Overcoming Financial Overwhelm Finding 1 Simple Action Step To Take Control

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. Meaning at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Don’t worry though. I only recommend products that I believe will help you on your journey.

Check Out Related Episodes & Resources

Episode 167: Overcoming Financial Overwhelm Finding 1 Simple Action Step To Take Control

Today I’m tackling the overwhelming feelings we often have around managing our finances. I’ll break down the concept of overwhelm and how it can sabotage your financial success. We’ll explore actionable steps within my Unstoppable Finances framework to help you make progress without the stress. Specifically, we’ll dive into four key areas: tracking expenses, managing debt, tracking income, and handling taxes.

This episode is all about simplifying the process so you can move forward confidently. Tune in for practical tips and strategies to overcome financial overwhelm and start making meaningful progress.

LISTEN OR SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE IN YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | RSS

Resources Mentioned

Cashflow Calculator – https://aimeecerka.com/cashflow
Budgeting For Success Worksheets – https://aimeecerka.com/budgetworksheets
Money Mastery Academy – https://aimeecerka.com/academy
Q&A/Clarity Call – https://aimeecerka.com/qa
Instagram – https://instagram.com/aimeecerka

Podcast Key Points

0:00 – Episode Overview
1:41 – Removing The Overwhelm
5:12 – Identifying Where You’re Stuck in Money Overwhelm
6:33 – Most Common Areas Where We Get Stuck In Overwhelm With Our Money
10:42 – Picking An Action Step

Grab The Cash Flow Calculator

Uncover the right work (that you’re probably already doing) in order to finally see consistent cash flow month after month

Let’s find out in just 90 seconds!

Get started today ????

Fill out your information below to get instant access

Facing Overwhelm in Your Finances

What is it that you need to do now? I know everything is. There’s so much going on. It’s overwhelming. I was trying to avoid using that word, but there’s so much that is overwhelming.

This is the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka, a money confidence coach for female entrepreneurs on the path to six figures. After over ten years in the personal finance industry and multiple personal, financial, and medical crises, I was fed up with the lies that are being shouted from the rooftops by the gurus and the media. So now I help you simplify, solidify, and scale your money. By blending tactile money strategies with mindset work, you can create unstoppable finances. Episodes here on the podcast are short and sweet. Being married, having four kids at home, homeschooling, being a CEO, running the household. I’m kind of busy, and I know you are, too. So let’s keep it simple and get to the point. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Talking About Overwhelm

Welcome back to the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. We are talking about action steps that you can take that make things simple within your finances and start moving forward without the overwhelm. And the key, really today is we’re going to talk about overwhelm.

The True Meaning of Overwhelm

So how often do you tell yourself that you’re overwhelmed? Do you tell other people that you’re overwhelmed? For a lot of people, it’s multiple times a day. And overwhelm literally means to load, heap, treat, or address something with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything. What if overwhelm was one of your biggest blind spots when it came to your finances and one of the biggest ways that we self-sabotage?

Overwhelm Comes From Within

In the exact moment that you feel overwhelmed, you’re literally telling yourself something to make us feel this some sort of thought, belief story. You know, this is where our money mindset comes in, right? Our thoughts, feelings, emotions. This is creating, that overwhelm. So it’s not actually that we overwhelmed.

Receiving More While Avoiding Overwhelm

It’s not actually that we are overwhelmed. We feel it because of what we’re telling ourselves in the moment. So our question becomes, how can you possibly expect to receive more? And this is where the framework is really more like a matrix, and we need all the parts. But how can you expect to receive more money if you can’t manage what you have right now and you’re overwhelmed by the idea of it or overwhelmed with the managing of it?

The Repellent of Overwhelm

Like, how can you receive more? If you’re putting out that. That energy, that space? If you’re overwhelmed at the slightest thing when it comes to managing your money, how can you receive more? You’re not in the right match because you’re.

The Attract and Repel Analogy

We’ve all seen batteries, right? Okay. You know, you have the sides that attract and the sides that repel. And if you are in that overwhelmed, that frantic, that stressed out state that there’s never enough, the lack, all of those things you’re repelling instead of attracting what you need to you. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re literally, like, you can be pushing away wealth, you can be pushing away cash flow.

Overwhelm as a Hindrance to Goals

And if it’s holding you back from hitting those goals, you’re using overwhelm in a couple of different ways. Okay? A lot of times we’re using overwhelm to not take action, and it’s going to take time to release all of this and move forward and really reframe those thought processes and the emotions. And it really is. It’s an ongoing process, because as much work as I’ve done, releasing the emotions and the struggle.

