The Secret to Feeling Better Now

Tune into this week and  discover how you can be in charge of your own happiness! We explore how to master your emotions, using proven neuroscience-backed strategies. Learn about myths surrounding money and happiness, and how famous and everyday people have transformed their lives by taking control of their feelings. Get practical tips to boost your mindset, emotional control, and use the power of your brain to live a joyful life no matter the current situation or setback. Subscribe now and start your journey feeling better now. 

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Transcript

Hi friends. Okay, let me ask you, how do you want to feel today? Today, we're going to learn the secrets of how to feel happy no matter what's going on around you. We're going to bust the myths about money, your feelings, and control, showing you how your thoughts can change your emotions and you can choose happiness no matter what.

Welcome to Her Money Mindset Show. Thank you so much for being here. I know your time is valuable and I appreciate you taking time to tune in. I'm Stephanie, Her Money Coach, and I'm here ready to help you get through any money setback, whether it be a divorce, losing a job, or a business that didn't work out.

You're in the right place. So today, let's start with three myths that might be keeping us from feeling better. One more Money equals happiness. Many people believe that having a lot of money will automatically make them happy.  Research shows that while money can provide comfort and security, it cannot buy genuine happiness. For instance, someone might buy expensive things to feel happy, but the excitement fades quickly and the search for happiness continues. 

Also think back to a time when you once thought a certain job salary was  massive and now it doesn't seem like much at all. We all know very wealthy people who are not happy. And we also know people that have no money and are very happy. So money equals happiness just is a myth.

 And it's confirmed by a groundbreaking study in the Harvard Study of Adult Development. This was a study initiated in 1938 and followed 700 individuals from various backgrounds through decades.  The study found that once participants' basic needs were met, the incremental happiness gained from additional money diminished significantly.

This is also explained by a phenomenon called Hedonic Treadmill theory, says that as people make more money, their expectations and desires rise in tandem, which leads to no permanent gain in happiness.

There was a Princeton study in 2010 that was updated by the Nature Human Behavior in 2021. And this study suggested that while income correlates with self reported life satisfaction, the actual effects are modest after someone reaches an annual income of about $75,000. Now that exact number is probably outdated because that was from the 2010 study, today it's probably something around $125,000. But the point is, once you reach the certain threshold of salary, you do not get happier as you earn more and more and more. In the end, happiness comes from how we feel, not from how much money we have. Now, don't get me wrong. Money can indeed make us feel happy because it can solve problems, it can provide options, but money itself isn't what's making someone happy.

It's that feeling.

Someone once asked me, would I rather be rich or happy? But I realized the real question was, if I was happy, would I care about being rich?

The reason I think most people want to be rich is because they think it will make them feel happy.

I love how Ramit Sethi teaches about a "rich life" in his Netflix show and his book, "I Will Teach You to Be Rich". He says that living a rich life is not just about having a lot of money, but making choices that let you enjoy what you love and reach your own goals. We have different goals or different things that we want to do with our money that make us happy. Like some of us want to travel. Some of us want to try gourmet foods. I am learning golf, which is an expensive sport.

This idea of a rich life isn't about accumulating a bunch of money, But more about learning what really matters to you and what makes you feel rich. It's not relevant what your friends, neighbors, or family thinks is rich. He wants you to figure out what's important to you and spend your money on that.

Because at the end of the day, the only reason any of us ever want more money is because how we believe we will feel once we get it. It's our feelings about money that matter more than the actual money. So focus on spending your money on things that make you feel great. 

Okay, myth number two. I can't control my feelings about money. People believe that their feelings about money such as the anxiety and stress from an uncomfortable situation that those feelings are actually the situation and therefore they can't control it. But because feelings are created by your  thoughts, that means you can choose how you want to feel by changing how you think. For example, if you want to feel happy or calm, you can just start by thinking about things that make you feel that way.

Knowing this can help us change our emotions. It might feel like your feelings are involuntary and they're caused by your situation, but in fact, your emotions start in the brain and then they go to the body. Feelings are just caused by what we think.

 Whether it be a new house, a new car, we all have hopes and dreams for things that we want, but the truth is what we really want are the feelings we think having that thing is going to get us.

And there's proof that we can all change our feelings, and it's backed by neuroscience. Scientists who study the brain have found that it's flexible and can change. This is called neuroplasticity. This means that we can form new ways of thinking that change how we feel.

