There are hidden barriers to your financial success. No, it’s not time. It’s certainly not availability or opportunity- opportunities are as vast as the ocean is wide. And it’s not money itself either.

These hidden barriers have your financial success in a chokehold…can you guess what it is?

Your emotions toward money and wealth and those who have an abundance of it.

I always knew I wanted to be a good steward of my money, have a diverse portfolio, and have a lot of knowledge of personal finance.

My goal for the second half of 2023 is to invest at least 100 hours in my personal finance education. I knew that there would be a lot of learning I had to do, but I was willing to put the time and effort into doing so.

What I didn’t realize was that there were emotional hurdles I’d have to overcome in order to actually start absorbing the knowledge and implementing it into my life.

When I first jumped into the personal finance world, I was bombarded with thousands of podcasts, YouTube videos, and hundreds of pieces of advice and philosophies on what’s ‘wrong’ or ‘right’.

I felt overwhelmed, to say the least. I didn’t know where or how to start learning.

Once I began watching YouTube videos and taking notes, reviving my studious college days, I began to feel a disconnect.

The education that I was receiving wasn’t sticking with me. It wasn’t infiltrating my mind, and it certainly wasn’t inspiring me to take action.

So, where was the disconnect coming from?

You Need Floaties to Learn How To Swim

I took a step back and realized I never even taught myself how to swim, yet here I was jumping into the deep end.

The most important first step in your personal finance journey is addressing the emotions you have toward money, wealth, people who have an abundance of it, and the like.

Your emotional floaties are what will determine whether you sink or swim.

If you find yourself unable to begin or notice yourself hitting a plateau in your personal finance journey, it’s likely you have emotional barriers standing in the way.

These emotional barriers look different for everyone based on how you grew up, how those around you viewed money, what you currently do for money, and more.

For me, there were five main emotional hurdles I had to overcome in order to advance my knowledge of money, wealth building, and personal finance.

Take a gander and ponder whether or not these are emotional barriers you relate to. Hopefully, these will spark inspiration and allow you to better recognize the emotional barriers that may be standing in your way.

#1 Money As The Root of All Evil

For as long as I could remember, I truly believed that money was the root of all evil. There were two main reasons for this.

When I first started to understand the power of money and what it allowed people to do, I was also starting my faith journey as a Christian. Trying to build my understanding of money, wealth, and power meant that I was building it upon what the religion said about these three topics.

In my limited knowledge of the Christian religion, I got the main message that money is the root of all evil. Whether or not that’s what the religion actually teaches, it’s what I interpreted at the time.

This meant that in my mind, anyone who had an abundance of money was automatically evil, end of story.

Growing up with money as a source of contention for my parents in their relationship added to the negativity. On top of all that, my mom grew up relatively poor, so I began to adopt her scarcity mindset toward money.

My scarcity mindset, coupled with my understanding that money was the root of all evil, made me despise people who had a lot of it.

I thought that to be a good person, I could only have a modest amount of money. But what is a modest amount of money? I’m sure to Jeff Bezos, $10 million is pocket change.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve had to learn that money itself is amoral. Meaning, it’s neither good nor evil. Rather, what people do with it is good or evil.

This was a pivotal emotional barrier I had to overcome, and it helped to change my mindset on wealth-building and acquiring money.

#2 Greed

The older I’ve gotten, the more and more I’ve seen people with lots of money do horrible things.

Unfortunately, because of our negative news cycle in the United States, ‘Wealthy Billionaire Pays Off Lawyer to Hide Tax Fraud’ is a much more common headline than ‘Wealthy Billionaire Donates 70% of Income to Cancer Research’. Whether or not one instance is more common than the other doesn’t matter because all our attention goes to the former.

The greed of wealthy individuals circulated in the media is incredibly prevalent in my mind. This made me very worried about ever acquiring large sums of money.

Simply put, I didn’t want money to make me greedy.

However, as I’ve grown and matured, I realized that there are a series of choices people make that lead them to live a greedy life.

I looked at my life currently, saw the lack of greed, and realized that as long as I continue to think, say, and do things that promote generosity, then I’d be able to successfully avoid greed.

#3 Guilt

I struggle heavily with the guilt I feel for being born into a middle-class family in the United States and being afforded the opportunities that I have.

I am deeply aware that I could’ve just as easily been born in a third-world country where my main focus every day is where I‘m going to get water instead of which restaurant I’m going to DoorDash from.

College was always a possibility in mind, and I’ve always had somewhere to live and food in my belly. I’ve always had access to a car and got a well-paying job right out of college.

I take none of this for granted.

But I often grapple with the ‘Why Me?’ conflict. Why was I given these privileges and opportunities over others? I am no better, no greater than anyone else. So, why me?

To be honest, I haven’t been able to completely get over this emotional barrier. But at least being aware of this emotional barrier is a great starting point.

All I know is that because of the privilege and opportunities I have, I want to be able to pay it forward in as many ways as I can. Both now and in the future.

#4 Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems

First coined by The Notorious B.I.G. and referenced several thousand times thereafter, the older I get, the more I think he’s right.

I’m not sure of the exact problems you encounter when you have lots of money, but I sure as heck can speculate.

There are a lot of scary stories out there of folks who have encountered massive amounts of wealth, either by an idea going mega-big, ultra-fast, or winning something like the lottery.

The stories all end the same- the pressure put on by the excessive amounts of money, the uncontrolled behaviors, the impacts on relationships, mental and physical health, and more.

As my understanding of what money and wealth can provide me has expanded (namely, freedom of time), I’ve realized that on either end of the spectrum, you have problems.

Lots of money? Problems with knowing how to use it, how it impacts your relationships, and the perception of others.

Lack of money? Problems with knowing how to use it, how it impacts your relationships, and the perception of others.

Mo’ money, mo’ problems. No money, mo’ problems. I’ve just accepted that we’re doomed either way.

#5 Lack of Knowledge

Finally, the most significant emotional hurdle I had to overcome was my insecurity in my lack of knowledge surrounding money, wealth-building, and the like. Fear of the unknown was a big hurdle I had to jump in order to begin my personal finance journey.

There’s so much to learn in the world of personal finance. There are infinite books, podcasts, courses, and advice blogs on the topic.

You begin to feel paralyzed by how much information is out there.

Insecurities in my knowledge made me question whether or not I was even fit to take the first step. If I could even be the type of person who invested their money, diversified their income stream, and had control over their personal finances.

But I can be that person, and so can you! My lack of knowledge will only be a temporary problem. Because the more I learn, the more I’ll know!

I certainly don’t want to let the emotional barrier of my personal insecurity prevent me from building a secure life for myself and my future husband and children. You don’t have to either, because you’re more capable than you think you are!

Real Talk

In the personal finance space, there are a lot of “_____ for Beginners” books that give you a false start in this journey.

The real first step for beginners is overcoming the emotional barriers associated with money, wealth-building, and more.

Start with overcoming your emotional barriers, and you’ll only make steps forward, instead of taking steps backward to address these issues, like I did.

Doing so means you can build your vault of knowledge without stress or fear.

So, take the first step and good luck…you’ve got this!