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Coping with Financial Stress

Six takeaways:

  1. A recent World Economic Forum survey showed that 1 out of 4 people were experiencing financial struggles, and another survey showed that more and more people are adding debt to deal with their struggles.
  2. The first tip for dealing with financial stress that the article offers: Speak to someone. Talking to someone about your problems is a proven means of stress relief. Keeping them to yourself only makes them seem more impossible to overcome.
  3. Tip Two: Take Inventory of Your Finances. You must give yourself a clear picture of where you stand. Knowledge is power, and anxiety is often related to unknown and ambiguous understanding of a situation. Full understanding of your finances will allow you to identify patterns and problem areas. A great starting position would be to create a balance sheet listing all your assets and liabilities.
  4. Next, Make a Plan and Stick to It. Once you have a clear idea of your financial outlook, you can eliminate excess spending and make other life changes that help ameliorate your problems.
  5. Create a Monthly Budget. Not only will this help you keep your spending in the right range, but it will also alleviate stress by giving you a much-needed sense of control.
  6. Lastly, Manage Your Overall Stress. Steps like regular exercise, healthy sleeping and eating habits, and meditation are proven to help with overall stress levels and will help fortify you against financial anxieties.

From HelpGuide
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This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.

The Magic of a Little Danger

Five takeaways:

  1. Opening with the example of the yearly Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, Brooks argues that the decision to expose yourself to real danger (“not roller coasters or haunted houses”) will push you out of your comfort zone, and make you feel more alive.
  2. However, Brooks reminds readers that a clear distinction must be made between bravery and recklessness– and notes that the former can be key to injecting one’s life with happiness.
  3. Brooks offers three tips for the injecting your life with the right kind of danger:
    • “Find your bulls to run with” – Your idea of danger will be different from the person next to you. Think about the things you’ve been putting off or feel like you can’t do that might be possible, with a dose of bravery. Danger is not always physical– you may fear moving to a new city, or of going back to school. You need to identify where your danger lies and pursue it.
    • “Envision bravery– but not recklessness” – When facing danger, make sure you assess risk as clearly as you can. If your fear is rock climbing, Brooks notes, you should not go ahead and climb El Capitan. But in many cases, clear assessment of risk will make you realize that the chance of catastrophe is much lower than it initially seems.
    • “Make a Sensible Plan and Follow it” – Research shows that happiness and impulsivity are incompatible. When you decide on a course of action for taking a risk, make a clear plan of action that takes different eventualities into consideration.
  4. Brooks notes that while physical danger does not keep him up at night, switching careers used to. When he quit his career as a musician, he confronted feelings of incompetence, and doing so made him infinitely more comfortable making a career change later on. He knew he could do it because he’d learned a new profession before.
  5. Nelson Mandela once said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” Look for ways in your life to triumph over fear and danger, and, Brooks says, you will find your best self waiting on the other side.

From Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic:
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Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Clutter

Five takeaways:

  1. If you have to move things around to accomplish a task in your home or at your office or you feel overwhelmed by all the “things” in your home– you are likely over cluttered. And the effect on your life can be profoundly negative.
  2. A study published in Current Psychology showed that procrastination was tied directly with one’s clutter and that both led directly to raised levels of cortisol– the stress hormone.
  3. Why does clutter elicit such a strong physiological reaction? Experts think that it is tied to the classic representation of how a home should look and function. Think of the classic, bucolic, single family home of the 1950s. A disorderly home fails to live up to such an expectation.
  4. A main tactic for decluttering, suggested by Dr. Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago, is to avoid touching the object when considering whether to keep it. Have a family member or friend ask you “do you need this?” as touching an object increases the chance you will remember your attachment to it.
  5. Another important tactic involves making a conscious effort to acquire less. Keeping objects out of the house is paramount. Once they get in they enter the home they become easier to get attached to.

From Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi at The New York Times:
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Note: You will need a free account with The New York Times to view this article. At the time of this posting The Times offers 20 free free article views per month.

This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.

Relationships are More Important than Ambition

Five takeaways:

  1. Ambition, the author argues, is viewed as a force that drives people forward. Conversely, relationships are often seen to hold people back from developing in life.
  2. The author cites a Journal of Applied Psychology a multidecade study that tracked the lives of ambitious children into adulthood. The study found, unsurprisingly, that children who exhibited more ambition early on went on to more illustrious and lucrative lives. But it also showed that early ambition was not as strongly correlated with wellbeing later in life. In fact, it showed that ambition is only weakly connected with well-being and negatively associated with longevity.
  3. The author cites psychologist Tim Kasser, who has shown that the pursuit of materialistic values like money, possessions, and social status– the fruits of career successes– is correlated with lower well-being and more distress. It can also come at the cost of meaningful personal relationships.
  4. Many studies have shown that community is strongly connected to well-being– more so than financial success. A 2009 Science study of 1.2million people showed that Louisiana was the happiest state… while the richest states like California, New York, and Connecticut, were listed among the least happy.
  5. Barry Schwartz, a psychological researcher based at Swarthmore College, notes that while relationships can have a limiting effect on one’s life, but that too much freedom in life can be detrimental: “Relationships are meant to constrain,” he says. “but if you’re always on the lookout for better, such constraints are experienced with bitterness and resentment.”

From Emily Esfahani Smith at The Atlantic:
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Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.
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