How to Feel Good about Your Money in Midlife
Ah, money. It can be a beast. The very thing we need to fuel our lives often incites anxiety and shame—even in the middle third of our lives when we've done so much and accrued such wisdom. Toss in a volatile economy, kids' tuition, the desire to do many things, and just the cost of living, we can find ourselves floating in uncertainty.
This anxiety is wildly common, says money mindset coach Emily King. And it's also changeable. Emily specializes in helping people see that money is an opportunity that needn't be tied up with stress. She believes we can feel good about our money—whether we're 38, 58, or 79.
So we asked Emily, How can we shift our minds around our finances? What are the right moves? In her warm and irreverent style, Emily guides us. She offers some mindset shifts, which we can start today, to move from uncertainty to clarity and power in the middle third. And if you're anxious over thinking middle age is too late to talk about money, Emily has the salve: "The more we talk about it and the more we normalize money conversations, the better our mental health is going to get.”
Chatting with Emily King
Midlife is a time of many things—reinvention, curiosity, finding your footing. What do you often see when it comes to midlife women and their relationship to money?
I find a lot that they're fed up. Because at this point, by midlife, we've seen a lot— illness, death, job loss, and this brings to mind the thought of I have to live now. And I need to make the changes I want to make. And this can include making changes around money. Most of the women I see in their forties and fifties are ready to do what they've wanted since childhood but maybe weren't ready for or were scared of being judged for it. They want to invest in themselves now and do it.
Money fears and anxiety are real and rampant, and they see no age. When working with your clients, how do you shift their money mindset toward a positive one?
Awareness is the key to changing anything. If you're not aware of the problem, or if you can't clearly define the problem, it's hard to find a solution. So, I have my clients inventory their thoughts around money—because our thoughts create our reality. Whether they're in debt, not where they thought they would be in their career, or unsure of their financial abundance, it's important to go inward first.
I have my clients set an alarm for three times a day. When that alarm goes off, I have them write down their thoughts and feelings. For instance, maybe their first thought when they woke up was, I can't pay this bill, or There isn't enough money in my account. In Canada, where I live, financial stress is the number one stressor above anything else—and this is similar in the US. This is real. So, once we get these thoughts on paper, or we can record a voicenote to ourselves, we then can start to chip away at them one at a time. I call these money blocks.
From there, we offer forgiveness. There is a beautiful Hawaiian forgiveness prayer called Ho'oponopono, which uses four statements and repeats them: I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. I have my clients bring to mind their money blocks that they're feeling frustrated about. Let's say they're in their late forties, haven't paid off student debt, and are frustrated with themselves. I tell them to take that situation, hold it in their heart, and repeat those four statements. This will start to release the shame and bring compassion to their situation. And even if it doesn't release shame in that moment, it will help the person to see it differently. There is beauty in this willingness.
It's so rare to hear the words compassion and willingness in the same sentence as money.
Here's the interesting thing. I mentioned this in my TEDx talk about money and debt. I brought up Brene Brown's three ingredients for shame to grow. She says shame needs secrecy, silence, and judgment to thrive. But if you douse shame with empathy, it can't survive. So for someone who is willing to approach their finances differently, and maybe they're going to someone like me or making a meeting at a bank or with a financial advisor, that is starting to break apart that straightjacket of shame. Even opening up to someone by saying, 'I'm feeling stressed about money,' and then someone responding, 'Yeah, me too,' that can offer a sense of not being alone. This is why I offer group programs. What's personal is universal. And while somebody might not be going through the exact same thing as you, there are elements of it that we can relate to, making us feel not alone. And then we feel it's almost like a breath of fresh air, so we can work through it and the action steps to get to the other side.
Let's say someone is really in that 'straitjacket of shame,' as you say, around money. She may be well into middle age and feel it's too late to start even considering changing her mindset around her money fears or messes. What do you say to her, Emily?
For someone who is really stuck in this mindset, it's about picking apart the one small step they can do first. The one step that's going to move them forward. For someone, this could be logging into their bank account to look because they've been too terrified to see what's in there. You open it up a few times a week and look. In doing this, you remove this judgment, the secrecy, the silence. For someone else, it could be having a conversation with your partner in your life and saying, 'Hey, I'd love for us to set up a time to chat about how we can start to save this or pay off X debt.' It is about starting where you are and removing the secrecy.
I created what I call a One Dollar a Day Debt Repayment Plan. The premise is that you put at least one dollar down on your debt every single day. You may think, Well, you're only going to pay down $365 in a year on your debt. That's nothing, Emily. Here's the thing: The act of looking at your debt is huge, putting you in the driver's seat. It also pushes away one of the worst mindsets you can have with money: ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to your money. You need to look at it. What you measure gets improved. So, the person puts one dollar a day down on their debt and starts to see the extra money in their life, and they start to have these tiny shifts into feeling abundant. Most people don't focus on paying down debt—and when they get extra money, they spend it and keep repeating patterns. This trick is a mindset shift that steers you away from ignorance is bliss and into the driver's seat. This is important, too, because most banks or financial institutions want to have the ignorance is bliss mindset to maximize your interest.
I had a client, a single mom who was pregnant at the time. Her partner had left her, and she had credit card debt that she wanted to pay off before her baby was born. She used this method and wrote to tell me how amazing she felt and how free and empowered she was. So, in doing this, you are getting in the driver's seat, feeling empowered, and seeing how you actually are abundant.
Emily King is a money mindset coach, business mentor, and host of ‘The Money and Miracles Podcast.’ Learn more and book a session with her at emilyking.ca.
Interview by Stacey Lindsay exclusively for Liberty Road.