The Power Of Unselfconscious Affluence
A growing number of people are achieving wealth and going on to live a life that is, for the most part, free from financial worries. But even though these wealthy individuals have found success, they’re not completely immune to the effects of general anxiety: Some worry as much about their material goods as they do about their life decisions.
This phenomenon isn’t unusual — super-wealthy people don’t have unrealistic expectations or expect that everything should always go their way. It's not surprising when some worry about the state of their properties — there are factors like family members and taxes that can create tension for those at this level. But what if the threats to their success weren’t material? What if their anxiety came from internal forces, like doubts about whether they deserved all their success?
While this piece isn’t intended to directly address the latter issue — whether or not someone deserves all they have — it will illustrate how anxiety over what you have and what you do can bring self-sabotage.
What Is Affluence Anxiety?
Affluence Anxiety is a type of dilemma that occurs when wealth threatens to undermine happiness. It’s an inherent fear of losing money that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy through the undermining of one’s strengths and good fortune. It’s also a condition of many wealthy people that is often accompanied by a sense of guilt and shame, like you stole or cheated your way to this position in life.
The anxiety can be so severe that people will even consider renouncing their success, or put themselves into unnecessary financial risk. Since the wealth itself isn’t necessarily at stake, the decision for someone in this position is often taken out of fear. The fear can be external, such as losing one’s job; it can be internal, such as feeling less worthy or less deserving than others.
These feelings of anxiety can be so successful at shutting down the self that they may create a tremendous amount of stress. And by all accounts, the stress is justified. An article on Business Insider calls it “A $1 million problem."
While the numbers vary, nearly 80% of all millionaires categorize their level of wealth as comfortable or better. This means that many millionaires are very happy with their situation, but those statistics don’t mean they don’t have any anxiety at all. Their anxiety comes from the fact that they have been successful more recently than other people around them who also did well for themselves and have nowhere to go but down.
The inner battle then becomes the self-conscious debate about how you are perceived, about whether or not you deserve to be here. There’s a fear of being seen as less than others and what it would mean if these feelings were confirmed. And often times, the feelings that these people have that can cut them down are the same feelings they’re trying to convince themselves are irrelevant.
How To Work Through Affluence Anxiety
The obvious question here is, how do we get through this? How do we keep ourselves from self-sabotage? The first step is recognizing that this is what’s going on. It may not mean that there isn’t something legitimately wrong with you or your finances — there could be outside factors impacting your anxiety, but it could also just be what it is. So if you have these feelings and don’t think that you’re doing anything wrong, spend some time trying to figure out what this means based on who you are and where you came from.
Next, take a look at the situation objectively and examine assets versus liabilities. As the article above says, your assets are what you have that others don’t, while your liabilities are what you owe to others. It’s very possible that these feelings of anxiety can come from insecurities surrounding this relationship between assets and liabilities.
For example, if you’re choosing to spend more money on your lifestyle in order to show off how successful you are as opposed to saving money because it’s more important to be financially safe right now, it may not be a matter of confidence and worthiness in the first place — it could simply be a case of living beyond your means and having no real plan for the future. In this scenario, you don’t generally feel good about yourself, but you don’t necessarily know why.
The third step would be to create a plan for the future. You may want to consider taking some time off and focusing on your strengths as opposed to worrying about your weaknesses. Big picture thinking is important here — if you’re worried that you can’t afford to take time off, it will activate all of the negative feelings that occur when there is an internal threat to wealth.
Once those feelings are gone, it will be easier for you to evaluate what really matters in life and what really doesn’t matter as much because it can be taken care of later on.
It’s also a good idea to look at the big picture and consider how your actions will impact your loved ones. And even if it’s not what everyone else is doing, be proud of your success. It took hard work, sacrifice and dedication — nothing was easy about it. Most people don’t have what you have and never will, so enjoy it and make sure that you're not undermining your own success by focusing on money where you shouldn't be.
Stacey Megerian is the owner of A Road Less Traveled, LLC. She is a writer, editor and consultant with over 15 years of experience in content marketing, digital media, public relations and brand management. Read more from Stacey at www.susanwongmegerian.com and mobile app: www.appstormer.com
Photo by: Idil06 flickr cc 2.0 some rights reserved
Affluence Anxiety: Self-Sabotage Comes In All Shapes And Sizes was last modified: by
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comments total per page: 10 50 100 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...Comments Order By Newest Oldest Most Users 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...Comments Order By Newest Oldest Most Users
Seems like there are a lot of people who are not happy with their success and success is definitely more than money. This kind of self-abasement may be related to the inner dialogue we’ve all been talking about, but it’s a different type – one that talks you out of succeeding. “You don’t deserve success, talent or happiness." It’s hard to believe it at first, but I’ve seen it in myself and others.
Conclusion: Self-Sabotage Comes In All Shapes And Sizes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...Comments Order By Newest Oldest Most UsersSeems like there are a lot of people who are not happy with their success and success is definitely more than money. This kind of self-abasement may be related to the inner dialogue we’ve all been talking about, but it’s a different type – one that talks you out of succeeding. “You don’t deserve success, talent or happiness." It’s hard to believe it at first, but I’ve seen it in myself and others.