For example, doing activities like calming ourselves, meditating, or just breathing can help our brain stay calm and happy, even when things are stressful.

There's synapses in our brain. And when we start learning how to manage our thoughts. These connections between neurons known as synapses strengthen. For example, if you consistently have a budgeting practice and you do it every week consistently over time, it just becomes easier to think positively about that practice and about saving your money and about sticking to your plans. Just as you can strengthen connections, your brain also gets rid of ones  that you don't use very much.

This process helps your brain work better by focusing on what's most important to you. So if you focus on those things that are important to you, those other thoughts will lose their strength.  If you stop worrying excessively  about money and instead focus on  making a plan, being confident, then your brain will start to get rid of those negative thought patterns and you're building new neural pathways and by repeatedly practicing these more positive thoughts, neural pathways are forming. This is why consistently saving, investing, or learning about money can change how you feel and think about money over time. These practices actually reshape your brain encourage more proactive actions.

Neuroplasticity shows that the brain can adapt and change, proving that with dedicated practice and effort, you can change your thoughts and feelings about money to be more positive and productive.

The other piece of science that proves that you can control your emotions  is the research around emotional regulation.

Psychologists have learned that we can control our feelings by understanding what is triggering them, observing our emotions, becoming aware, and then using skills like reframing to influence emotions and have them on purpose.

We can use this emotional regulation for our thoughts and feelings about money. So we start by understanding triggers. Emotional regulation begins with recognizing the situation or thoughts that trigger strong emotional response for us.

If checking your bank account makes you anxious, acknowledge this as a trigger. It's the first step in managing your emotions effectively. Secondly, you want to observe. Observe your emotions without judgment.  Say you look at your bank account, You feel heavy and anxious to step out of yourself and observe that become aware that that act of checking your bank account is making you feel anxious.

This helps create a space between the feeling and the reacting to it, which allows you to decide if you want to act differently.

So once you've identified a trigger, and you've become aware of how that trigger makes you feel, you can do what's called cognitive restructuring. I call it reframing. And this just involves changing that negative thought into a positive one, so reframing it.  instead of thinking I'll never be good with money, you reframe that to say I'm learning to manage my money better every day.

This shift in thinking reduces negative emotions and increases confidence.  I'm really inspired by other people's stories, famous people and others. And one that really inspires me is Sarah Blakely. She's founder of the famous shapewear brand Spanx. Most of you probably  know of that brand and she faced rejection after rejection in her early days.

She could have chosen to succumb to feelings of discouragement or failure, but instead she decided to feel persistent and determined. And those are the feelings that helped her feel better even in those bad situations and ultimately get the outcome and the success that she desired.

 So the third myth is, I cannot be happy during hard times. There are people that think I just can't be happy when I'm going through something tough. And that's just not true. Our feelings are not determined by what's happening to us, but by how you think about it. Even in the most difficult times, like losing your job or dealing with problems, we can choose to focus on the positive and learn from the situation.

This helps us stay happy. This is how we stay happy in hard times, by focusing on what we can control and how we feel by managing our thoughts. This is supported by various research and practices, one being cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a method that therapists use to help people see the links between their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

 Once they start to see these connections, they can learn how to have well being even during a setback.

Research also tells us that people who regularly cultivate positive emotions such as gratitude and kindness, they report higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

Even amidst life's challenges.

So how can I feel better? As I've said, you will find that in every single case, it's the feeling you want. And that's great news! When you consider that all of our feelings come from our thoughts, and we get to choose our thoughts.  Let's say you want a new house. 

  You dig deeper and ask yourself, okay, why do I want a new house? You think, I want a new house because I want more space and a nice environment for my family.  Then ask yourself, why do I want that? What you come to find out is that  more space would make you feel calm and peaceful. 

So you're not necessarily just wanting the house, but you're wanting the way the house will make you feel that it will make you feel calm and peaceful. You're really going after feeling calm and peaceful.

Now, there's no problem wanting a new house, obviously, but recognizing that what you want is to feel calm and peace, that's a powerful realization because you can feel that now without the new house. Those feelings are available at any time.  So learning how to tap in to creating those feelings now will help you actually get the new house because you'll be coming from a place of positive emotions, which leads to more action, which leads to your desired results.

So again, how we feel is never the result of the situation. It's always, always, always tied to a thought. Okay. So some steps to actually start feeling better. First identify what you actually want to feel. To do this, ask yourself, what will be different when I get this new house, for example, and what would be the same?

