Financial Anxiety with Chelsea Connors
Financial Anxiety with Chelsea Connors
Something we see all the time at The Financial Gym is financial anxiety. From my experience, 99 percent of the population will experience it at some point, and some of us experience it more than others. We received so much positive feedback on the last episode we tackled this subject matter, and I’m so passionate about helping people overcome this, that we’re going back to financial anxiety again. Joining me to share her professional experience with it is Chelsea Connors, Certified Life Coach and therapist. She shares some of her best practices for managing financial anxiety and the challenges of adulting.
What are We Drinking?
Chelsea - Yogi Tea - Egyptian Licorice
Shannon - Black Cherry Schweppes
Podcast Notes
Chelsea is a certified life coach, therapist, and speaker. She mostly supports young adults who are transitioning to adulthood or who are in their young adult years and are struggling with a lot of the factors that we weren’t necessarily set up to know how to navigate.
She talks a lot about emotional wellbeing and lifestyle, the things that aren’t really talked about in school that can add a lot of anxiety, stress, and high expectations.
Chelsea is a military spouse, so she moves around quite often, which is why she was attracted to The Financial Gym. She likes that she can access them wherever she lives.
Chelsea is a millennial and that is who she focuses on most in her business. There was no conversation about adulting for those in Generation X or prior.
Chelsea started hearing the term adulting, within the past five or six years. It’s not so much that people don’t know how to adult, it’s that the pressure and circumstances have changed and there is more conversation around the topic.
Her clients don’t necessarily not know how to do the things they need to do, it is more discussing the anxiety that comes with the imperfection of that process and the dynamics that have changed from generation to generation.
Chelsea sees people struggling, because of the introduction of social media and everybody’s life in your face all the time, which leads to a lot of comparison and anxiety. People feel like they are falling behind or not doing enough.
Financially, it is very competitive to get the higher paying jobs. Many times millennials don’t meet the qualifications to get those jobs and pay hasn’t kept up with expenses. It is harder to save, pay rent, and pay daily living expenses.
A lot of millennials are seeing the long-term effects of living in such a high-stress culture, a life of “sucking it up”, and they are seeing their parents get sick, dying young, or just being unhappy with their lives.
The conversation around adulting is about how people can they set themselves up to have a different life and a different outcome.
Most of the clients Chelsea works with are between ages 23 to 32. Most are on their own, paying their own expenses or most of their own expenses, and doing the things they are supposed to be doing. Chelsea works on how they feel when they are doing those things. She doesn’t believe this stems from growing up with helicopter parenting.
A lot of Chelsea’s clients have financial anxiety. There is so much fear around finances and a lot of people play into ignorance is bliss. Chelsea refers a lot of her clients to The Financial Gym, because there is a lack of tools and knowledge.
When Shannon was younger, she didn’t necessarily have financial anxiety, because her solution was to just make more money and she would find a path to do that.
You cause yourself so much pain and angst staying in a place of fear, instead of taking action and seeking help. A lot of people don’t have the confidence they can do anything about their situation. Chelsea sees a lot of people just staying stuck.
Recognizing the fear and anxiety and having a conversation about that can help. The awareness is huge in order to take positive action. It is important with finances to change the story and what you are telling yourself.
Gym magic happens regularly at The Gym. When trainers give clients their savings goal, many don’t believe they can do it. When they reach their goal at their quarterly review, they are surprised they did it.
It is important to have an experimental mindset. Before you say no, try it and see what happens. Maybe you will learn something else. When people are able to access that experimentation and they evaluate what worked and what didn’t, there is momentum.
The best question to yourself is what is the worst that can happen. Everything you do financially is fixable, it is just a matter of how much fixing will you need to do. Most answers are not that you are going to die.
Divorce, credit card debt, and bankruptcy are all recoverable events. You have safety nets and support networks around you. Unless the answer is that you are going to die, why not try it.
What are you willing to risk for what you want? Embrace progress over perfection. Whatever story you are telling yourself is probably worse than what is actually happening. If you don’t hit all of your goals, it is not that big of a deal.
Most clients at The Gym get B’s and C’s for grades on their quarterly reviews. Most clients are surprised, because they thought they failed.
Chelsea has been a Financial Gym client for over a year. She is originally from New York and a couple of friends who were in the wellness industry were raving about The Gym. After a month or two of hearing about it, she was in.
It was a time where Chelsea was very conflicted. She was pursing traditional psychotherapy, but that is licensed state to state. Knowing that she would be moving regularly, getting the licensure hours would be difficult, because there is no state to state reciprocity. She knew she getting licensure in whatever state she was in wasn’t guaranteed.
She had been introduced to life coaching and had fallen in love with the approach. She knew she wanted to start her own business, but it was a scary, because she didn’t know how to handle it financially.
Chelsea was managing her and her husband’s finances, because he was being deployed so often, and it felt like a lot to manage. She now feels so much better about her finances, after working with The Gym.
Chelsea feels much more empowered after working with her trainer, Joy. The knowledge is half the battle. Having someone walk her through the process was extremely helpful.
Money books are challenging, because they aren’t effective for everyone. Shannon recommends the book The Year of Less, by Cait Flanders, because Cait questions her choices.
Shannon struggles to read money books and get motivation and prefers blogs and podcasts. You need to find the right resource for you. Don’t stop looking for what motivates you. There are so many different ways to get financially healthy.
Anxiety can make us feel powerless, but we have control over our breath and that can be really supportive. If you feel yourself becoming anxious, tune into your physical body and label whatever you are experiencing. Observe your signs and symptoms and tune into your breath.
When we get anxious, our breath tends to get shallow and short. Inhaling for a count of four an exhaling for a count of eight can help.
Oftentimes, when we feel anxious, we want to fight against it instead of leaning into it. Depending on the circumstance, if you feel anxious, get some of that out. Express that energy somehow, whether that looks like doing 10 jumping jacks, or holding a plank for one minute, etc. Physical release can be a great tool.
Play with the resources you have, like making a cup of tea or drinking a cup of hot water with lemon, if that is soothing to you. Honing in on the intentionality of why you are doing what you are doing can be really supportive.
People fail at meditation because their brain is all over the place. The point of the exercise is to come back to your breath, even if it happens 100 times.
Sitting for meditation outside of our anxious moments is helpful, because you are building a muscle that will be ready when you need it.
One of the primary purposes of our brain is to think. We don’t get mad at our heart for pumping. Why would we get mad at our brain for thinking - it is doing its job.
Have a learner’s mindset. You don’t have to know it all, it doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t need to do it all overnight.
Takeaway: My biggest takeaway is that financial anxiety is something you can work through, as long as you create a plan and address the challenge head on. Everything we do financially is fixable, but the only way we can fix it is if we face it.
Random Three Questions
Where is a place you would love to be stationed?
What is a show you like to binge watch?
If this was your last night on earth, what is your final meal?
Connect With Ashley
Website: chelseaconnors.com
Instagram: @chelsea_connors
If you have any topics you would like me to cover on this podcast, or If you’d like to get in the financially naked hotseat, I encourage you to email me at Shannon@fingyms.com, or join the private Martinis and Your Money facebook group, and let me know what you want to hear.
If you’d like to talk to my team at The Financial Gym to help manage through financial challenges that may be creating anxiety for you, I hope you’ll reach out to us. My trainers have literally seen it all and don’t care how you got into your financial situation, they just care about getting you where you want to go. The great news is that Martinis and Your Money listeners get 15 percent off Financial Gym services. So head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com to get set up today.