Why Chasing Financial Freedom Is Killing You?

Do you ever like you are on a hamster wheel chasing financial goals, but somehow you keep falling behind? I'm sure most people can relate.

• You keep checking your bank balance before making any payments to make sure you have enough money.
• Sometimes you spend more than you have then you worry if you can pay your bills.
• You feel frustrated from failing financially, and you wonder if things will ever change.

You are your worst critic

Sometimes you can turn into your worst critic. You figured if you treat yourself with such harsh judgement it will motivate you to do better next time.

You see it so often in the hustle culture video, quotes and articles. Don't get me wrong I do think working hard and smart is crucial to getting out of huge financial debts. However, for those that are always penny-pinching and becoming your worst critic when you fall down remember to relax and take a breath. You are working as best as you can with the tools that you have based on the current situation you are in.

As long as you are progressing, not remain stagnant you have much to be proud of yourself.

Evolution's role

The role of human nature is ingrained in your DNA even though we may have progressed from the caveman days to the advanced technology of the modern-day age.

We are wired to want to produce something to create value.

Imagine going to the jungle and just sitting on a rock all day, you would die after a few days. In the early days, people worked on the ground to provide food and shelter for themselves, their families and their communities.

Fast forward to this modern-day, we have jobs like plumbers, doctors, and lawyers that provide value and are compensated in the form of money for the work that they do.

Working is necessary to create value and for survival. There are exceptions of course for the weak, the sick and children. The community took care of them.

You need to have sufficient money as a part of your survival need. This reactionary system plays a vital role in your simple desire to stay safe and survive day to day. It is an extension of your fight or flight response.

Fight or flight

Your body triggers cortisol throughout your body so you can either:

• Fight
• Flight (Running away)

This is triggered when you are in a survival response or when facing danger. This worked very well when you needed to hunt wild animals and survive with what you could find. In this modern century, even though you can now order food from DoorDash, Foodpanda or Justeat your survival instinct hasn't really changed.

Nowadays if you don't meet your financial goals for the month you make yourself feel bad. You obsess over how much money you have because it's part of your survival to live and go on day-to-day.

This is not to say self-criticism never works, it works but only as a slight negative motivator.

Why does just being a harsh self-critic doesn't necessarily work?

The cons of being an extremely harsh critic of yourself is that it could reach a point that it just becomes self crippling, that you unconsciously sabotage yourself to avoid feeling like crap and blaming the failure on something else.

So instead of asking for a raise, seeking a better job or even starting your own company, you know the things that would help yourself out financially you avoid at all cost because you are nervous and anxious that if you tried you could fail. So as a defence mechanism you don't even bother trying.

Consequently, you cement the belief that you will never be rich and you lose the belief that you will ever reach financial freedom. 

Self-compassion

Most people might be thinking, self-compassion isn't that an excuse to basically let yourself off the hook and be complacent with your financial habits? Well, not exactly.

There is a study that researched the efficacy of compassion on self-improvement motivation at UC Berkeley.

Students were given a vocabulary test designed to be so difficult that they will all fail. Students were split into Group A, Group B, and Group C. Experimenters focused on boosting self-esteem for group A (eg you are all so smart because you study at Berkeley) for group B experimenters didn't say anything (the students were most probably beating themselves down after the test), and for Group C the experimenters exercised self-compassion (eg it's okay everyone fails, it is not the end of the world).

At the end of the day, all groups of students were given another vocabulary test as a second chance and they could study as long as they want.

Interestingly after the second test Group C (the group that was taught to be self-compassionate about their failures) studied for longer and performed much better than the rest of the other groups.

Self-compassionate people are more likely to take action and reach their goals. Not just in personal finance, but in life from smoking, dieting, exercising etc.

Self-compassion does more than help people recover from failure or setbacks. It also supports what Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, has called a “growth mindset.” Dweck has documented the benefits of adopting a growth rather than a “fixed” approach to performance, whether it be in launching a successful start-up, parenting, or running a marathon.

There are countless other studies that support this theory.

Conclusion

In conclusion, self-compassion is not dismissing your failures and not trying anymore. But rather, self-compassion is similar to being your own personal coach and holding yourself to a higher standard even when you know you are not answerable to anyone.

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