Small Business owner – It’s Time to Face Your Fears Around Money!

My goal is to motivate and inspire you to face your fears around money. Have you ever been afraid to step on the scale and see what the number actually says? Maybe you’ve been afraid of getting a diagnosis for yourself, a child, or another loved one? Or have you ever felt scared to confront someone you love, not knowing exactly how they’re going to react?

I’m starting to hear a common trend in conversations with female business owners specifically. They say, “Erika, I’m afraid of what I’ll see if I actually start looking at my numbers. I don’t know if I’m being a good steward. I don’t know if I’m making money or losing money in my business.” As a result, avoidance becomes the trend and the norm. I often hear about this nagging thought in the back of your mind, where you know you need to do something but don’t know exactly what that is. You feel stuck or, really, just afraid to even touch it, so you continue to avoid it.

Today, I want to dig into this a little more and help uncover where some of those fears about money are coming from so we can overcome them.

One question to ask yourself is: What is holding you back?

Is it fear? I’ve spoken with some clients who fear failure—fear that they’re not being a good steward, fear that they’re spending more than they’re making, or fear that their business isn’t as successful as they think it is. But I also hear some fear of success—fear that money will change them or make them a different person. Often, we can fear both failure and success. So, is fear potentially holding you back?

Or is it intimidation? This one really gets me fired up sometimes. I’ve heard from so many of you that you’ve had bad past experiences with financial professionals—financial advisors, CPAs, bankers, and others. Have you had a bad experience? One of my clients said she failed accounting in college, so she felt really intimidated to look at her numbers. Another client had someone laugh in her face and make her feel really stupid. This, of course, added to her fears around money.

Another client told me that she cries every time she leaves her CPA’s office because she’s so overwhelmed and doesn’t understand what they’re asking her to do or the questions they’re asking. It makes her want to crawl into a hole and feel really dumb. I’m so sorry that those have been your experiences. I think sometimes these situations only fuel the intimidation and fear, making you feel like you’ll never understand this and just adding to those negative feelings.

So, is that something that’s holding you back? The intimidation of not knowing what you don’t know, especially when others have made you feel dumb?

Another thing that could be holding you back is ease.

It’s easier to avoid looking at your numbers than to face them. If that’s something that’s holding you back from fully understanding and learning what your numbers are telling you, I get it.

If you resonate with any of these struggles, I just want to lovingly say to you: You’re missing out on so much. It’s actually relatively easy to flip the script and start feeling excited, competent, and empowered. It becomes much easier to make decisions when you take steps to overcome what’s holding you back, and commit to understanding and educating yourself.

Here are a few ideas to help you face your fears around money.

First, evaluate which professionals you’re working with—are there any that make you feel these negative things? It might be time to part ways and find someone who has the heart of a teacher and truly wants to help you understand and feel confident.

I’ve talked to some CPAs who have a real desire to help their clients but simply don’t have the time to invest in them the way they’d like. They’re trying to figure out how to change that, but the truth is, it doesn’t have to be that way. So, don’t settle for less than what you deserve.

One idea is to create a simple plan to continue the work you’re already doing.

For example, set a timer and a reminder to categorize your numbers weekly—just make a simple plan and stick to it. Another approach is to set a small, realistic goal you know you can achieve. I got this idea from Mara’s podcast about the Teddy Bear Principle, which I’ll link in the show notes. She talks about putting something on your to-do list that you know you can check off easily. This gives you a little boost, especially when it feels like your to-do list is never-ending, like it often does for moms.

Small wins make a difference. When you check off those little tasks, celebrate them! I’m a big believer in rewarding yourself, especially when you’re working on building a new habit. What small reward can you give yourself to motivate you to stick with your goals?

Another idea to face your fears your around money is to pick one small way to educate yourself.

If you start feeling those icky emotions about money as you explore educational resources, pause for a moment and ask yourself why. What about this feels uncomfortable? Is it too hard to understand? Or is there something specific that triggers negative thoughts or feelings? Instead of avoiding it, try to dig into that discomfort and learn from it.

Like weight loss or having hard conversations with loved ones, this is not an overnight fix. I’m not saying you’ll go from feeling overwhelmed one day to having everything figured out the next. But as you’ve heard from my past clients and others, it can be a pretty quick switch from fear to empowerment and excitement.

If this resonates with you, I want to leave you with the inspiration that it’s time to take that step. It’s time to move forward. It’s time to stop avoiding and start doing. And lastly, I want to leave you with a few journal prompts to help guide you in this process to face your fears around money.

Sometimes, we just need to write things out to get them out of our head and onto paper. For me, that’s often all it takes to realize that what I’m thinking isn’t actually true. It’s easy to not even recognize the thoughts we’re having. So, here are a few journal prompts to help you get started:

• How am I feeling about money, and how do I want to feel about money?
• What is holding me back? Is it fear? Intimidation? Taking the easy route? Or perhaps someone else has told me that I’m not good enough? What are those recurring thoughts and feelings that are holding me back?
• What is one small step I can take to move out of what’s holding me back and into a new chapter?
• What is one thought I want to change? Sometimes, it’s as simple as identifying that one thought you keep thinking that isn’t aligned with who you want to be. Changing that one thought can snowball into other changes, helping us uncover what’s really holding us back and allowing us to move forward toward a better life.

I hope this provides you with a little inspiration and motivation to face your fears around money. It’s time to stop living in avoidance or taking the so-called “easier route,” which really just digs you deeper. The good stuff is right around the corner. By doing the work of figuring out what’s holding you back, you’ll be able to move into a brighter future.

Now, it’s time for the Demystifying Financial Jargon segment.

Today, we’re talking about liabilities. The technical definition of a liability is a “probable future sacrifice of economic benefit resulting from present or past obligations.” That’s a lot of words, but it simply means something you will owe in the future—whether it’s money or another type of sacrifice—from something you’ve done now or in the past.

In accounting, we typically break liabilities into current (short-term) and long-term liabilities. Current liabilities are things like credit card balances or short-term loans that need to be paid off soon, usually within 12 months. Long-term liabilities include things like notes payable or loans that are due over a longer period.

You might also see things like taxes payable listed as liabilities—these are payments that you know will be due in the future. Liabilities show up on the balance sheet, and the balance sheet equation is: Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. Essentially, the total of your assets will balance with your liabilities and equity.

This is the basis of how the balance sheet is created, and it can sometimes be a tricky report for people to understand. We dive deeper into it in some of my programs because understanding liabilities is key. But in short, a liability is simply something you’ll owe someone in the future, whether it’s soon or down the road.

I hope this helps clear up the terminology for you. I remember feeling like these terms were a foreign language back when I took accounting. We don’t use them in everyday life, so it can be confusing. But now, I hope you feel a little clearer on the term “liability” and how it fits into your financial picture.

Listen to this episode!

Let’s connect on Instagram!