The Importance of Quick Recovery

Like, this is why it’s the unstoppable finances framework, because stuff is going to come up, and it’s what you do when that happens. And, you know, it gets better with time. You quickly recover, you catch things faster, and all of those things are so important. But if we’re stuck in the overwhelm constantly, every time we think about managing our money, then we’re causing problems. But this can be easily avoided.

Action Steps to Beat Overwhelm

Let’s get to the action portion of it. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, we have a reason as why we’re feeling overwhelmed. This could be something that we’re not doing, an action that we’re taking and or not taking, and then progress we are making and or not making. So see how it’s really a feeling. Because you can create overwhelm regardless of the situation that’s going on.

Having A Successful Life Without Overwhelm

You can have a lot going on and not be overwhelmed. You can have a successful business. You can have a great relationship. You can have a great family life. You can have all of those things and not be overwhelmed.

The Role of Avoidance and Obsession

It’s not if this, then that or this or that. You don’t have to pick. The overwhelm is the thing that we’re going to take out of that. So when it comes to your money, what are you either avoiding or not avoiding? Kind of like obsessing over it.

Common Areas of Overwhelm

If you’re not avoiding it, so what action are you taking? What action are you avoiding? Where are we making progress and where are we not making progress? Those are kind of the things that I want you to be listening for, like, oh, hey, no, I haven’t made progress with that. I’ve been saying that I’m going to work on my bookkeeping and get those books up to date for 18 months now, and it’s just not happening because, you know, life is so busy.

Four Key Areas of Money Overwhelm

But really we’re avoiding it because the idea of getting started is overwhelming. Right. And there’s four key areas here that are probably, like, pillar. Most common ones that I see, their overwhelm is stopping us from moving forward within our money. All right, ready?

Tracking Expenses

The first one would be tracking expenses. Having some sort of budgeting system in place so that you can review all of your expenses every single month. Now, you know, I’m a fan of having the system do it so you don’t really have to do it. Just quick check-in. You could do it manually if you wanted.

Dealing with Debt

Wouldn’t recommend it. So tracking expenses, do you have something in place to do that? Not just logging into the bank account and looking at the bank statement, although you should be doing that at some point when you’re tracking the expenses, two different things. Tracking the expenses is the first key. The second one that I see is when it’s related to debt.

Strategy for Paying Off Debt

Now, paying off debt is not the end all, be all. We talk about this all the time. Like, yes, we do need to have a strategy, though, for paying off debt. So do you know where you’re at with your debt? Personal and or business?

Knowing Your Debt

Doesn’t really matter. Where are you at with your debt? Are you know what progress you’re making? Do you have a strategy on how you’re paying it off. I’m not one.

The Flexibility in Debt Strategy

You don’t really need to have like, a debt payoff date because again, that’s so rigid, so set in stone, and that doesn’t allow flexibility. Like something can come up. You could receive an unexpected amount of money. You could have a new, I don’t know, VIP client, a one on one client, somebody that comes in and pays you a large chunk of money.

Avoiding Disappointment

You could put that all towards debt and then you could pay it off faster or something on the other side could happen and there’s a big major expense. And then you’re going to, quote, have to change that date. But then that just sets yourself up for disappointment. So we’re just here. Do you have a system in place for tracking your debt, knowing where you’re at and a strategy for paying off debt?

Focusing on Income

Then you’re just doing the work? We’re not getting caught up in the results there. You’re just doing the actions that we need to. Okay. That’s the second thing that you could be avoiding or obsessing over.

Tracking Income

Both sides of those would count towards the something we need to be mindful of to avoid the overwhelm. Next one will be tracking income. Do you know how much money you’re actually making now? If you’ve got the expenses tracking system in place, you probably have a way to track your income as well. But especially as business owners, we can be putting in the work and like, just like, we got to do this, we have to do this, we have to do this.

Celebrating Income

Like, these are the action steps. This is what I have to do. I have to go put together a bundle. I have to go launch another product and get caught up in there. Instead of focusing on the income or appreciating the income and tracking the income that we are making.

Appreciating Small Wins

So you do need to celebrate that. And it doesn’t matter where you’re at income-wise. You can have a $7 sale come through. You can have a dollar sale come through. You still should appreciate that and celebrate that because it is still income and everything compounds.

