The society likes to equate success as the accumulation of money and wealth. While studies have shown that money increases one’s pride and confidence, money does NOT improve our feelings for others such as compassion, love and gratitude. You might not have much to offer in terms of stability in life right now, but it doesn’t mean you cannot work out a plan towards a stable income. The best kind of love happens when a person fall in love with your personal attributes, not the asset you accumulate. Here are 11 unusual but extremely USEFUL tips to help if you find money is affecting your self-worthiness.
It’s easy to understand why being unable to afford food and other essentials can make people feel like a failure because we feel like “we have nothing to offer”. However, we have to distinguish what is the cause of your current state of being poor. Is it temporary? Or is it over something you have no control?
- First, you SHOULD worry about money.
I’ll be more worried if you don’t. I am going to be brutally honest with you here, I set off onto a two year entrepreneurial journey with my own savings (which is not that much🥲). In additional to my personal overhead costs like insurance and other utilities bills, I planned to spend 1/10 of what I usually do when I have a stable income. A year into it, I hurt my back in an accident which my insurance and emergency fund cannot fully cover…
So, the morale of my story is, life happens, even if you have no kid to feed or family to provide for, it really is impossible to live without money unless you grow your own food, live rent-free, medicine-free and never have an emergency. So what did I do? I made a plan to increase my source of income and gave myself an exact deadline that I have to have an income in, to end the period of uncertainty. My head was instantly clear at the moment I made this decision.
- BUT, is it temporary phase?
There are many circumstances that cause people to loose money, when we are stuck in the period for too long, it’s easy to forget why we are there and just spiral downwards. Is it because of a family debt you have to carry on your shoulders? Did you set off chasing your dreams like I did? Did you loose your job because of unforeseeable circumstances like COVID? Or are you starting over after a divorce? Remember why you start, there is no need to beat yourself up. Be kind to what you say to yourself.
If you have always have a job, or have success in your previous business, that means you always have the ability to come up with a plan to get on your feet again and change your current state.
Arianna Huffington, Cofounder of the Huffington Post have her book rejected 37 times before she succeed. After the 25th rejection, Huffington recalled, “I remembered running out of money and walking, depressed and broke, down St James Street in London, where I was living at the time, and seeing a Barclays Bank,” which she eventually succeed in getting a loan that saved her life according to her interview with qz.com.
See what these other female leaders and entrepreneurs did to turn their lives around when times are bad here: https://thesunnyclub.co/staging/9426/female-ceo-quotes/
- Value your decisions
Even if you failed, it’s part of your decision. Applaud yourself for your courage to taking a risk that most are too scared to all their lives. It’s always the hardest time that test our self-love and self-compassion, right?
Read this out daily if you need a boost in your self-worth, self-esteem and to find love.
- You should be loved by your personal attributes, not the asset you accumulated.
Think about it, if only people that has money deserve to be loved, what will happen to them if they go bankrupt? Do their partners just leave them? Do you really want to have people around you who only respect you for your money?! What about your sense of humour, your kindness, your attention to detail, the knowledge in your head and your infectious passion to change the world?
- Tie your self-esteem with your values instead
If you link your self-worth with external factors like money, power or fame; your self-worth is bound to be unstable. This is because of a lot of times, we have no control over these factors. The global pandemic is a good example, it has caused a lot of successful airlines and restaurants to close down.
Conversely, learn to be proud of what you have achieved, the values you stand for and count your strengths. Love the people around you and Invest in relationship.
- There are different seasons in life
There are cycles and seasons, there are times for investing and planting and there are times for harvesting. Patient and perseverance are arguably the more important factors that determine success (in terms of goal-achieving) than talent.
- You can enjoy your life at no cost
A year into spending all my savings and not making a proper income from my new business, I fell into the valley of despair. Luckily, one day, I felt DONE with being depressed and decided to do something about it.
For over a year, I have been cutting out most of my entertainment expenses to avoid occasions where I have to spend money. This definitely is one of the cause of feeling depressed. Then it dawned on me that I can always have low or no cost alternatives to enjoy my life like going on a hike, visiting free exhibitions, thrift shopping or clothes swapping with friends and uncovering local sight-seeing spots with friends.
- Being broke gives more time to yourself
Silence and me-time are harder to come by when you have a million entertainment options. When I cannot afford to go out, I finally had the time to sit still and finish all the books I have started. The internal work really pays off.
- The most precious moments in life cost nothing
Witnessing your kids’ first steps, sharing a laughter with your loved ones, admiring the first blossom of spring…. we can always make more money, but we can never make more time. Perhaps being broke gives us more space to enjoy these beautiful moments in life with no cost.
- Make sure you have enough sleep
This point might sound random, but it is actually one of the most useful tips you can find. It is scientifically proven that sleep deprivation can increase your likelihood of feeling more difficult emotions. On days where you don’t have enough rest, it’s more likely that you will feel negative and hopeless about your financial or relationship status. The problem definitely feels smaller on the days you have ample rest. Good news, sleep is free!
Read this if you find yourself on verge of burnout with little motivation left in the tank.
- Higher self-worth will increase your net-worth!
Did you know that multiple research has shown that people with higher self-worth have higher salaries? Cocky teenagers actually DO make more money as adults, see this article by Business Insider here! Even you are not financially thriving right now, don’t let it affect your spirit. Fake it till you make it, they say!
Isn’t time for us to redefine success as our ability to conquer the materialistic world? There are millions of people in the world who get married and live a fantastic life with no expensive ceremonies. There is no “should be” in the world. We can’t have lives all “figured out” at 40s or 50s because this life will ALWAYS throws us surprises. Stop comparing yourself with the others. Take pride in things like your values, your inner peace and your health. Focus on building the type of success where like what you do, how you do it, and make you love yourself as you do it.
You deserve love, respect, rest and an enjoyable time even if you loose a lot of money. Most importantly, believing in ourselves couple with a problem-solving attitude are the only way that can get us out of an undesirable financial situation.