The answer to these questions will point you towards something you're hoping to feel, like if what will be different is I'll have more space so I can get a break and read a book for a few hours, yet at the same time,  I'm taking care of my family every day.

Next, ask yourself, what would give me that feeling? And am I focused on something externally that I need to achieve it? Or am I believing that I can create whatever emotion it is I want to feel right now? Like I said, often we think when I have a new house,  then I will feel peace and calm.

The truth is we never have to wait to have something in order to feel better. We can feel better right now if we choose. Feelings are created by us and for us.  If we want to feel peace and calm, we can just think about things that make us feel peace and calm on purpose.

And we can feel peace and calm more often. Feel better.

If we want to feel happiness, we can think about things that make us feel happy, and we will experience happiness more often.

The key to feeling better is all in our minds. The only thing we need to do to feel better is to know what we're feeling right now, to know how we want to feel, and then to generate thoughts that we can believe to help us feel that way.

So how do you want to feel today? It's worth giving it some thought.

  Here's one of the ways I practice this in the midst of losing my business. When I was right in the midst of the emotional turmoil of unraveling my business, I was reading Shizad Charmine book, "Positive Intelligence". He was telling a story of a successful CEO who entered the greatest industry of his illustrious career, when his company lost all its stock and value during the 2008 recession.

 So in coaching, Shizard asked him, "what do you need to do so that within three years, you can say this current crisis was the best. thing that could have happened to me and our company?" That hit me very profoundly. And so I adopted that thought.

And every time I thought, "why did this happen to me?" "What if I'm bankrupt?" "What if I'm homeless?" I would ask myself that question. "What do I need to do so that in three years, this is the best thing that ever happened to me that I am thanking God that I lost my business. What do I need to do for that to happen?"

This helped my brain focus on answering that question. It helped my brain find ways to make this setback the very best thing. It truly changed everything. The questions we ask ourselves have a lot of power.

So once I went on this path of thinking how in three years will this be the very best thing that happened to me. Every decision, every thought  started to go through that filter and so many gifts started to emerge. Yeah, it wasn't easy. It didn't go away, but there were things that came up that if I didn't have that filter, I would not have taken the action and created the gift. Here's an example. So for me, I've always loved money. I love making money. I love investing money.  I, Feel secure when I look at my bank account and I have a lot of money. And one of the lessons I learned from losing so much money was that money isn't truly what's important to my life.

It is my connections and my relationships and my kids. And so as I was learning that even if I had no money and I still had my relationships and my kids, then I was going to be okay. So I leaned into that thinking, going through this filter of what will it take  for you to be so grateful this happened to you in three years from now.

I ended up selling our home and paying off the SBA loan. So this meant that we had nowhere to live.  This was the Christmas time.  My daughter was coming home from college for the holiday.  My son was out of work because he worked for me in the business. I didn't pay him for two years and he had no job at that point.

 So that meant the three of us were  freed up to do what we wanted to do. And I decided we would get an Airbnb and we would get the dogs and we would drive to California and spend the month of December in California at the beach,  resetting,  getting our minds straight, connecting, being together.

The reason I decided this is because if truly the relationship with my kids is the most important thing to me and being with them, there was not going to be another time in life when we all three could get away and for a month and be together and connect. 

 I will tell you, it was the most glorious, best month ever in my life. We played games every night, we ate family dinner, we, had a simple Christmas where we went to town and we found,  special gifts to buy each other.

 We took long beach walks. Both my kids learned to surf. It was cold. It was December. But it was a bonding and a memory that I will tell you three, 10, 30 years from now, I will be so grateful that business didn't work out. We didn't have anywhere to live for a month. And we did that.

This was a gift of time and memories with my kids. that no one can ever take from me.  So this filters, these reframing tools, they really can help you turn what seems to be a bad, horrible situation into a memory or a gift of a lifetime.

 As we wrap up this episode, I hope you now believe, I hope you're convinced that you control your own feelings and you can find happiness in any situation.

 Next time you find yourself in a setback or a bad situation, try some of these tools. and prove to yourself that you can make yourself feel better. If you think this episode could help someone facing a tough time, please share it with them. And don't forget to visit hermoneycoach. com and subscribe to my free weekly newsletter for more tips and tricks to manage your money mindset. Until next time, remember you have the power to change your financial future, and I'm here cheering you on every step of the way.