Avoiding Overwhelm in Income

So when you are tracking the income and you’re showing the appreciation, you avoid the overwhelm because we don’t let it mean anything. And that’s probably like a whole separate training, which we don’t have time to get to in this podcast episode. Removing meaning maybe we’ll add that in as a bonus episode.

Mentioning Taxes

Let me know if that would be helpful to add the removing the meaning from what these numbers mean from an episode. As an episode. Okay. So that’s the third thing that like, hey, you might be using overwhelm to avoid something or obsess over it. Okay.

Bookkeeping and Taxes

The fourth one is, I kind of mentioned it earlier. Taxes, your bookkeeping accounts, preparing your taxes, submitting your taxes. Are you avoiding it? Are you obsessing and stressing over it? Either of those things we’re letting overwhelm affect us.

Overcoming Emotional Hurdles

Instead of just like, these are the numbers, these are the facts, and we got to remove the emotion from it. So what I want you to do is figure out which one of those four areas you were most adverse to. This could be like, oh, no, I don’t want to handle that, Amy. Or you could almost feel like, okay, no, it’s fine, I’ve got this. But where are we actually avoiding something?

Identifying Your Weak Spot

Or where are we obsessing over it? Those are the, probably the two biggest things. If we’re making progress, not making a promise progress, that’s going to go back to the avoiding or the obsessing over it. Okay, so pick one area. One.

Taking Action Steps

If it’s tracking expenses, you can write down a list of your monthly obligations, the ones that come out every single month, the auto payments you don’t even have to include like groceries and all of that. That’s a great first step. If it’s about the debt, list out all the debt, start keeping track of it.

Using the Tools

We have debt payoff tracker and the budgeting for success worksheets. We’ve got an expense tracker in the budgeting for success worksheets. And there’s an income tracker and the budgeting for success worksheets. Alright, I’m just going to put that link in the show notes below for you as well to check that out.

Seeking More Help

Of course, if you’re like, no, I need more than just like the worksheet. I need you to help money mastery Academy. We’ll put that link in the show notes as well. Know if enrollment’s open, but you can get on the waitlist if it’s not, because that’s the package there where you get all the worksheets, you get all the templates, but then you get my support to actually help you implement this.

Because we both know you don’t just need more information because, hey, I’m telling you what to do right here. Then the fourth one, if it’s your bookkeeping, we’ve got like the QuickBooks audit. We’ve got the simplifying QuickBooks workshop. You know what? Here, we’ll do this.

Moving Forward Towards Clarity

If you realize you are avoiding your bookkeeping. I’ll put a link in the show notes for a clarity call. Now, depending on my availability, you might be able to book a call or we might end up voxer messaging. It’s like a walkie talkie message back and forth because I don’t take calls every week, just you know, with my schedule. That is the way it works for me.

Prioritizing Without Overwhelm

But we can figure out what your next step should be there. Give you a bite size step, something to implement right now so that you can move forward and get out of this overwhelm without having to spend a ton of time on it. Because I know this is a crazy time of year. We are all busy, but we have to prioritize these things. But it doesn’t have to be.

The overwhelm doesn’t have to be overwhelming. We have to move forward and just let the numbers mean what they mean and take the next step forward one at a time. All right, I’m super excited for this series. Let me know what you think.

Request for Feedback

Was this super helpful? Was there something that I needed to add for you, etcetera? Send me a message on Instagram. Amyserka if you’re a podcaster, like here, let’s just talk about this for a second. If you’re a podcaster, the thing that like is probably the hardest thing about being a podcaster.

Consistency and Feedback

I guess the consistency portion is hard for some. But the other hardest part about being a podcaster is like not getting the feedback. So please audience, like, I’m serious. I want you to message me on Instagram. I want to know what is helpful and what’s not so that I can better plan episodes for you.

Sneak Peek for Next Episode

Like, this isn’t just for me, this is for you. So seriously, send me a message on Instagram circa. That link is in the show notes below. Next week we’re going to talk about offense and making money. So we’ll see you then.

Invitation to Work With Aimee

Bye for now. If you’re struggling with shame and guilt around your finances, whether it’s debt, impulse spending, mistakes from the past, or the fact that you still haven’t hit your income goal, then it’s time for you to work with me. There are different levels of support and price points that you can use on the path to removing that guilt and shame so you can step into your unstoppable life. After all, your finances are unique to you, and your support should be too. Go to workwithamy.com to get started with one of my most popular programs. Or you can book a Q and a call with me. We’ll figure out what your next step should be. And, of course, all those links are hanging out in the show notes as well.