going on with your finances, because when you do, you will be able to clear up some of the fear that you might be feeling right, although it might feel scary on the front end, actually having that information will help you to feel more knowledgeable about what’s going on and will help to relieve some of that fear. Often, things may not be as bad as your mind has built them up to be. So that is what I mean when I say that there’s an inverse correlation between knowledge and fear. You feel more fear about your finances when you don’t know what’s going on, but as you get that knowledge, as you figure out what’s going on, then that fear kind of subsides. The second tip is to remind yourself to take things just one step at a time. Like sometimes we think, if I’m not doing steps a through z, then I might as well not even start with Step A. But you don’t need to focus on every single step. You only need to focus on one. We don’t need to see the whole staircase. We just need to take that first step, for example, putting in your username and password and logging into your account. Just because you log into the account doesn’t mean that you have to do whatever other stuff you think you should be doing with your money right then, right like, open up the account, look at what’s going on in there, and yes, that’s going to be the first step in you doing other things, like getting your finances in order, creating a budget or a spending plan, that kind of thing. But no one says you have to take all those steps right now. So remind yourself that you only have to think about one thing. What’s the first step that you want to take? And don’t feel obligated to take all the other steps and do all the other financial tasks that you’ve been you know, meaning to do, but you haven’t gotten around to. We just need to focus on one thing at a time, and that also helps to clear up some of that fear that you might be feeling, because one thing feels a lot more doable than I got to do 27 different things you the third thing is repeated exposure helps you build up your tolerance. And I don’t know if tolerance is quite the right word there, but I have my clients check in with their spending at least once a week. So they are all up in their account every single week. And because they’re looking at their account, they’re checking in with their spending plan so often, they get more and more comfortable with it. And so it’s not so scary. I have even had clients who decided to do their check ins every day. So like, you know, they’ll just go in at the beginning of the day, look at what they spent the day before, like put those things in their plan, and they are getting even more exposure to their accounts when they’re doing it daily. When you’re looking at it so often, you get so used to seeing it, it doesn’t feel like this big thing anymore. So taking it outside of the financial context when I first started this podcast, I was shaking like when I was recording those first three episodes, my heart was pounding like I was so nervous. I don’t know what people are gonna think, like all of that kind of stuff, but now, over four years in, it doesn’t feel like such a big thing. I’ve done it so often. I’ve gotten so much exposure, so much experience with doing it. It’s just a routine. Now it’s just something that I do, and you might have felt the same thing in your career. So maybe taking a deposition or talking with a client, like reporting something to the client for the first time, going to court, doing a client presentation, all of those things the first time you did them probably felt really big and really scary, and like you, you know you’re really nervous and you don’t know what to do, but as you do it more and more over the years, it doesn’t feel nearly as big. Sure, you might feel a little bit nervous about some of them, because that’s just normal, but doesn’t feel like this huge thing, like it might have done the very first time, or it might have felt the very first time you did it. When you are exposed to things more and more, and you get used to it, then you keep doing it over and over again, and it just becomes kind of commonplace. It’s no longer a big scary thing. So the same thing is true of your finances. When you are just used to going in that account over and over again, you’re doing it weekly or daily, or whatever the cadence is for you, you get used to it. It becomes more commonplace, and it’s no longer so scary you the final tip is to get support from a friend or a family member or a professional like a financial coach. I have sat on calls with my clients as they open up their bank account for the first time in months or years, and sometimes it feels better or more comforting to do, like those scary feeling type of things with support. And your person could be physically there with you, or they could be on the phone or on a zoom call, like I’ve done with my clients. And it’s not that they have to be, like sitting there looking at your account or looking at your numbers, but it’s just that kind of moral support of like having somebody there as you do it, so you’re not facing it alone. It might still feel a little scary, but that does help to lessen it a little. So those are just a few tips I have for you if you’re feeling scared to look at your finances. And again, this is not meant to be any sort of mental health treatment plan or anything like that. That is not my ministry. I’m not licensed to do that. So if you think you need mental health support, like professional support, be sure to reach out to somebody who is licensed in those areas. All right, so that’s it for this week’s episode. Please share this with a friend or two who you think could use this information you directly sharing the episode with your friends is how we get this information out to more lawyers who need it. And as always, I greatly appreciate your support. As we close out friend, I pray that you take the information you learn here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently week after week, you’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live the life of freedom and choice, you deserve. Talk to you later.